Last Podcast On The Left - Relaxed Fit: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

On this Relaxed Fit episode, we’re heading "down under" to discuss the mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentich, an "amateur pilot" from Australia who, in 1978, went missing in the midst of a mid-air UFO experience.

Now guys, it's so nice to be good because the last month and a half let's just say they were the opposite of relaxed, right, what do you mean man I got all I'm on so much acid still, I know I know and you are technically right now if you could see kissles perched on top of the chair like a dog oil and he is completely shaved, I just saw that scene in Ghostbusters yesterday, yeah, but guys, let's let's talk about this race because this is a relaxed fit, yeah, what relaxes us, I feel like it's important for the audience to know, kissle, what do you do when you kick back and want to let your hair down, I watch Gordon Ramsay on cocaine, I wish it was him on cocaine, it's him versus cocaine in his

own restaurant, it's a travesty, you take cocaine away from the waiters of America, this entire fucking industry will collapse, it's ridiculous, steak videos, sells very steak videos or dogs playing with other dogs, perhaps, but Marcus, dog meat, yeah, what do you do when you want to sit back and you just want to fucking you want to kick up your heels and you just want, you want to chillax, Elden Ring motherfucker, I don't know buddy, I think you're grain from that game, fuck no man, yeah, no, it's the most relaxing possible thing that I can do because I'm going off a nicotine right now and I usually have to like constantly chew gum or like, you know, just fucking jam on a toothpick

for hours at a time, but when I play Elden Ring, I don't need anything at all because my focus is right there, man, I'm fucking cake, I took Radon down with a straight melee build, I fucking did it, man, not exactly relaxed, we've got video games, we've got dog videos, we've got food, what about you, Henry? Oh, I'm so glad you asked, one of my favorite activities recently that really helps me just chill out is I love just giving random one-star reviews to anything on the internet, products, shows, I just go out there, I don't know anything about it, I just go in there, I have many different accounts, I give a one-star, I say stuff like, this man has my family captive, I say stuff like that, just to kind of see

where it goes, just something hot, just something to release, you know what I mean? Yeah. And my blowjob machine. All right, well, welcome to the last podcast of the Left, everyone, I am Ben hanging out with Marcus and the recently relieved Henry Zabrowski, I didn't realize that you got a full machine to fake give you fallacious. They don't need to make these things look like women's heads. No, they don't. Because I feel like that's superfluous, I'm here for the suction and that's it, all right, I have a wife. Yeah, back when I used a flashlight still, I preferred the one that didn't look like anything at all, it was just a tube to come

in, that's all I need, or needed, we've been here since, many years since I retired the flashlight, but you know, just saying back then. Yeah, we all remember your fuck thermos. Fantastic. It kept it come warm. So that's good for hours. Anyway, total non sequitur to today's episode. This is going to be so fun. Fuck MK ultra. I mean, you know, think about it, it's all real and everything like that. Have fun with that. But today, we are moving on to something a little bit more out of this world. Stereoso. We're talking about the UFO sighting by the head or by the eyes of Frederick Valentine. He's close. He's close. We are really honestly, we're right back to incredibly mysterious

information. Like this is shit that like truly the deeper I got into this, this story and as I was reading about it, like at first it seemed kind of like a quick in and out, right? This mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentine's issue is an amateur pilot. And it seemed, you know, but the deeper I got into those terms, amateur pilot sounds scary. As we will cover, he was very amateur. Okay. He was very he dabbled. He did too much dabbling and he should have done a little bit more concentrating on being a pilot. But it's really very mysterious and circumstances are really strange. And the stuff that comes out of this story are is very compelling. Awesome. The mysterious disappearance of Australian pilot

Frederick Valentich is among the most well known of UFO encounters in the aviation realm. While it's not as groundbreaking as say the Kenneth Arnold encounter, one of the very first aviation UFO flaps, it is certainly more compelling than the skeptics make it out to be. The Kenneth Arnold encounter for those of you to remember, that's where the term flying saucers came from. It's the first time he saw a thing. It was it was a back in the day and he saw a bunch of saucers wobbling and that's what he called them. He said that they look like saucers upon the water. Interesting. Yes. And I know I'm aware I didn't use the word flap necessarily correctly. I just like to take any opportunity to say the word flap.

No, absolutely. You're correct. You're correct. Yeah. Anytime you drop in a flap and these stories you're allowed to a flap is normally a series of sightings, but it's also the side of a ufologist. Right. So he coined the term flying saucers and isn't that interesting. We discussed how people try to rationalize what they're seeing and he's like, oh, that looks like a little saucer cup. And that's why the term exists. Isn't that something? Thank you. Yes. It is. Basically in 1978, Frederick Valentich was flying a single engine Cessna in southeastern Australia and after calling in an encounter with a UFO, he and his plane disappeared while he was on the radio with air traffic control. Now the area in which Valentich disappeared was known for

decades as a danger zone, the Bermuda Triangle of Australia. But while the tragedies mostly involved naval vessels, Australia's Bass Strait Triangle was known as a place where ships simply disappeared. It's fucked up. It's very, it's very scary because it's right outside of Tasmania, which is supposedly a UFO hotspot of the world. And it's I guess it's an incredibly deep body of water. Okay. Yeah. And also, as we know, like the UFOs and aliens have been seen by the Aboriginal people of Australia for centuries, if not millennia. Yeah. Much like the Dogon people. And I had to look that up and we stopped the podcast so that I could look that up so I could know for certain. Research, that's good though. Making sure you're getting it right. Yeah. First,

