Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard maclin Smith here. Sadly, due to some
Speaker 1: very frustrating audio issues, this week's episode will be postponed
Speaker 1: until next week. On the flip side, I'm currently working
Speaker 1: on bringing Unexplained to video, so with any luck, from
Speaker 1: next week you'll be able to watch episodes as well
Speaker 1: as listen to them. Until then, we're going back to
Speaker 1: the archive for a rerun episode. It's been calculated that
Speaker 1: the likelihood of the human race being the only sophisticated
Speaker 1: life form in the Milky Way is a one in
Speaker 1: sixty billion chance. The Milky Way is one of two
Speaker 1: trillion galaxies in the observable Universe. The following story is
Speaker 1: considered by many eufologists to be among the most compelling
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence of an alien visitation to our planet.
Speaker 1: Just what happened in the skies off the coast of Melbourne,
Speaker 1: Australia in nineteen seventy eight has never fully been accounted for.
Speaker 1: It's a mystery that remains to this day unexplained. This
Speaker 1: is Unexplained, Season two, Episode three, The Last Flight. At
Speaker 1: one pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, February twenty second, two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, NASA held a live press conference to make
Speaker 1: an exciting announcement they had discovered a peculiar solar system
Speaker 1: located roughly forty light years from Earth. At the heart
Speaker 1: of the system was an ultra cool dwarf star. It
Speaker 1: was first spotted in twenty sixteen by astronomers using the
Speaker 1: Trappist telescope in Chile, and so it was named Trappist one.
Speaker 1: The star appeared to be orbited by two Earth sized planets.
Speaker 1: In the months that followed, a team of astronomers led
Speaker 1: by Michael Gillon from the University of Liege, working with
Speaker 1: NASA's Spitzer telescope, made a further incredible discovery. What they
Speaker 1: found was described by Spitzer Center manager Sean Carey as
Speaker 1: the most exciting discovery in the history of the department.
Speaker 1: What Hilon's team uncovered was not two Earth sized planets,
Speaker 1: but seven. Furthermore, three of the planets were found to
Speaker 1: be occupying the crucial Goldilocks zone, an area of orbit
Speaker 1: necessary for the potential for water to pool on a
Speaker 1: planet's surface. Such a discovery is the first time ever
Speaker 1: that so many potentially habitable planets had been found surrounding
Speaker 1: one single star. Not only that, but the masses and
Speaker 1: radii of these specific planets mark them out as possibly
Speaker 1: the best ever to warrant further investigation for life, or
Speaker 1: at the very least, a habitable ecosystem that could one
Speaker 1: day be explored. In the words of NASA's Associate Administrator
Speaker 1: of the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zebucan, the discovery gives
Speaker 1: us a hint that finding a second Earth is not
Speaker 1: just a matter of if, but when. What we have
Speaker 1: in this story is a major step forward towards answering
Speaker 1: one of the questions that is at the heart of
Speaker 1: so many of our philosophies, and that is are we alone?
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard maclin Smith also
Speaker 1: on the panel at NASA's February press conference with Sarah Seger,
Speaker 1: Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at MIT and author
Speaker 1: of the Seger equation. The equation is considered by some
Speaker 1: to be an improved rendering of the famous Drake equation.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty one, the astronomer and physicist doctor Frank
Speaker 1: Drake devised his equation to estimate the number of communicative
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial civilsations that are likely to exist in the Milky
Speaker 1: Way galaxy. Drake's equation takes into account a number of variables,
Speaker 1: such as the rate of star formation, the average number
Speaker 1: of planets that orbit stars, as well as to which
Speaker 1: fraction exactly such planets might actually host sophisticated life forms.
