On October twenty-first, nineteen seventy-eight, twenty-year-old Australian pilot Frederick Valentich called Melbourne air traffic control to report an unidentified aircraft following him over the Bass Strait. He described it as long, metallic, and unlike any aircraft he knew. His final words were: "It is not an aircraft." Then came seventeen seconds of metallic scraping sound. Then silence. No wreckage was ever found.

In this episode of 5 Minute Strange, we cover the full transcript of Valentich's final transmission, the theories investigators proposed and could not prove, and why this case remains officially classified as unknown cause of disappearance more than forty years later. A trained pilot, a clear night, and a radio call that has never been satisfactorily explained.

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