I thought it was dugong, but then I realized that a dugong is just a cousin of the manatee, but I was close. Honestly, I can't believe you knew that. That's amazing. But yes, it's another group of people that have an incredibly close relationship to their sky brothers. I don't know nothing about the manatee. And he's like knowing about their relationships, their cousins, their grandparents. That's that manatee's wife. I have no clue, dude. But between 1858 and 1979, six ships vanished in the Bass Strait Triangle, including a British warship with the strangely sexy name of the HMS Sappho that disappeared with a hundred souls on board. Good Lord. I guess if you get enough guys with their dicks tucked back, eventually becomes a lesbian sex party. Yes, you know that's the

British ship. You can see they've actually carved a vagina right into the top there. That's nice. Isn't that fun? Speaking of flaps. Well, that said, wreckage has occasionally been found from ships that have been missing for as long as a hundred years. So disappearance in the Bass Strait Triangle doesn't necessarily mean loss to another dimension. Much like people believe like, say like Flight 19 and the Bermuda Triangle, many people believe that they flew straight into a parallel dimension somehow. Or the Malaysian plane. Remember the Malaysian plane. There's still looking for it. CNN's been looking for that for five years. Where's the goddamn plane? Oh my Lord. I'll be screaming that a lot

in this episode too, because we don't know where this damn plane is. And then what's weird is that the fucking, what's his putts? It's like the currents. There's something about the current that also makes it very difficult to find wreckage where it gets all mismashe'd and then sent out to lunch. Yeah, that's official. Even so, though, these disappearances certainly add an extra spooky dimension to the story of Frederick Valentich. Now, not much has been made public about the early life of Fred Valentich, but there are really only two personality characteristics that matter to our story. First, both Fred and his father were ardent and lifelong enthusiasts of UFO lore, which was admittedly in a more larval stage in 1978 than it is now. He had a healthy interest

in UFOs, and he talked about it a lot with his family, which seems to, it does seem to come up quite a bit. It sounds like maybe he might have had an experience as a little boy. Interesting. Perhaps this is where the Australians came up with the wonderful boomerang idea. Perhaps technology from the alien gods. That's actually, you just stepped into ethno-racism. You just stepped into it. Wait a second. You stepped straight into the ancient alien's pile of fucking horse dung, my friend. I didn't know everything was a fucking problem. Welcome to the upward. Okay. Well, in addition to being fascinated with UFOs, Frederick was also a lifelong aviation enthusiast whose only dream was to one day fly airplanes professionally.

I want to fly airplanes. Be careful what you wish for. And with this, you have a bit of a chicken in the egg situation going. Either Fred Valentich believed in UFOs because he was fascinated with every constructed object in the sky, no matter what, or he may have wanted to fly so he could get closer to the UFO world and maybe see something for himself. The former is more likely, but you never know. Well, his dream is that he wanted to fly in the Australian version of the air force. Like he really wanted to be a soldier and he wanted to fly up there and he wanted to shoot all the Nazis, which is like it's far from then because it's 1978. I don't know why he thought

now is the time. I'm joining World War II even though it's like 30 years over. Were the Australians involved in Vietnam at all? They watched it. Okay. But either way, Fred Valentich's dreams of becoming a well-respected pilot were unfortunately not in the cards because despite his lofty ambitions, evident shows that Fred just wasn't very good at piloting aircraft. I didn't know you could fail all of these tests so much and so often and still be allowed to rent a plane and fly in the sky. Of course, it's a relaxed fit. So it's like, oh, this will be interesting. I listened to the Coast to Coast episode. There's an old in search of by Leonard Nimoy and his mustache phage. He looks very dashing in it.

I was like, oh, that'll be it. And then of course, what do I find? A 315 page PDF of the collection, essentially the Australian version of a FOIA request into this case. And what it reveals is how often he failed these tests and how often he sort of, I love Fred. I'm not blaming Fred. We might need to blame Fred, but he said to people, it's sort of like a white lie about how he did pass all of these tests. But he didn't. No. And people kept asking his mentor, like his pilot mentor, who might have been half bird. He asked him like, how'd those tests go? And Fred's like, right. You know what I mean? Like, you got an AF. You know what I mean? Like, you got an AF in it. Well, in his late teens, Fred was rejected from the Royal Australian

Air Force because he didn't meet the qualifications. So he went into the RAAF training core and it logged 150 hours of flight time by the time of his disappearance. Problem was, during those 150 hours, he'd actually been involved in a disturbing amount of potentially disastrous incidents. One time. He's a bit of a Mr. Magoo. Oh, right. Well, maybe he shouldn't be flying a plane. No. One time, he strayed into a controlled zone in Sydney, meaning he very well could have crashed into a passenger jet. That's just fantastic. I always love feeling the comfort. A lot to be I. My name's Fred and I'm an accidental terrorist.

Where would that dude in New York drove his plane into the tower of the former baseball player and it's like, you don't want to do that. It was right after 9 11. It was really bad timing. Two other times he was cited for intentionally flying into a cloud, which again could have crashed him into another plane because the type of single engine planes he was allowed to fly, they didn't have on board radar. What is he a doberman? He's just like, there's a cloud. And then he just goes for it. What is happening? He's so curious. I understand the idea of like seeing a cloud and be like, I want to go through that cloud. But then like, I'm a child and he's a pilot. So he really needs to like not do what he wants to do as a child. I'll tell you what,

the only difference between a child and a pilot is a hat and a plane. As long as you can get in there, you're a pilot. When you're in the chair, it's like it's you are. You're now a pilot officially. That's true. Yeah. And not surprisingly, these offenses, particularly the cloud attacks, they were actually serious enough where Fred was considered for prosecution. Cloud attacks. I gotta get these clouds. What are you in for? Well, you see those goddamn clouds up there? Yeah, I'm trying to fuck with them. Yeah, yeah, me too, because them clouds are the ones making me gay. Oh, isn't that nice?

