On the night of October 21, 1978, a 20-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentich radioed Melbourne air traffic control to report an unidentified aircraft pacing him over Bass Strait. He described a long shape with a green light, an engine that didn't sound like a normal aircraft, and then, seventeen seconds of unexplained metallic scraping. Then nothing. No wreckage. No body. No confirmed radar trace.
The Department of Transport's official finding, filed years later, was \"reason for disappearance: unknown.\"
Forty-eight years on, that stretch of water between Victoria and Tasmania has become one of the most argued-over patches of sky in the southern hemisphere. So was this a young, inexperienced pilot who became spatially disoriented and flew upside down into the sea — or did Bass Strait swallow something the official transcript still can't explain?
Some of this is documented. Some is genuinely unknown. And almost none of it is as settled as the people who closed the file want you to believe.
Join Rich Baker and Dr Nick Coatsworth as they suss it all out.
Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com
The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
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