Bass Strait 1978: The Final Call and the Plane That Vanished with a Strange Object

On the evening of 21 October 1978, twenty-year-old pilot Frederick Valentich took off from Moorabbin Airport near Melbourne in a Cessna 182L registered as VH-DSJ. He planned to fly to King Island and return. The training trip covered about 235 kilometres across Bass Strait, the waterway between mainland Australia and Tasmania.

At about 7:06 p.m., Valentich called Melbourne Flight Service. He asked whether any aircraft were flying below 5,000 feet. The controller said there was no known traffic. Valentich then said he could see a large object above him. He described four bright lights like landing lights, a long body, a shiny metallic surface, and a green light. The object circled, vanished, and appeared again as if it were following the Cessna.