But every time they let him off with a warning. And even with these black marks on his record, Fred was granted a private pilot's license in May of 1978, just five months before he disappeared. At the same time, Valentich was still trying to take another route to a pilot career. But when he tried being a commercial airline pilot, he failed all five of the subject exams. And not only that, he failed all five of them twice in the same month. Hey, man, hey, I'm a professional improver, and I've failed any sort of class I've ever taken. I didn't take improv class. Okay. So maybe this is all about how, yeah, yeah, it's about being DIY. It's about putting together a pilot's career for your fucking self. Fuck what all these commercial airline people say about how

you're not fit to fly. And we can't give you a seven to seven. When it comes down to it, man, go fucking take one. I kind of want you to know how to fly. Pull yourself up by your own pilot bootstrap. I don't think that's right. Get yourself in the sky. But sometimes you just can't keep a dream down. No matter how many flashing red lights are telling you that this is not what you were meant to do. On October 21, 1978, Fred Valentich took off for the last time. My father's birthday. Nice. Now the flight plan took him 250 miles from Victoria to King Island, but no one is really sure why he took this flight. He told some people he was going to go pick up some very brave friends, while others thought that he was going to go to King Island to buy crayfish.

Later investigation, however, found that both of these statements were untrue. Or rather, no evidence was found that either were true, which is an important distinction. I thought the crayfish were going to be his friends. Well, I also did some heavy research into what the Australians call crayfish. Because here in America, we call them crawdats and they're tiny little sea bugs, right? I absolutely love them. You gotta suck the hay. Despise them. They're disgusting things. I've never understood the fascination with them, but that's okay. Never got it. They're gross. In Australia, because there's also the sausages in there and the corn cobs and potatoes. Well, you are just talking about something that's much

different. Now, crayfish in Australia, them's lobsters, friend. Oh, those are lobsters. Yeah, fuckers. Oh, okay. And so they fucking switched you up on us again. What was he really looking for? But there is some evidence in here that I will talk about that I do find interesting. I think there's a bit of a human element and there is some shit here that will unpack as we go. Okay. Yeah. And you know, while his motivation for going to King Island, while it may seem trivial, it does play into later possible explanations for what happened. Concerning Fred's conveyance on the day of his disappearance, he was flying a 182L Cessna that he'd rented from the Southern Air Service. To give a size of scale, this Cessna was a light four seat single engine plane. In

other words, it was tiny. And from what I can tell from playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, these planes are somewhat easy to lose control of, although I might just be really fucking bad at that game. Yeah, I love that game too. And I tell you what, if the US government had any tap into my data of what I was like when I played the Microsoft Flight Simulator, I would be put on a no fly list. All right. Because I always flew it into buildings, even as a little boy. I love blowing stuff up on the ground and attacking people and never thought about flying safely, even once. That's a video game. You're allowed to be creative like that. That doesn't mean you're grown. It doesn't mean you're going to be grown up to be a domestic terrorist or anything like that.

No, man. No, man, because I ain't no Bud Light. Yeah, I'm somebody else. But no, this is, it's like the size of a Toyota, right? I don't know. If you're a pilot, let us know. Sounds scary. It's small. Now, other pilots who were at the airport just before Valentich took off, they said that he seemed a bit nervous, but they assumed that this was because most new pilots get nervous before a flight. However, according to Fred's father, Guido Valentich, Fred was becoming increasingly worried that UFOs might attack him while he was in the sky, which does link credence towards the skeptical opinion that Fred just thought he saw UFO and crashed the plane because he was distracted by a delusion.

I am beginning to think, though, that he had been seeing UFOs and that he had had, because he did see this thing before and he did weirdly become obsessed with it. But Guido also kind of fed this to because Guido was super into it and his name's Guido. And so that also makes him kind of sus and he's there, like he's in Australia, but they were both obsessed with this and they kind of fed off of each other. And I think all the reason why he was nervous was because it was a night flight and he had some experience. Technically, he was approved for a night flight, but this was probably only his second or third night flight to go up. So he was very like, it was the, he hadn't had a lot of practice. He'd just got his instrument rating for night flights like a couple of weeks

before. He had not done a lot. So so far, we really haven't set up any sort of mysterious case. Now it just really just seems a bad pilot ended up in Ariel's garden. But I will say you're gonna see, it does get me serious. Yeah, it does. A roast as dark as the night, perfect for fueling the cryptid research and mad ravings required for your podcasting. Don't mind the red eyes. He's just trying to warn you of the bridge. The bridge. Finally, from the caffeine-addled brains of Spring Hill Jack Coffee and Last Podcast on the left, we bring you Mothman's Red Eye Blend. Yes, delicious Panama beans. Go to lastpodcastmerch.com to order yours today. So Valentich's plan was supposed to stop in Cape Otway before continuing to King Island.

And at 7pm, Fred contacted air traffic control in Melbourne and told them that he had Cape Otway in sight, flying at 4,500 feet. But just six minutes later, Valentich contacted air traffic control again and asked if there was any known aircraft flying below 5,000 feet because an unidentified craft seemed to be following him. And this is where it really gets mysterious. Now, the actual recording of this air traffic control call is out there on the internet, but it is very difficult audio to listen to. So we can't really feature it on the show. Like we won't be able to hear it. I had to actually like put my head up against the laptop, which I'm certain is helping my brain to really absorb what it was that we're saying.