Speaker 1: Although the equation was intended partly as a point of discussion,
Speaker 1: many critics were quick to argue that any attempt to
Speaker 1: estimate such a number would involve too big a margin
Speaker 1: of error to be reliable. However, a recent paper published
Speaker 1: by astrobiologists Adam Frank of the University of Rochester and
Speaker 1: Woodruff Sullivan of the University of Washington offered an interesting
Speaker 1: new approach to the question. Rather than trying to estimate
Speaker 1: the possible number of other extraterrestrial civilisations in our galaxy,
Speaker 1: they instead asked what were the odds that the human
Speaker 1: rais might be the only one. Their answer equated to
Speaker 1: roughly a one in sixty billion chance. So, when you
Speaker 1: also consider that the Milky Way is thought to be
Speaker 1: only one of two trillion galaxies in the known observable universe,
Speaker 1: not only is it unfathomably unlikely that other civilizations don't
Speaker 1: exist in the universe, but it is entirely plausible that
Speaker 1: some may already have flourished and died out millions of
Speaker 1: times over before our own. We might then wonder, much
Speaker 1: like the great physicist and Ricofirmi, if it is so
Speaker 1: likely that other sophisticated life forms exist out there, why
Speaker 1: have we never seen them, to which many, of course
Speaker 1: would reply, but we have. The following story is considered
Speaker 1: by many euthologists to be amongst the best evidence of
Speaker 1: an alien visitation to our planet. What happened exactly in
Speaker 1: the skies just off the coast of Melbourne, Australia in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight has never been fully accounted for. It
Speaker 1: is a mystery that remains to this day unexplained. It
Speaker 1: was love at first sight, and as is often the case,
Speaker 1: it was completely unplanned. It was some time in March
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and Ronda had only recently turned sixteen.
Speaker 1: That night, she was accompanying her neighbour's son Peter, to
Speaker 1: his regular Friday social event at the Flight sixteen Air
Speaker 1: Cadet headquarters in Maryborough, Melbourne. Peter had only recently joined
Speaker 1: the Australian Air Training Corps and was eager to share
Speaker 1: his exciting new world with Ronda. What he hadn't banked
Speaker 1: on was bumping into Fred. Peter had been showing Ronda
Speaker 1: around the company buildings when Fred stepped out of a
Speaker 1: nearby office and right into her path. He was dark haired, handsome,
Speaker 1: and elegant in his steel blue uniform. He introduced himself
Speaker 1: to Ronda as Fred Valentich before turning back to Peter.
Speaker 1: As the pair talked, Peter shifted uncomfortably whenever Fred's eyes
Speaker 1: glanced away towards Ronda. The next week, Peter was overjoyed
Speaker 1: when Ronda agreed to join him at the Cadet's Saturday
Speaker 1: night dance. Sadly for Peter, however, who Ronda was really
Speaker 1: hoping to see that night was Fred. Sure Enough, immediately
Speaker 1: after she arrived, she spotted him holding court with some
Speaker 1: friends at the back of the room. Unbeknownst to Ronda,
Speaker 1: Fred too had been hoping all evening that the two
Speaker 1: of them might meet again. There was only one problem, Peter,
Speaker 1: but Fred had a plan. It was well known that
Speaker 1: Peter's ill mother had given him a pager in case
Speaker 1: she might ever need him at short notice. At some
Speaker 1: point in the night, after waiting for just the right moment,
Speaker 1: Fred slipped away from his table to use the payphone outside.
Speaker 1: Moments later, he watched from the side of the hall
Speaker 1: as Peter received the message with a look of disappointment
Speaker 1: on his face. Of course, Fred KNEWTT was a cruel trick,
Speaker 1: but this was love, and sometimes that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Peter gestured his apologies to Ronda and made his way
Speaker 1: out of the club. As Fred returned to the end
Speaker 1: of Ronda's table, he was almost certain he could see
Speaker 1: a look of relief cross her face. It hadn't gone
Speaker 1: unnoticed by Ronda that as the evening progressed, Fred seemed
Speaker 1: to be making his way further and further up the table,
Speaker 1: until finally he was sitting next to her, and so
Speaker 1: they would remain for the rest of the night as
Speaker 1: the hours drifted by timelessly. The following Monday, Fred met
Speaker 1: Ronda's parents, and by the end of the week the
Speaker 1: pair had agreed to make it official. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: Ronda was introduced to Fred's family at his home in
Speaker 1: Avondale Heights, where she met and fell in love with
Speaker 1: his parents, Alberta and Guido, his twelve year old brother Ricky,
Speaker 1: and his two twin sisters, Olivia and Lara. It was
Speaker 1: easy to see why Ronda was so smitten by Fred.
