At the tender age of 20, Frederick Valentich was flying a rented Cessna 182 from Melbourne, Australia at 6:19 p.m. traveling to King Island in the Bass Straight on October 21, 1978. At 7:06 p.m. the ground control at Melbourne received a radio transmission from him asking if there were any aircraft in his vicinity below 5000 ft. altitude. When he was told that there were no other aircraft in the area Valentich said an aircraft with four bright lights passed 1000 ft. above him. He radioed a second time to tell that the strange aircraft was approaching him again from the east. By this time, he could tell that this was no normal aircraft. Valentich frantically acknowledged "It's not an aircraft... coming for me right now!!!" Then, it vanished once again. The plane's

engine was becoming unstable and suddenly Valentich radioed again for his last chilling transmission: "Unknown aircraft now on top of me..." From that point on, there was a 17 second burst of "metallic" noise before the transmission ended.

A search party was in the area within 20 minutes and a week long search was carried out, but no trace of Frederick Valentich, nor the Cessna 182, was ever found.