But it does start to get really wiggity here because he says like, okay, there's something behind me because there is military space here. And he asked to check, are there any military operations going on right now? Are there any military airplanes in sight? And they were like, no. And he's like, because I got this thing right behind me, that's like real big. That is some scary stuff. The air traffic controller responded that nothing could be seen on his radar. So he had Valentich describe what he was seeing. From what Fred said, the craft had four bright lights that looked like landing lights. And it was approaching from due east while seemingly playing a game, flying it over two to three times Fred speed.

He straight up said, I think it's playing a game with me. Here's a little tiny reading of what he described as he was flying. Okay. It's flying past. It's a long shape. Open microphone for three seconds. I cannot identify more than open microphone for three seconds before me right now. Melbourne, it's right before me. Melbourne, it seems like it's stationary. What it's doing right now is orbiting. And the thing is, is just orbiting on top of me. Also, it's got a green light and sort of metallic. It's all shiny on the outside. Whoa, that's freaking crazy, dude. Even if he was a good pilot, he'd be freaking the hell out. So I mean, it makes sense that he's getting to the, we'll get into the full like skeptics explanation later, but there is,

and there is speculation, there is speculation that he freaked out because he wasn't a good pilot. Oh, definitely, definitely. And there's also speculation that he was flying upside down. He was looking at his reflection in the ocean. But he also said his plane would not be able to last longer than three seconds. That type of Cessna would would, what would it sputter out? It would literally shut down if. Yeah, it's got a, what do they call it, a gravity fuel system. So if it went upside down immediately, like you're dead, if you fly that plane upside down. But that's the things that his description of the aircraft is, it's why you, ufology is so much fun these days. And it's one of the reasons why Fred's story can't

be wholeheartedly dismissed as a simple fuckup. Fred said that the aircraft was oblong. It had a green light. It was sort of metallic and shiny on the outside. And that sounds a hell of a lot like the craft that's been described by pilots for decades. And those pilots claims were finally confirmed by hard video evidence of UFOs that have been released over the last few years. It all matches up. That's what makes disclosure so fucking insane is that it all matches up with shit. These people have been reporting for fucking decades since the fifties. I know what I saw. So just after Valentich described his UFO, it vanished. And to Fred's credit, he did not immediately start screaming that he'd just seen a UFO. Instead, he first assumed that

he'd seen a military craft because he had asked, as soon as it disappeared, he asked, are there any military craft in this area? Is there any project planned in this area right now? And just when air traffic control told him that no such craft was present, nor were any exercises being done in the area, Valentich said over the radio that his UFO had just come back into sight and was approaching him from the southwest. At that same time, Valentich also reported that his plane was quote unquote, rough idling, which means that it was sputtering out. Yeah, that's on me a minute five of having sex. Yeah, rough sputtering. Rough idling. Rough idling. The last report about the UFO that Valentich gave was that the craft

was hovering above him. And his last words just before the radio went silent were, it is not an aircraft. Yeah, I'll read it from the actual script. Go ahead. It's not an aircraft. They're like, the engine is rough idling. I've got it set at 2324. And the thing is coughing. It's coughing. Roger, what are your intentions? My intentions are to go to King Island Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. Open microphone for two seconds. It is hovering. And it's not an aircraft cuts out. And then this noise can be heard on the actual recording. You hear the stories. It sounds like it's a metallic screeching is how it's described. And it goes on for 17 seconds. I'm a blackout. 17 seconds is how long it goes on for. And then

it just disconnects. Now it was assumed immediately that Fred Valentich had simply become discombobulated during a night flight. He began flying upside down, which is apparently possible in single engine planes flying at night. And he fell into a death spiral because it's completely pitch black out there. It's completely pitch black out there. You are, you, it's very, very easy to get disoriented in the 3D space of flying an airplane. Absolutely. Three days later, however, once the transcript was released, Fred's father Guido made a public statement saying that he hoped his son was abducted by aliens because the alternative was death, which ain't the worst assumption based on Fred's flight record. And I got to tell you, I didn't make this puppet and have an angel turn him into a boy

for him to get adopted by the aliens. It's one of the stranger Australian accents, but it checks out. My brother, he makes a little boy who cannot lie. And then that's why his nose is seven feet long. When I ask him, did it touch you on the downstairs? Did he touch you? Well, all right. A deleted scene, perhaps. Although Pinocchio was abused. He was abused. Oh, definitely. Why do you say Pinocchio was abused? Who has been abused by? Oh, that's Boy Island. You don't think those boys were the donkeys? Well, the Boy Island is something different altogether. Yeah. He did get turned into a donkey, but is that abuse or is that just fun? Is that just good, clean fun? You want to be a donkey? I mean, I would like to be a donkey.

I wouldn't mind being a donkey. I think the role is already filled. Well, yeah, he was abused, man. He didn't ask to be born or anything. And then he's made of wood. Birth is abuse. Yeah. And then he's like, every time you lie, your nose gets longer. It's like, well, how is he going to survive in America? I don't know. Well, as it turned out, Fred hadn't just told his father about his UFO fascination. Apparently, Fred had also told his girlfriend that if a UFO did come to earth, he'd go with it. But he added a romantic caveat that he wouldn't leave without her. And that's how you know he's truly a ufologist because I have to have the same conversation with Natalie because she said that once it would came up.

