it’s not left up to the pilots to make these moves. But in some cases, pilot reactions can be a problem, as well. In order to avoid a perceived collision with UAP, some have made violent control inputs resulting in passenger and flight crew injury. And there is always the danger that if a pilot makes the wrong control input at the wrong time during an extremely close encounter, a midair collision could occur.
In one example, a U.S. Air Force Boeing KB-50 aerial refueling tanker was making a night landing at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina when the pilot and crew noticed an object and saw strange lights. On their final approach, the pilot had to maneuver around the object and climb again to wait for it to depart. Air Force tower personnel saw the UAP hovering above the airport, and watched it through binoculars for twenty minutes, stating that it was not an atmospheric phenomenon of any kind. Air Force officials acknowledged that “the UFO presented a hazard to aircraft operating in the area”—one of the few official statements to this effect on record.[24]
The second impact that UAP can have on aviation safety is to affect the proper functioning of navigation guidance equipment, flight control systems, radar operations, and radio communication with interference from its alleged electromagnetic radiation. Obviously, in situations where pilots rely on their instruments, the probability of an incident or accident increases when anomalous electromagnetic effects cause them to malfunction. Fortunately, in most of these instances, equipment resumes normal functioning after the object departs.
Finally, cockpit distractions produced by close encounters with UAP divert the attention of the crew and can impair their ability to fly the airplane safely. It is understandable that witnessing bizarre objects or unexplained lights pacing beside an airplane, or flying circles around it, would be disconcerting to anyone on board, especially those responsible for passenger safety.
The information I’ve collected to document cases of UAP affecting aviation safety comes from my extensive database. It consists of pilot and air traffic control reports drawn from official U.S. and other government sources, private interviews, and reports by international colleagues who have worked closely with the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP). According to our statistics, in an average career of commercial flying, a pilot has about the same chance of seeing a UAP as he does of striking a bird in flight or of encountering extreme wind shear. The threat to safety is small but potentially significant, and should be treated like any other infrequent safety hazard. Many flight safety problems go unreported or underreported, but the difference here is that bird strikes and wind shear are currently acceptable events to report and UAP are not.
Three cases over Australia and New Zealand are of great interest, illustrating the effects I’m referring to. On August 22, 1968, at about 5:40 p.m., two pilots were flying from Adelaide to Perth, Australia, at 8,000 feet in a Piper Navajo single-engine airplane when they sighted a very large cigar-shaped object surrounded by five smaller objects. The strange formation maintained a constant angle from their own flight path for over ten minutes, while they flew at 195 knots. One of the pilots said later, “The large one opened up in its center with smaller objects going to and from the larger object.” Ground air traffic control was contacted and replied that there was no known air traffic in the area. At this point their radio failed on all frequencies until the objects flew away, “as if by a single command.”[25]
Ten years later, a shocking event occurred. A private pilot went missing while en route to King Island, south of Melbourne, Australia, after a very close and frightening encounter with a large unknown object. On October 21, 1978, twenty-year-old Frederick Valentich had rented a Cessna 182L single-engine, propeller-driven airplane for a short night flight. Just after 9:00 p.m., he radioed Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne from an altitude of 4,500 feet while over the waters of Bass Strait. For six and a half minutes, he conversed with flight service specialist Steve Robey at the Melbourne airport about something unidentified orbiting around his airplane, heading straight for him, and chasing him. The tape ended with fourteen seconds of very unusual metallic noises and then went silent.
The voice transcript between Robey at Flight Service in Melbourne and Valentich in his Cessna aircraft— which was registered and referred to as Delta Sierra Juliet—follows. I have carefully studied the audiotape and noted the many times where Valentich’s voice inflections rise at the end of his transmissions, as if he were asking a question. The young pilot was clearly disoriented by 9:10 p.m. at the latest and probably earlier. There are many pauses during his transmissions, which are indicated by three ellipsis points.
9:06:14 Valentich: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below five thousand?
9:06:23 Robey: Delta Sierra Juliet—no known traffic.
9:06:26 V: Delta Sierra Juliet—I am—seems [to] be a large aircraft below five thousand.
9:06:46 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—What type of aircraft is it?
9:06:50 V: Delta Sierra Juliet—I cannot affirm. It is four bright… it seems to me like landing lights.
9:07:04 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:07:32 V: Melbourne, this [is] Delta Sierra Juliet. The aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.
9:07:43 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Roger—and it, it is a large aircraft—confirm?
9:07:47 V: Er, unknown due to the speed it’s travelling… Is there any Air Force aircraft in the vicinity?
9:07:57 R: Delta Sierra Juliet. No known aircraft in the vicinity.
9:08:18 V: Melbourne—it’s approaching now from due east—towards me.
9:08:28 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:08:49 V: Delta Sierra Juliet. It seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game—he’s flying over me two—three times at a time at speeds I could not identify.
9:09:02 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Roger. What is your actual level?
9:09:06 V: My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero.
9:09:11 R: Delta Sierra Juliet… And confirm—you cannot identify the aircraft.
9:09:14 V: Affirmative.
9:09:18 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Roger… Standby.
9:09:28 V: Melbourne—Delta Sierra Juliet. It’s not an aircraft… It is…
9:09:46 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Melbourne. Can you describe the… er, aircraft?
9:09:52 V: Delta Sierra Juliet… as it’s flying past it’s a long shape… [cannot] identify more than that. It has such speed… It is before me right now, Melbourne?
9:10:07 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Roger. And how large would the, er, object be?
9:10:20 V: Delta Sierra Juliet—Melbourne. It seems like it’s chasing me. What I’m doing right now is orbiting, and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also… It’s got a green light and sort of metallic [like]. It’s all shiny [on] the outside.
9:10:43 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:10:48 V: Delta Sierra Juliet… it’s just vanished.
9:10:57 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:11:03 V: Melbourne, would you know what kind of aircraft I’ve got? It is [a type of] military aircraft?
9:11:08 R: Delta Sierra Juliet. Confirm the… er, aircraft just vanished.
9:11:14 V: Say again.
9:11:17 R: Delta Sierra Juliet. Is the aircraft still with you?
9:11:23 V: Delta Sierra Juliet… It’s, ah… [now] approaching from the southwest.
9:11:37 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:11:52 V: Delta Sierra Juliet—the engine is, is rough idling. I’ve got it set at twenty-three—twenty-four… and the thing is—coughing. [Engine trouble is audible on the audio tape.]
9:12:04 R: Delta Sierra Juliet—Roger. What are your intentions?
9:12:09 V: My intentions are—ah… to go to King Island—ah, Melbourne, that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again… it is hovering and it’s not an aircraft.
9:12:22 R: Delta Sierra Juliet.
9:12:28 V: Delta Sierra Juliet—Melbourne…
[A pause for seventeen seconds during which a very strange, metallic-sounding pulsed noise is audible, with no discernable pattern in time or frequency.]
9:12:49 R: Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne.
End of transcript.