Speaker 1: He was fun and easy to be around, kind and
Speaker 1: well mannered, not to mention dashing in his training Corps uniform.
Speaker 1: But there was one thing that would have to be accommodated.
Speaker 1: It was Fred's dream to be a commercial airline pilot,
Speaker 1: and he dedicated himself to the task obsessively. Every spare
Speaker 1: minute was spent at his flight school or with his
Speaker 1: nose buried inside one of his training text books. Meeting
Speaker 1: up on week nights was completely out of the question,
Speaker 1: but come the week end they were like any other
Speaker 1: teenage couple. Fred wasn't a big drinker, but he loved
Speaker 1: going out with Ronda, perhaps his favorite moments being the
Speaker 1: ones they spent on Mount Dandenong, where they would just
Speaker 1: sit and take in the view as the evening sun
Speaker 1: gave way to the Melbourne city lights. And when Fred
Speaker 1: got the chance to clock up more flight time, Ronda
Speaker 1: was only too happy to accompany him. She loved the
Speaker 1: sensation of it, especially when the plane would break through
Speaker 1: into brilliant sunshine, the cloud stretching out below like a
Speaker 1: soft blanket, almost as if you could step out and
Speaker 1: walk across it and up there alone with Fred. She'd
Speaker 1: never felt safer, even when he would loop the loop
Speaker 1: on one of his acrobatic flights. As Ronda got to
Speaker 1: know Fred a little better, there was one thing that
Speaker 1: stood out more than anything. It was his meticulous nature,
Speaker 1: whether it be making sure his car was running smoothly,
Speaker 1: the pride he took in how he dressed, or most
Speaker 1: markedly in his approach to his flight training. By mid May,
Speaker 1: Fred had clocked over one hundred and forty hours and
Speaker 1: had graduated to a Class four license, allowing him to
Speaker 1: fly at night. By way of celebration, Fred took Ronda
Speaker 1: on a six hundred mile flight to Spear's Point in
Speaker 1: Newcastle to visit her favorite uncle, Michael. It had been
Speaker 1: the perfect day, but the following morning, as the pair
Speaker 1: prepared to fly home, Fred seemed concerned. He was convinced
Speaker 1: that someone had tampered with the plane. After a short
Speaker 1: time in the air, the column on the joystick seemed
Speaker 1: to be loosening. Never one to leave anything to chance,
Speaker 1: Fred made an emergency descent towards Bankstown Airport in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Moments later, Much to his shock, a military helicopter appeared
Speaker 1: from nowhere and ordered out of the sky. In his
Speaker 1: eagerness to get the plane down, Fred had strayed marginally
Speaker 1: into a restricted airspace. Minutes later, Fred and Ronda touched
Speaker 1: down in Bankstown, but the incident would inevitably go down
Speaker 1: as a blemish on Fred's record. His abject disappointment in
Speaker 1: himself was a reminder to Ronda just how seriously he
Speaker 1: took his training. A few months later, on September seventeenth,
Speaker 1: just over four hundred miles south of Melbourne, across the
Speaker 1: bas Strait to the far side of Tasmania, a lighthouse
Speaker 1: keeper spotted something strange in the sky. The keeper worked
Speaker 1: at the Matsaika Island Lighthouse, located off the southern coast
Speaker 1: of mainland Tasmania. He had just completed his evening rounds
Speaker 1: when he noticed an unfamiliar light in the sky. It
Speaker 1: was extremely bright and appeared to be half moon in shape.
Speaker 1: Moments after he spotted it or the power in the
Speaker 1: lighthouse inexplicably cut out bizarrely. After rushing to fix the problem,
Speaker 1: the keeper found no blown fuses or tripped circuit breakers.
Speaker 1: Five minutes later, the generator kicked into action and the
Speaker 1: power was restored. The keeper returned to his previous lookout
Speaker 1: point to find the strange light still hanging in the
Speaker 1: night sky. A closer look with binoculars revealed what appeared
Speaker 1: to be a small red dot in the middle of
Speaker 1: the light, which seemed to move to the side as
Speaker 1: if the light was turning. Ten minutes later, the power
Speaker 1: cut out again and remained out for fifteen minutes before
Speaker 1: it was finally restored, but again with no obvious cause.
Speaker 1: Moments later, the lighthouse keeper watched as the strange light
Speaker 1: eventually began to shrink, as if moving away from the island,
Speaker 1: until it had completely disappeared. Back in Melbourne a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, on Friday thirteenth of October, Fred and Ronda
Speaker 1: drove to their favorite spot up in the Dandenong Ranges.
Speaker 1: That night, they talked for hours as down below the
Speaker 1: Yarra Valley stretched out before them, blanketed by the warm,
Speaker 1: luminescent glow of a setting spring sun. Fred had never
Speaker 1: been more happy. Having just turned twenty, he was passing
Speaker 1: his exams and was well on the way to becoming
Speaker 1: a commercial airline pilot, and of course, he also had Ronda.
Speaker 1: At some point, Fred pulled a box from his pocket
Speaker 1: and opened it to reveal a ring. Will you marry me?
Speaker 1: He asked. They'd known each other little over six months,
Speaker 1: but everything about this felt right. They laughed at the
Speaker 1: madness of it all. Ronda could barely hide her excitement
Speaker 1: as Fred slipped the friendship band onto her wedding ring finger.
Speaker 1: But then for a second she paused. Not only was
Speaker 1: it Friday the thirteenth, but wasn't it bad luck to
Speaker 1: place a friendship ring on the wedding ring finger? She thought,
Speaker 1: But Fred didn't believe in such things. Besides, she would
Speaker 1: have the real thing soon enough. In the meantime, he
Speaker 1: asked that she keep it all a secret until Ronda's
Speaker 1: seventeenth birthday in December. Ronda didn't see Fred for the
Speaker 1: rest of the week, preoccupied as he was, with preparations
Speaker 1: for his latest milestone, a flight across open water. But
Speaker 1: on the Friday, Fred drove to Ronda's house and the
Speaker 1: pair made arrangements to meet for the flight the next day.
Speaker 1: Ronda agreed that she would meet him at the airport
Speaker 1: if she could get off work in time before he
Speaker 1: left that night, they kissed on the doorstep, a kiss
Speaker 1: that seemed to last a life time. Next morning, on Saturday,
Speaker 1: October the twenty first, Fred was up at six a m.
Speaker 1: Buzzing with excitement as he went over the flight plans
Speaker 1: in his head. After completing a shift at the Aussie
Speaker 1: Disposal store at one through nine Puckle Street where he worked,
Speaker 1: Fred was soon on the freeway, racing towards Moorabin Airport
Speaker 1: in southeast Melbourne. Fred had a three hour lesson to
Speaker 1: negotiate before he could take his flight, but as was
Speaker 1: often his way, he arrived early, so he did what
Speaker 1: he always did in such circumstances. He took out his
Speaker 1: textbooks and revised until one thirty when the class began.
Speaker 1: Back in West Preston, Ronda was eagerly awaiting the end
Speaker 1: of her shift. She had arranged with her parents to
Speaker 1: drive her down to the airport after her shift, but
Speaker 1: was being held up by a delayed co worker. Ronda
Speaker 1: had no choice but to cover until she arrived, but
Speaker 1: as the minutes ticked by, Ronda lost her ride. She
Speaker 1: would miss this flight, but Fred would be home before long,
Speaker 1: and after all, she had the evening's dance to look forward.
Speaker 1: To down at Moorrabin Airport. Fred was disappointed not to
Speaker 1: find Ronda waiting for him by his car after the lesson.
Speaker 1: In truth, the thought of flying over the water alone
Speaker 1: made him a little nervous, but a quick meteorological briefing
Speaker 1: revealed that the weather would be on his side, and
Speaker 1: with sunset not due for another two hours, he would
Speaker 1: have more than enough time to complete the journey before
Speaker 1: it got dark. At seventeen twenty three hours, Fred lodged
Speaker 1: his flight plan at the briefing office. He would fly
Speaker 1: southwest along the coast to Cape Otway before heading south
Speaker 1: over the bas Strait to King Island at the north
Speaker 1: of Tasmania, before returning back to Moorabin Airport. There was
Speaker 1: still no sign of Ronda, but Fred decided to give
Speaker 1: her a few more minutes and headed off to grab
Speaker 1: some food. In the meantime. There was a new place
Speaker 1: that had just opened nearby that he liked to go,
Speaker 1: and so it was a short time later that Fred
Speaker 1: was sat in his car, eating McDonald's and gazing out
Speaker 1: wistfully at the sea he was soon to cross. When
Speaker 1: he finally made it back to the airport, with time
Speaker 1: running out and Ronda yet to arrive, Fred had little
Speaker 1: choice but to set off alone. After a further round
Speaker 1: of checks, he jumped into the Sesna vh D s
Speaker 1: J taxied the small plane to the edge of the
Speaker 1: runway before taking off into the early evening sky. Back
Speaker 1: in West Preston, Ronda had returned home and was getting
Speaker 1: herself ready for a night out with Fred, excited to
Speaker 1: hear all about his trip to King Island, but by
Speaker 1: the time it had got to eight pm, Ronda was
Speaker 1: growing concerned that there had been no word from Fred.
Speaker 1: Ronda never made it to the dance, but instead spent
Speaker 1: the night sat all made up on her bed, staring
Speaker 1: out her window at the street below for any sign
Speaker 1: of her fiance. At some point, she must have fallen asleep,
Speaker 1: as she found herself being woken by the sound of
Speaker 1: the ABC news drifting in from her father's bedroom. She
Speaker 1: couldn't quite make out all of it, only that an
Speaker 1: unnamed pilot had gone missing over the Baths Strait. Ronda's
Speaker 1: heart sunk deep into her chest. After taking an age
Speaker 1: to get through to Moorabin Airport, when they eventually picked up,
Speaker 1: Ronda received the devastating news the missing pilot was Fred.
Speaker 1: Over the next few days, wave after wave of search
Speaker 1: and rescue teams were dispatched unsuccessfully in the hunt for
Speaker 1: Fred's missing plane. For Rhonda and Fred's family, their grief
Speaker 1: would have been unimaginable For the authorities. There were plainly
Speaker 1: only two likelihoods. One that Reread had got into some
Speaker 1: kind of difficulty, perhaps becoming disorientated over the water, leading
Speaker 1: to a catastrophic pilot error, or he had deliberately flown
Speaker 1: his plane into the sea. Since Fred had been taking
Speaker 1: a routine path over a manageable stretch of water, as
Speaker 1: noted in the cause analysis report, it is most probable
Speaker 1: that the wreckage would have been sighted, but the plane
Speaker 1: had disappeared without a trace. And then something extraordinary came
Speaker 1: to light. On Wednesday, the twenty fifth of October, Fred's father, Guido,
Speaker 1: was invited to listen to the final recording of Fred's
Speaker 1: air traffic control communication to formally identify the pilot. As
Speaker 1: soon as the recording crackled to life, Guido's heart broke
Speaker 1: for the thousandth time as the voice of his son
Speaker 1: came out of the speaker. But what everybody in the
Speaker 1: room heard next chilled them all to the Bone. At
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred hours, Fred reported arriving successfully over Cape Otway
Speaker 1: before heading south over the open water. The next communication
Speaker 1: was received at nineteen hundred and six hours, Melbourne. This
Speaker 1: is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below
Speaker 1: five thousand? Delta Sierra Juliet No known traffic. It seems
Speaker 1: to be a large aircraft below five thousand. What type
Speaker 1: of aircraft is it? I cannot affirm. It has four
Speaker 1: bright It seems to me like landing lights. Melbourne, this
Speaker 1: is Delta Sierra Juliet. The aircraft has just passed over
Speaker 1: me at least one thousand feet above Roger and it
Speaker 1: is a large aircraft. Confirm unknown due to the speed
Speaker 1: its traveling. Any air Force aircraft in the vicinity Delta
Speaker 1: Sierra Juliet. No known aircraft in the vicinity, Melbourne. It's
Speaker 1: approaching now from due east towards me. It seems to
Speaker 1: me that he's playing some sort of game. He's flying
Speaker 1: over me two three times at a time at speeds
Speaker 1: I could not identify. Delta Sierra Juliet and confirm you
Speaker 1: cannot identify the aircraft. Affirmative it's not an aircraft. It's
Speaker 1: a long shape. I cannot identify more than that. It
Speaker 1: has such speed. What I'm doing right now is orbiting,
Speaker 1: and the thing is just orbiting on top of me.
Speaker 1: It's got a green light and a sort of metallic
Speaker 1: like it's all shiny on the outside. It's just vanished.
Speaker 1: Delta Sierra Juliet confirmed that the aircraft has vanished. Ah.
Speaker 1: It's now approaching from the southwest. Roger, what are your intentions?
Speaker 1: My intentions are to go to King Island, Ah, Melbourne,
Speaker 1: that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me. Again.
Speaker 1: It's hovering and it's not an aircraft, and then there
Speaker 1: is nothing. Melbourne attempts communication again, but after seventeen seconds
Speaker 1: of dead air at nineteen hundred and twelve hours, Fred's
Speaker 1: radio falls silent. Within days, Fred's gripping final transmission made
Speaker 1: its way to the press. Before long, the papers were
Speaker 1: awash with speculation concerning Fred's fatal encounter with a UFO,
Speaker 1: and then something else emerged. Six weeks previously, Sergeant Jack
Speaker 1: Woodward of Curry Police on King Island had received a
Speaker 1: call concerning strange lights that had appeared off the north
Speaker 1: of the island. A nurse at King Island Hospital had
Speaker 1: seen them too, with two other witness going as far
Speaker 1: as to write into the King Island News on September twentieth.
Speaker 1: We are writing to your paper, they said, to see
Speaker 1: if anyone other than ourselves has seen any sightings of
Speaker 1: strange moving lights in the sky. The Department of Transport
Speaker 1: were quick to quash the rumours, with one spokesman suggesting
Speaker 1: that if Fred's plane had inverted, he would have seen
Speaker 1: the light from Cape Otway and King Island houses reflected
Speaker 1: on cloud cover above him. But not only were there
Speaker 1: no clouds in the sky that night, As the spokesman
Speaker 1: was forced to admit, the conditions were near perfect and
Speaker 1: would have afforded Fred almost unlimited vision. Reports from Fred's
Speaker 1: friends and acquaintances began to emerge. They revealed a sober,
Speaker 1: studious and diligent flight student with the steely determination to succeed,
Speaker 1: with one friend noting that Fred was never prone to panic,
Speaker 1: as Ronda had also attested during her many hours of
Speaker 1: flying with him. Fred's instructors, Warren Dunlop and Martin Dalton
Speaker 1: described him as sincere and sensible, a little quiet at first,
Speaker 1: but quick to open up once he got to know him.
Speaker 1: For Alberta and Guido, the evidence spoke for itself, and
Speaker 1: with the papers more than happy to exploit their grief
Speaker 1: for the cosmic speculation, there was little room for anything else.