And I had to do the thing where I was like, yeah, if they come, I'm going to go right into spaceship. And then I was like, but I'd never leave without you, baby. Like I had to make sure I had to think about it because you have to add that tag. I've always been like, but with you, baby, there's no way that you're secondary. What if she doesn't want to go? She's going to have to go. She's going to have to go. Okay, fantastic. Because half my butt belongs to her. And if the aliens want to probe me, they're going to have to ask her permission. All right. Even so, this girlfriend didn't believe in the UFO story at all and became firmly convinced that

Valentich probably turned back to land after his engine trouble began because that's what he told her he'd do in a situation just like this. However, land searches turned up not a shred of evidence for this theory either. And multiple searches of the sea turned up not even an oil slick. And you see this within that, that FOIA request. Like if you look at these documents, like they do have, they did an incredibly thorough search for him and they could not find any sort of like, because that's what you kind of look for. The telltale signs are puddles of fucking fuel. Like you're looking for, maybe the fuel can tell you where the thing is. It was all dissipated. They found it. They found nothing. Yeah. However, five years later, an engine cowl flap was found

off the coast of Fender's Island, which was indeed a part of a Cessna 182L with registration numbers that were within the boundaries of Fred's plane. And this, to skeptics, is definitive proof of the crash theory. So now we're here and this is called what we call the full diaper part of this story. Because we've got the skeptics in there. Kind of taking it out on people there. Mocking the skeptical mind, perhaps. If you use summons or fucking ashes, you're not a real fucking from software player. Fender Island, of course, one of the louder islands, given the electric guitars. The guitars. Yes. I wouldn't want to be neighbors to Fender Island. Oh, wow. Right near the Gibson Peninsula. Oh my God. Yes. Yes. You're the Ivanes archipelago.

I'm just so happy to be here for this. I am. I'm just, we are breaking new ground here. Yes, indeed. Now, the skeptics view of what happened to Fred Valentich was put forth by a United States Air Force pilot named James Magaha. And right there by his side was a professional wet blanket named Joe Nickel, who basically makes a living pissing on paranormal parades. Bigfoot's just a homeless guy and you're dumb. No one loves me. Don't yell at me. I'm a Magaha from a long line of Magahas. Magaha, of course, is my birth name. My uncle, he said, he's my uncle Magaha, my grandfather. When he made my father, he said, Magaha, if we come in my grandmother, and that's how we got the name. Why do you ask? I really had a Magaha moment the first

time I had black pudding. That's really funny because it's about a Scottish aha moment. Oh, I get it. Very interesting. A Magaha moment. Everyone always knows the best jokes have to be explained. That's how you know it's comedy. Yeah. Well, Magaha and Nickel said that the four lights seen by Fred at the start of the sighting were actually the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury, along with a bright star named Antares. And apparently conditions on that night were perfect to see these lights in such a way that might appear to be a landing strip. I think that's dumb. Stars ain't a landing strip. Like we know, right? We know that, right? It does seem a little strange. He's describing an aircraft or like it could be the stars, but those are

pretty different things. That's what I'm thinking. Well, they also think that the green light seen by Valentich was probably just a reflection of one of his instrument lights in the windows of his airplane, which is why it seemed to hover next to him. In other words, according to the skeptics, Fred panicked about UFOs when he should have been focused on keeping his plane in the air. Yes. But I would pause it. What if like, because now we know things like this are harassing some of our pilots. It is now we are seeing these reports every other day. They are seeing real all types of craft, black triangles, cylinders, orbs. They're seeing this shit all the time. And now, like, you know, a lot of these, especially if you're in a big,

like corporate airliner, we know that you the human part comes when you land and when you take off. The rest of the time, you're kind of in an autopilot scenario. So you have a lot of times to observe. And what if fucking Valentich, like my postulate is that he fucking freaked out when he saw one of these things and was like, oh, and then it's crashed into the best rate. Like an unwilling kamikaze pilot. Well, other explanations speculate that Fred Valentich might have staged his own disappearance because Melbourne police received reports of a light aircraft making a mysterious landing not far from Cape Otway right after Valentich was supposed to have disappeared.

There's also speculation that Valentich might have used the UFO story as a cover for suicide. But this is also unlikely because from what I know about suicide, people rarely, if ever, go into the day of their death thinking that they're just going to have fun with it. I mean, that's how I plan to. But Fred Valentich also, there were plans set in place. He was supposed to get there. So one thing, he was supposed to get these crawfish, red crayfish, whatever. Yeah, we're, we're, who's, I just feel bad for everyone who was expecting this great lobster feast. And then all of a sudden it's like, what happened to the guy who's going to get the

lobster? Aliens. The aliens abducted him. They're like, are you fucking kidding me? Seriously? You're going to tell me once. This happens once every 10 years and it's on Lobster Sunday. Hey. Yes. Yes. Okay. And that's a, that is a seafood crime. That is a crime. If you're supposed to show up with the lobster and you don't, you should be hung. Absolutely. But he also, so, but the thing is local fisherman said, he never ordered the crayfish ahead of time. So that's mysterious, right? Because part of the things that could have been impulse,

who knows, he could have showed up and done it. And then everybody also says their points towards the suicide is because when in King, on King Island, the people that he was supposed to pick up were not there waiting for him, right? To go on the plane. But I think that the human element factor here is because Fred Valentich, was it necessarily the pilot you want to be with? Yeah. Like he's not the guy. He makes Harrison Ford look competent. Yeah. I think he just decided maybe if they were going to meet him, be like, let's just see if he shows up and then he'll call us. Like we don't need to go there.

Like maybe we'll just kind of see it and they do the thing where like it's, it's always fun to make a plan, but it's not really fun to complete the plan. All everyone has to do is just all flake at the same time. So this is 1978, correct? Yeah. Maybe people were less flaky in 1978. Has Buddy Holly died yet? His leaner? Yeah. 20 years before. Yeah. Yeah. 24 years before 23. Aliyah has not died yet though. So, but people do know.

