I have a question which i would love to get a pilot's perspective on.
I am currently researching a documentary of the disappearance of Pilot, Frederick Valentich in 1978. In a nutshell, Valentich was making a flight from Moorabbin, Victoria to King Island, Tasmania in Australia. During the flight he radioed air traffic control and reported he was being followed by a UFO. This was the last time he or his plane were seen or heard from again. He was flying a Cessna 182L light aircraft and had limited flying experience. The time of the flight was around 7pm, so dark.
Now, one of the proposed explanations is Valentich became disorientated and either
1. was flying upside and mistook his own lights for those of a UFO, before crashing into the ocean
2. mistook Venus (which was at its brightest) and possibly a combination of Mercury, Mars and Antares for landing lights before becoming disoriented and crashing.
or another proposed solution:
3. suffered from hypoxia and hallucinated the aircraft.
I would love to get an actual pilot's opinion on the subject. I am wondering, is such as optical illusion possible? What do you guys think happened?
Thank you very much. Any opinions on the subject would be greatly appreciated.
A question for pilots
in AUS/NZ General Discussion
Posted
Hi,
I have a question which i would love to get a pilot's perspective on.
I am currently researching a documentary of the disappearance of Pilot, Frederick Valentich in 1978. In a nutshell, Valentich was making a flight from Moorabbin, Victoria to King Island, Tasmania in Australia. During the flight he radioed air traffic control and reported he was being followed by a UFO. This was the last time he or his plane were seen or heard from again. He was flying a Cessna 182L light aircraft and had limited flying experience. The time of the flight was around 7pm, so dark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentich_disappearance
Now, one of the proposed explanations is Valentich became disorientated and either
1. was flying upside and mistook his own lights for those of a UFO, before crashing into the ocean
2. mistook Venus (which was at its brightest) and possibly a combination of Mercury, Mars and Antares for landing lights before becoming disoriented and crashing.
or another proposed solution:
3. suffered from hypoxia and hallucinated the aircraft.
I would love to get an actual pilot's opinion on the subject. I am wondering, is such as optical illusion possible? What do you guys think happened?
Thank you very much. Any opinions on the subject would be greatly appreciated.
Joe