"it's not an aircraft" — pulled the actual transcript apart, this one's weird and I don't love it

I went in fully expecting to debunk the Valentich thing for myself. 20 y/o pilot, Cessna 182, Oct 21 1978, flying over Bass Strait toward King Island. you all know the meme version. so I read through the radio log with Melbourne FS (controller was Steve Robey, that part checks out). Valentich repor……