If there's such a thing as time. Well, so people do know like flying single engine planes with someone who is not competent can lead to death. Like people are aware like Patsy Klein is dead. Like people know what's kind of up. Probably try to make that helicopter pilot have the Mamba mentality against his will and fly in the middle of a storm. The helicopter didn't have the Mamba mentality and that was the problem. Yes. However, even though the flap and the lights and the star seem to wrap up the

entire disappearance into a neat little package, there were people on the ground who tell tales that scooched the story back to the other direction. A UFO group out of Phoenix called the Ground Saucer Watch said that they are in possession of a photo from the day of Valentich's disappearance that was taken by a plumber named Roy Manifold during his vacation to Australia. Now, is the Ground Saucer Watch, is it funny to think about that because, is it because they are so heavy they have to remain ground bound or is it funny that they just don't want to go up in the sky, which is where the UFOs are, right?

I did envision them looking like the round folks from Alice in Wonderland. You know the ones. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb. Yeah. Yeah, but with binoculars? Yeah. Hey, what's up, everyone? How you doing? Ben Kissel here with Henry Zabrowski. Yeah, it's me, Ben.

Yeah, bro, Henry Zabrowski is smoking some of that sweet last podcast of the last day. Go out there and purchase yourself some. I hope you enjoy it. We have sativa, we have indica, and we have a hybrid. And I have to tell you, for my personal experience, they are wonderful. Super tasty live resin. You really get the delicious, weedy taste, which is what I like. And three different experiences.

You go to your local vape store and get it. Absolutely. Thank you all so much for supporting the show. We absolutely love you. Can't wait to see you on the road and get that vape. Put it in your brain and have a good time. And if you want to set your favorite weed store, give them a call and ask for them by name.

Last podcast on the left, it's weed. Hail yourselves, everyone. Hail Satan. Now, while the photo that was taken by Roy Manifold during his vacation in Australia, why it isn't necessarily what you call breathtaking, it could be perceived to be a fast moving object exiting the water near the Cape Otway lighthouse, very close to where Fred Valentich disappeared. And the Tasmanian waters have a lot of examples of USOs.

USOs are a big part of this entire story within the Bastrait. The Bastrait. USO being unidentified submersible object. The audience doesn't fucking get it now. If they don't, if they can't keep up with the acronyms now, then they've learned nothing. They've followed nothing. Well, let's not forget the USO comedy tours.

You can go perform for the troops. So perhaps they were thinking. They're never thinking of that. They're never thinking of the USO show, unless they're currently in the military. And then we want to say thank you for your service. Absolutely. And we would love to do a USO tour, especially if we're ever,

if like if you're stationed in Hawaii, we'll perform for you. Love to go. If you are stationed in Berlin, we will go hang out with you. Love to go. We have this great new, our new show. It's all called How Project Monarch Can Help You. And I'm really excited to take it to the troops. Absolutely.

According to Ground Saucer Watch, the so-called plumber's photo showed a bona fide unknown flying object of moderate dimensions, apparently surrounded by a cloud-like vapor slash exhaust residue. The picture, however, is quite blurry and is by no means definitive. It's a picture. Yeah. Certainly is a picture, but it's one of those things where,

you know, if you get one wiggity thing, whatever, if you get 20 wiggity things, then you might have something there. Right. And this was not the only Ground Siding around the time of the Valentich disappearance. A bank manager named Colin Morgan and his wife said they saw a glowing object hovering in the sky for nearly an hour near the town of Galong, 35 miles southwest of Melbourne.

And I did look it up. I did, it's spelled, it looks like it's called Galong. I think it's Galong. I looked it up to make sure I wouldn't get any shit and I think I said it wrong anyway. We did your best. It's okay. That's all we can do.

Well, Mr. Morgan said that the craft seemed to be cruising above them as they drove down the highway. It was bright and had green flickering lights at one end, much like the light Valentich reported. And 20 other people reported green lights in the sky on the night of Fred's disappearance. Damn. Now, these reports were deemed unreliable by some

because they were made after Valentich's disappearance had been reported. And it was assumed that all of these people were just trying to make themselves a part of the story. Yes. There was a big UFO flap after it was announced that he was gone. And a lot of people reported and called and saying that we're seeing objects in the sky.

And then you don't really know whether or not is it inspired by the story or is it more people looking at the sky? Like I think that's what it is too. And then half the time, if you look at the sky, you don't know kind of the various objects so you can't really identify them. And so there's probably going to be a glut of UFO visions and sightings after something like this.

OK. Yeah, that very well may be true for some of the witnesses that they just wanted to be a part of the story. But wouldn't that also play into the whole idea of the psychic, the collective unconscious just because this maybe the fact that this person saw it brings it to light. And now all of a sudden people are seeing it.

But before you can see it, you have to believe that you can see it. But what's also that phenomena when you find out something for the first time, then you see it everywhere? It's when you meet Bob, the friend that your wife has been seeing but then you realize like, oh my god, they're having sex with each other. Oh, it's like that moment. It's like, ah, oh, I see.

It's the cuck threshold. Yes, the cuck threshold, yes. Or when you buy a car and you notice how many other models of that car are out on the road where before you didn't see any. And now you think like, oh my god, everybody owns a fucking Subaru. Do you know that the Subaru is Japanese for not for Pelican? But it is for the Pleiadian star system,

which is why it has three stars on it, which is actually the stars that are located, what it's connected to them. Maybe you think about what's the real fucking story? What's the real history of Subaru? To be honest, if aliens do come back, or if aliens do come to Earth, I think Wien would be their favorite band.

Much like, of course, the one who owns the Subaru loves Wien. That's right. But the thing is, is that there was a primary witness who did tell others about his sighting on the night of Fred Valentich's disappearance. And he told people the next morning, but he decided not to report it publicly after his story was met with disbelief and ridicule.

