By NOEL MURPHY
SOLVING one of the Otways’ most abiding mysteries, the disappearance of pilot Fred Valentich, could lie with a farmer who claimed to have seen a UFO around the same time – in South Australia.
Mr Valentich vanished in Bass Strait in 1978 en route to King Island after reporting a long-shaped object with a green light and bright metallic sheen hovering over and orbiting his Cessna.
UFO researchers have long cited unusual activity in the area, including aerial lights following cars on King Island, a cross-shaped object approaching a hunter, inexplicable lights, even a cigar-shaped object as far back as 1896.
Numerous reports of UFOs were made in the three months before Mr Valentich disappeared.
Earlier in the year other reports emerged from holiday-makers, fishermen, school teachers and police.
Now researchers want to find a South Australian farmer who reportedly sighted a 30-metre craft over his property the day after Mr Valentich disappeared.
The farmer claimed he saw the Cessna stuck to the side of the craft, leaking oil, but never told authorities because he feared being lampooned.
Skywatcher Dave Reneke has reported that a chance discovery of the official file on the disappearance might have eliminated theories that Mr Valentich staged a hoax disappearance.
“Adelaide researcher Keith Basterfield has been following the case since the disappearance in 1978 but had been told by the government in 2004 that the official file had been lost or destroyed,” Mr Reneke posted to his website.
“He found it when searching through an online national archives index on an unrelated topic. The file has since been digitised and uploaded on the archive’s website.
“Mr Basterfield and others had known the 315-page file – the holy grail in the mystery – existed. It had been seen by one researcher on the desk of a Transport Department official in 1982, as he lobbied him for its release.
“What is significant about the file, Mr Basterfield argues, is that for the first time it is revealed that parts of aircraft wreckage with partial serial numbers were found in Bass Strait five years after the disappearance.
“Mr Basterfield says Valentich’s aircraft serial numbers fell within the range of those found on the wreckage, almost eliminating the theory that the pilot staged his disappearance on the way to King Island.”
Researchers Bill Chalker and George Simpson, of Victorian UFO Action, want to hear from farmers not only in South Australia but also Victoria and New South Wales who might have seen a UFO in proximity to a Cessna between 21 and 24 October 1978.
