NEWS CLIPPING SERVICE

DATE OF ARTICLE: May 29, 1989
SOURCE OF ARTICLE: Sun
LOCATION: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
BYLINE: Brett Stavorback

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A MID-AIR MYSTERY

• UFOS -- now there's a topic to tickle the imagination.
• Galactic tales of flying saucers inhabited by little green critters have been the source of both intrigue and ridicule.
• Believers argue it's ludicrous to suggest earthlings are the only life form in the universe to have discovered the art of space travel.
• But cynics claim UFO sightings seem to be made by hillbillies in the middle of nowhere as opposed to university professors on the campus of Cambridge.
• Whatever your view, there is the mysterious matter of the 1978 disappearance of light aircraft pilot Frederick Valentich over Bass Strait.
• His mid-air claims that a UFO had harassed him prompted such headlines as "Kidnaped by alien beings".
• More than a decade later, there is no trace of Valentich or his plane.
• This puzzling story is recreated in a fascinating documentary called Something Shining on SBS tonight at 7:30 p.m.
• What started as a seemingly simple joy flight from Moorabbin to King Island turned into a baffling case about which everyone is quick to theorize.
• The fact the Transport Department refused to release the tape of Valentich's frantic last radio messages adds to the drama.
• But it has been revealed he said of the alleged hovering UFO: "It seems to me he is playing some sort of game.
• "He is flying over me, two or three times, at speeds I couldn't identify.
• "What I'm doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me...it's just vanished."
• Interviews with air officials and Valentich's family don't shed light on what happened on the night of October 21, 1978.
• "I don;t know what he saw, but whatever he said he saw, he saw," one said.
• Is Valentich's disappearance a con job or did aliens kidnap him?
• ABC newsreader James Dibble sums up the special:
• "I wonder if he had been taken by a UFO and had come back -- would anyone believe him?"

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