Oh. The night of Fred's disappearance, a man who still refuses to use his own name. My name is Dr. Raven. Dr. Raven, birth name, Dr. Ravensy. So your first name is Dr. Yes, with two Ks. Oh, right.

Very nice. Well, this witness said that while driving home that night, he and his two nieces saw both the lights of a small aircraft and a very large green light traveling directly above the plane on the night of Valentich's disappearance. No, it's always been assumed by authorities that Valentich was over the water when he made his call because that's where he was supposed to be.

But remember, Fred wasn't a great pilot. Right. And he apparently didn't show up on the radar in Melbourne any more than the alleged UFO did. Oh, my God. Now, on the very night that the witness and his nieces saw this amazing sight, he told his wife what they had seen,

but what did she do but laugh in his fucking face? You gotta believe. I know what I saw. Wow, it's going to break up another marriage. UFOs do that. Absolutely. You gotta be strong, gotta be able to handle it. The next morning at work,

this witness told his coworkers and they also made fun of him and probably called our witness a fucking stange dango or some other nonsense Australian insult. You don't know what you just said. Stange dango. You don't know what you just said. We might be banned in Australia from calling somebody an SD because that's the SD word.

Wow, stange dango. And if I did, that proves my fucking point because I made up stange dango. I don't know what the... I totally made that up. So if I accidentally said some sort of horrible Australian slur, that's on them. Whoa, this is getting to Noam Chomsky, the actual dialectics conversation.

Yes, indeed. Isn't that interesting, linguistics, how they alter and change between religions and cultures? Yes. Like, what's a sweater and a sweatshirt? What's the difference? Apparently a whole world, if you look on menswear. Absolutely.

What's interesting about this witness's story, though, is that he couldn't have known about Fred Valentich's experience because none of it was made public until days later. But even after all the details were released, our witness kept his mouth shut to avoid further ridicule, which probably came anyway from both his wife and his co-workers once the Fred Valentich story came public. You can just see it going to work.

It's already so exhausting. You have to put your khakis on and your finest weird shoes. And then every time you go to the kitchen, maybe get a little coffee. Yeah. Someone's cooking fish in the microwave, and then you get made fun of. Oh, of course.

Yeah, like, air goes alien, boy. All he does is open up his butthole to the sky. Look at him, hungry for it. Look at her scrape. This is how you have an office shooting. But there is a... If you... That's why I'm not going back.

No. But if you read this file, like I did, unfortunately, like, if you really go through all of this stuff, there's a lot of pain here because the search for him was incredibly thorough. And his father, Guido, who did have an Italian accent, he showed up day after day after day after day. And they kept giving him whatever material they could

because, again, because it was all next to a military base, a lot of this shit had to go under, like, but we couldn't talk about it. A lot of this is about, like, there's proprietary information inside of all of these calls that no one could know. And they finally let him hear his son's last words. But he kept the UFO thing going, too. Truly out of a...

Like, while I do believe it is strange, especially his last words, but... And his last words are... Or it's not an aircraft. It's not an aircraft. That's his final, final statement. Yes. Oh, wow.

And the thing that they... When they try to analyze the final sounds, because it sounds like either... It sounds like engine noise. It sounds like he might be yelling and screaming over it that it's been scrambled by the transmission stuff. But his father kind of kept the UFO storyline, much like he said originally at the top of the episode,

at a pure just grief and hope that one day he would be found. And it gives his death some purpose, I suppose, also. It also actually just hit me that his last words were, it's not an aircraft, because it could be... It could very well may be him saying, it's not an aircraft, it's my instrument light. Oh, God, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.

I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying. Yeah, it might be. It might be. But if you listen to it, it's fucking freaky as hell.

That is a good point. But he was at least aware. He wasn't like, it's a pineapple. Like, he knew. That is something weird. Something very weird. Well, the witness that I was just talking about, he happened to discuss his sightings with the local policeman

who passed the info to Guido Valentich, and Guido told an ufologist who interviewed the witness and made the sighting public in a paper that hardly anyone read. Yes. Now, naturally, there's also a bit of conspiracy to this story. In the true sense of conspiracy, in that multiple people work in conjunction with each other to either break the law, or in this case, conceal a secret.

This is about the crayfish. Again, it comes back to the crayfish. It's said that there was actually more to Valentich's final transmission than was released to the public. But key elements were deleted in the public version by powers unknown. In true big lobster. In the final transcript, there's a supposed break-in

transmission just before Valentich gave his final words. Final words, of course, it is hovering, and it is not an aircraft. The claim is that there was a more vivid description of the aircraft before this, but an anonymous source at the Department of Transport said that that description was cut. But don't worry, if you go through the file,

you can actually see the description that they just made up inside of the UFO magazine that this article is citing, where it's like they basically say in this whole thing, they make up a whole description that he made. We don't know if he did, because also what we also now know about the release of people seeing these types of crafts is that this shit happens fast. They linger for a second,

but you really don't have a long time to describe, especially if you also are quickly plummeting into the bash straight as you're describing it. Right. And interestingly, this really could be a sign that maybe it was a military aircraft after all, and the description was cut because the craft was a part of a top secret project.

The Goan theories by ufologists is that either Valentich's aircraft was destroyed by a UFO, or both he and the plane were scooped up and abducted, or Valentich was taken alone and the engine cow flap was found and there were 17 seconds of transmission after Fred's last words, because he was scooped up and the plane was left to crash into the sea. There's an article from the Herald Sun in Melbourne

that says, don't worry, out there. Yes, this is from 2014, but there's a farmer who said that he might have seen the airplane, that Valentich was flying, connected to a UFO. Whoa. That was leaking fuel. Oh my goodness. And yes, he has not said his name,

and they can't find the farmer, because he said it one time and passing to somebody else, but he did see it and said it. And you know farmers don't lie except about how much they're farming, what they're producing, and what they're farming, because they have to lie to the government to get certain subsidies. Absolutely, as they should. Of course, Monsanto, we can go into it.

I love that Italian man. Yes, indeed. But you can always trust a farmer. I think that that's a great point, but that's another eyewitness sighting, and that's interesting. That comes from 2014. This story is still alive. But while it is most likely that Fred Valentich just

crashed into the sea, it is nonetheless compelling that his description of the UFO, along with the descriptions of those on the ground, match what we see in real UFO footage today. You know what I could see from the perspective of the lobsters? You can just see them clapping when the plane crashes. You're like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We live another day, lobster man. I really do think it's very compelling, only because of his description, because, like, again, if we didn't have what we have, like, in terms of the soft disclosure movement, I really would think that this story would kind of slide into the past and no one'd give a shit. But now that we really do have footage of what people are seeing and the reports are coming out more and more

more like I am on the I really do my theory is that he saw something he freaked out and he crashed and that yeah it's just it just blew his mind and he lost control over the plane because he was not good at it yeah I think that's probably a pretty good theory yep it's just the idea of crashing in a plane it doesn't sound very fun but to be honest he died doing what he loved which seems to be flying horribly yeah he should not have been up there fly a plane like no one's watching that's it and that's what he did really let it loose wow I mean and if a guy is gonna do that if he is just gonna fly horribly Australia really is the place to do it because if you do crash chances are you aren't gonna hit shit when we went from Perth to Sydney it's all ocean yeah

that's like I mean I get it man you die in there you drive you dive in there you're gone forever oh yeah man those welcoming waters it seems so nice out there pristine blue waters imagining what your corpse is like down amongst the fishes it's kind of fun how long do bones stay in the water Marcus like they uh actually they they disintegrate pretty fast I don't know exactly how long but there's a reason why like the Titanic isn't full of skeletons uh when they found it like they were fucking battle with that shit they did find that little necklace though didn't they that was very that was fake yeah what yeah what yeah all right everyone well thank you so much for listening to this episode on Frederick Valentich yes he is a man who gave his life for what now

that I mean now that I think about it I am thinking about it more is that I think the skeletons down below in the Titanic I think those disintegrated quickly because of the water pressure because it is so much stronger underwater I think the deeper you go into the sea the faster a skeleton will disintegrate and be crushed by water pressure but I think probably under a lake I mean they found skeletons that are decades upon decades old I think it really does depend on how deep the water is how long a skeleton will last I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page there absolutely thank you because that would be the piece to be amongst those skeletons yeah it must be so nice to feel much like the piece of seeing last podcast in the left live uh you're just like

that in Jacksonville the best city in Florida I don't care what anybody says Jacksonville Jaguars what an incredible city we're gonna be in hotline on my old stomping ground okay we're gonna be in Memphis this is all in two weeks from now come and see our fucking bullshit uh we got last comic book on the left check it out pre-order it on z2 we're now cooking I'm writing a little thing for it uh the detective popcorn it is it makes an appearance it's funny as hell and I'm very very excited buttery goodness um we've got soul plumber number six is hitting the shows very very soon I can't believe that our adventure and with DC is over for now for now for now yeah it actually comes out this Tuesday uh March 15th because remember DC books come out on Tuesday for some

fucking reason so everything else comes out on Wednesday we will see you next Tuesday at the book store you know that's absolutely well I do well I do know that and as I always say I don't say that word but although very often sometimes I will call certain politicians that um unable to stop at check out that show and of course you know cut watch well yeah I mean that's basically American politics at this point CNN is just going to have that kind of watch there very soon uh a someone who's very mean with the list but see next Thursday a cunt that's one of my favorite jokes there save it for the stage I save it for the stage that's kind of a go-to that's a classic kissle and yes thanks for supporting all the shows here on the last podcast network and

thanks for everyone who calls in to open lines every Monday at 4 p.m. pst 7 p.m. EST that show has been so much fun it's been so great to hear from you all and uh Marcus's butthole is doing great Marcus's colonoscopy went fantastic although he did say despite all the pooping a little turd was left behind there was still some in there and I would say that the notes in the notes from my doctor in the test results were a little passive aggressive yeah trying to say that I didn't take enough fucking mirror lacks that I didn't take my fucking dog like that I didn't fucking shit my brain's out for two days American pullout but that also shows you god damn best I did I drank all the shit I took the fucking I did it all when I fucking had to instill even after I came out from

under anesthesia the first thing she told me was that there was still some feces in the colon I did the best I could I did the best I could that's what that's what sounds like a real grandpa joe over there absolutely man and look here let me be clear and basically well maybe they could try to turn the shit into gold what do you call that when people do that alchemy alchemy alchemy let me go not shit the gold no I'm just saying if you can turn lead into gold you can turn shit into gold we're not here to discuss alchemy we're here to wrap up the show oh we're gonna not start a whole new episode one material is organic the other material is inorganic yeah but it's also it's an allegory about your soul it's an allegory about changing the it's transmuting

yourself it's about receiving it's about becoming one good thing that you find a bunch of lead in your colon that would have been bad all right everyone well thank you so much for listening hail yourselves everyone hail Satan again my good installations everyone hell me man my butthole is still Teflon man your butthole is doing great Marcus his butthole is clean as i didn't know why brand new it was incredible absolutely fantastic this show is made possible by listeners like you thanks to our ad sponsors you can support our shows by supporting them for more shows like the one you just listened to go to last podcast network.com