Talk:Disappearance of Frederick Valentich

message: Added two external links, one to The Valentich Mystery by John Auchettl, and the other, perhaps more engaging, to the Frederick Valentich Accident report by www.ufologie.net. --Chr.K. 02:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'd bother to do any study of the material at all, you'd know that there were plenty of other sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the days leading up to, as well as following, 21 October 1978 in the southern Australian region, with the day of Valentich's disappearance being the most intense day of "activity"; also, if you'd check, you'd understand that an a plane like a Cessna 182 would leave behind some trace near where it had gone down, instead of all investigation, up to the degree of sounding of the seas in a 200-mile radius of his last reported location, yielding nothing.  To put it another way, if it was a successful suicide attempt, then I'm sure the United States military would love to get their hands on his methods, for use of molecular disintegration of a given target. --4.224.201.107 10:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might want to think about some 200-300-400 level physics courses, because you are really leaving it hanging way out there, making yourself an easy target.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.169.21.247 (talk) 11:16, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

text: On further thought, I'll put up a Wikisource page giving the public-domain detailed report issued by the Australian Department of Transport, for the perusal of any and all. --4.224.201.107 10:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Chr.K. 12:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, it's happened before, many times. Crazed individuals have strange senses of humour.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.169.21.247 (talk) 11:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Additions

message: I add this comment as "one who was there". In October 1978, my family and I lived in Hobart Tasmania. Indeed, in the weeks that followed the incident my father and I were two of many who saw lights over this part of Australia. I can well remember the incident and a wave of other sightings that were reported in the newspapers at the time (The Murcury). For what it is worth, when considering this incident, you should not think of what happened to Valentich in isolation. There were sightings of lights and objects over S. Australia, the Bass Strait and New Zealand (i.e. the same geographical region) during the later half of 1978 and on into 1979. Some of these were even filmed and photographed, this together with witness statements must make these sightings one of the best reported UFO flaps to have taken place. With this in mind, I think that the Valentich dissappearence is one of the most credible instances of a UFO encounter, particularly since it may have been witnessed from the ground at the same time. As to an explination- UFO equals Unidentified Flying Object i.e. something given the circumstances we cannot then explain. It does not have to mean "little green men".
::::Bass Strait and NZ are in "the same geographical region"? They are actually further apart than London and Athens. Moriori 06:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And as such, are comparable to the UFO waves that have occasionally occurred over Europe. The region in question is Oceania in general. --Chr.K. 22:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: As a complete aside, I need to thank you for being one of the most sensible commentators on the subject of unexplained aerial phenomena I've ever seen. --Chr.K. 12:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Australians in Victoria and Tasmania consider New Zealand to be pretty close. We have a different sense of distance to Europeans.--Senor Freebie (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless one has to swim it, sharks and humboldt squid and all  that lot ....  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.169.21.247 (talk) 11:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  1978 Sightings 

message: In the introduction to this article there is reference to a 'speculation' by officials that he could have been flying upside down and seeing his lights reflected or ground lights.
There were many speculations by DOT, why pick this particular discredited one?
I should be removed and does not belong in the introduction.
Why is this speculation in there when it has been shown to be untrue?
For example, according to one of the documents amongst the set of documents on the matter released by DOT, 
the head of the Transport Department took the possibility of a UFO encounter seriously. 
Kemp, Miles (6 July 2012). "'Truth' was out there after all". The Advertiser
This thus was one of their speculations, just as the flying upside down theory was.
The recent contributors to this article removed the DOT ufo speculation, but left this 'flying upside down' one in. 
This is Bias, because both speculations originate from a primary source, no matter what us editors 'believe'.
Why not leave the DOT drug smuggling theory in or the DOT suicide one in? 
After investigation these have been found to be equally and unlikely as the 'flying upside down seeing reflections or ground lights' theory.
Flying upside down has been shown to be impossible in this plane as the plane would have ceased to function (gravity fuel feed). 
He was traveling at 1372 meters elevation (4500 feet) and to overcome gravity's acceleration he would need to be going faster than 9.8 meters per second towards the Earth.
The time from when he first reported the lights to the time when he removed his finger from the microphone button was exactly 6.5 minutes.
To just match Earth gravity acceleration for 6.5 minutes he needed 3822 meters, yet he only had 1372 meters.
Matching the Earths pull would have immersed the plane a zero G effect, and the fuel would not flow in this instance.
To pull one positive G while inverted (One G is needed for the fuel to flow optimally) accelerating downwards at twice the rate of gravity, he would have needed 7644 meters.
Clearly this is not what happened.
Some kind of barrel roll, maybe, but even in a barrel roll he could not have been descending faster than 211 meters per minute overall, so this barrel roll would have needed to be extreme as he would have been flying almost horizontally while spiraling in the barrel roll. The question is, can a horizontal barrel roll produce a 2G effect? Or maybe only 1.5 G was needed for the fuel to continue flowing.
The planes 'rough idling' started at about the 5.5 minute point into the Valentich's radio conversation, so he must have had fuel up until near then.
Therefore the flying upside own theory, as opposed to the barrel roll theory, needs to be removed as it is a scientifically impossible to have happened.
124.168.93.217 (talk) 04:36, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This article, like all Wikipedia articles, is based on published sources, rather than original research by contributors. So unless you can provide a credible source for that, it is of no relevance to article content. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also, claims and interpretations of government statements made by ufologists like this guy don't receive much, if any, weight compared to statements made directly by government officials. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:36, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Our article does not state that the DOT report put forward the theory that Valentich was flying upside down. It says that some DoT officials speculated that he was - which is what the source cited says. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

text: The DOT official's speculation about flying upside down is attributed to DOT sources and cited to an AP article  which doesn't mention any other theories or speculation by the DOT. To comb though a primary source like the DOT report and extract the detail we think is pertinent would be original research. We leave such analysis to reliable secondary sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup - and in any case, the DoT report simply states that "The reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined".  AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flying upside down? 

message: The following coordinate fixes are needed for
—2409:4055:682:904F:E307:9EB5:E5F:1FB1 (talk) 04:25, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you haven't explained what you think is wrong with the coordinates or what you think that they should be, I can't act on this report with any degree of confidence. The sources cited in the article (those that are online, at least) give no indication of where exactly this incident took place. I've nevertheless changed the coordinates to avoid a false appearance of precision and to indicate an area over the strait nearer King Island rather than one on Cape Otway, which seems more consistent with the sources. If you had provided some sort of explanation of your error report, I or someone else may have been able to address the matter in a better fashion. Deor (talk) 14:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Are the coordinates supposed to represent his last known location, or the spot where he went down, or just some arbitrary point near where he was supposed to be? We need a source, per WP:V, that specifies what the given coordinate represents. Anything else is WP:OR- LuckyLouie (talk) 18:00, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinate error