On 21 October 1978 a twenty-year-old pilot, Frederick Valentich, was flying a Cessna 182 alone over Bass Strait south of this cape and told Melbourne control that a large object with four bright lights was accompanying him. His last words were "it is not an aircraft"; then seventeen seconds of metallic scraping on the air, and silence. Neither aircraft nor body was found. Five years later a cowl flap from that production run was recovered off King Island; it could not be tied to his machine. The official finding is that the cause is unknown. Disorientation and inverted flight, and a staged disappearance, have both been considered; neither has been shown.

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Mapimí Silent Zone

A patch of northern Mexican desert where, by local account, radios fall silent and compasses misbehave. The reputation dates from a US missile crashing here in 1970; tests have not confirmed any radio anomaly.