Speaker 1: As for sixteen year old Ronda, she had barely had
Speaker 1: time to grieve, such was the incessant hounding of the press.
Speaker 1: At one point she even fled to a motel in
Speaker 1: Cape Otway, only to find a crowd of journalists waiting
Speaker 1: for her in the foyer. And the truth was there
Speaker 1: really was nothing more that she could tell them. After
Speaker 1: two weeks, the search for Fred was called off. However,
Speaker 1: although they may not have found the wreckage, in the
Speaker 1: subsequent widening of the investigation, something new was about to
Speaker 1: come to light. It seemed that Fred had not been
Speaker 1: entirely honest with his parents or Ronder. On November one,
Speaker 1: the investigative team received a letter from Captain Edwin Robert Barnes,
Speaker 1: a former tutor of Fred's in nineteen seventy six. Fred
Speaker 1: had failed in his attempt to join the Royal Australian
Speaker 1: Air Force. It was not entirely unexpected, since not only
Speaker 1: had Fred left school at sixteen, but his academic record
Speaker 1: had been poor, but Fred would not be deterred, and
Speaker 1: he resolved that whatever he lacked in intellect, he would
Speaker 1: work ferociously hard to make up for in effort. Although
Speaker 1: he would never realize his dream of making the Air Force,
Speaker 1: he could still make it as a commercial airline pilot. Sadly,
Speaker 1: this ambition, too, hit a snag when in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven Fred sat for and failed all five of his
Speaker 1: commercial pilot's license theory exams. It was at this point
Speaker 1: that an instructor, impressed by Fred's determination, recommended that Captain
Speaker 1: Barnes helped dutor him through his resets. In Barnes letter,
Speaker 1: he speaks with great warmth and affection about the boy who,
Speaker 1: having not made it to the Air Force, nonetheless attended
Speaker 1: Squadron Headquarters in a civilian capacity, working without pay or allowances,
Speaker 1: until accepted into Squadron staff as an airman, a boy who,
Speaker 1: despite failing his exams, was a battler with the determination
Speaker 1: and stability to achieve his goal of becoming a commercial
Speaker 1: airline pilot. Fred eventually re sat his exams in July
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy eight, and Barnes was overjoyed when Fred
Speaker 1: called him up in mid September to tell him with
Speaker 1: great excitement that he had finally passed. Only it was
Speaker 1: a lie, a lie that Fred had been hiding from
Speaker 1: not only his beloved tutor, but also his family and Roonda. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: some of the more confusing aspects of Fred's final days
Speaker 1: had taken on a different shape. Why he had proposed
Speaker 1: to Ronda on Friday the thirteenth, a week before the
Speaker 1: day they regularly celebrated as a monthly anniversary. Why if
Speaker 1: he was intending to land at King Island, he hadn't
Speaker 1: requested landing lights to be turned on. Or why he
Speaker 1: told Rhonda that he'd be back to take her out,
Speaker 1: but told his father that he wouldn't return till at
Speaker 1: least ten pm. Is it possible that, rather than having
Speaker 1: been plucked from the sky by an unknown entity, Fred had,
Speaker 1: in a sense already been taken away some time ago
Speaker 1: by something else equally intangible. In the end, had this
Speaker 1: young man whose only dream was to prove to the
Speaker 1: world that he had what it took to be a
Speaker 1: pilot finally been broken by the crushing realization that, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard he tried, his head would never match
Speaker 1: up to his heart. A young man too paint to
Speaker 1: reveal the truth to his family and Ronda, to whom
Speaker 1: he felt he had promised so much. Thank you as
Speaker 1: ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy Club production podcast
Speaker 1: created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
Speaker 1: a story of your own you'd like to share. You
Speaker 1: can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
Speaker 1: reaches online through x and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod
Speaker 1: and Facebook at Facebook dot com, forward Slash Unexplained Podcast.
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