Green | October 20, 2008 | 50 comments

U.S. pilot was ordered to shoot down UFO

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081020/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_ufo

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Pericles_Lewnes
LONDON (Reuters) Two U.S. fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War, according to secret files made public on Monday.

One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like "a flying aircraft carrier."

The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 7,600 mph (12,000 kph).

After the alert, a shadowy figure told Torres he must never talk about the incident and he duly kept silent for more than 30 years.

His story was among dozens of UFO sightings in defence ministry files released at the National Archives in London.

In a written account, Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet in calm weather from the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent in May 1957.

"I was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation. I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," he said.

"The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets.

"I had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier," he added. "The larger the airplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself."

At the last moment, the object disappeared from the radar screen and the high-speed chase was called off.

He returned to base and was debriefed the next day by an unnamed man who "looked like a well-dressed IBM salesman."

"He threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone," he said.

The documents contain no official explanation for the incident, which came at a time of heightened tension between the West and the Soviet Union. Planes were on constant stand-by at British bases for a possible Soviet attack.

The files blame other UFO sightings on weather balloons, clouds or normal aircraft. Torres said he had been waiting 50 years for an explanation.

"I shall never forget it," he told the Times. "On that night I was ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before."

UFO expert David Clarke said the sighting may have been part of a secret U.S. project to create phantom aircraft on radar screens to test Soviet air defences.

"Perhaps what this pilot had seen was some kind of experiment in electronic warfare or maybe it was a UFO," he said. "Something very unusual happened."


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50 comments // U.S. pilot was ordered to shoot down UFO

  • Dmobile215
    • 0
      Dmobile215  

    • This is why I started my blog called extraterrestrial alien news, because we have been lied to for so long concerning this matter and if there are life on other planets then what is the big deal in talking about it, if there not from earth then where I saw something in August 2009 around the 22nd and it looked like a star moving bullet speed fast and I ran my a$$ in the house because I knew what it was but I didn't know what to say I was speechless. I did not tell anyone because it would have looked like I was crazy. So I started this blog here it is:

      http://etaliennews.blogspot.com

    • 2 years ago
  • yaget1chance
  • RTYE7893
    • 0
      RTYE7893  

    • Hmm they mainly are, especially the ones in the millitary that fly fighter jets, who are told to shoot, its kinda theie specialty, after all the reason for aircraft from world war two having black and white stripes on is because americans just shot anythin and everything.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • RTYE7893
    • 0
      RTYE7893  

    • I dont believe this, purely because its an american who didnt pull the trigger. if this is true, surely its the first time in history an american has resisted the chance to shoot

    • 3 years ago
  • tanyetta
  • Vierotchka
  • RaceBannon
  • emery_the_scientist
  • Vierotchka
  • emery_the_scientist
    • 0
      emery_the_scientist  

    • i have done much work in this feild and i have come to conclusion that this is most likly an accurat story.....want proof look for the nazi ufo it was years ahead of its time im now doing work on the aurora project and there is stuff that the gov. keeps under lock and ufos have gone back so long ago befor man dreamed of flying there aere hyrographs to prove that to

    • 3 years ago
  • awakening
  • Nuevarine
  • simplecj
  • satanskidney
    • 0
      satanskidney  

    • clearly not all things that are unidentified flying objects are alien spacecraft but have we been visited by beings from another planet?

      its hard to say one way or another but there are some stories about flying craft before the invention of the airplane and hot air balloon that make me think were not the only ones in the universe.

    • 3 years ago
  • Sublime_Emperor
  • bloodhound
    • 0
      bloodhound  

    • Little gray men,no women?what are there women doing staying home caring for baby's.Or maybe there's no sex, or the women don't have Brest?or there uni sexed?I don't know doesn't sound like an advanced salivation to me.little grey persons would be politically correct.Mr Spock is my favorite alien.

    • 3 years ago
  • justwannafindmytrue
  • ArmyJuggalo
  • ZapataMan
    • 0
      ZapataMan  

    • I KNOW exactly why there are UFO's.
      I have exclusive information of how they got here in the first place. Again, I am very qualified to tell the whole truth about.
      I don't know if you are aware of this but scientist long ago placed a portal in orbit and that portal was exclusively designed to travel both into the future and the past. The famous spaceship that landed here few decades ago, travelled thru that portal and wind up here in this planet by mistake.
      I know because i was there. One of those briliant scientist was also my grand father. I was allowed in the premises at that time back in 1960. I saw the ship myself.

    • 3 years ago
  • Bill_Borrelli
  • bloodhound
  • tanyetta
  • Vierotchka
  • justwannafindmytrue
  • Bill_Borrelli
    • 0
      Bill_Borrelli  

    • What I don't understand...how do these "UFOs" come from who knows where, fly allllll the way, light years away, to our planet....then crash. If they're so smart and so much more advanced than us, create a way to get your ass back to where ever you came from. Are these Kamikazi missions to Earth? One-way trips? Some folks need to put the tequila down and think straight.

    • 3 years ago
  • Valentin0o
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • Bill_Borrelli:

      UFO = Unidentified Flying Object, the operative word being "unidentified", so this means that nobody knows where they come from or what they are. Saying that they come from other planetary systems light-years away is mere speculation. Some people think they come from a parallel world in a parallel dimension. Bottom line is that we don't know where they come from or what they actually are, hence the "unidentified" in UFO.

    • 3 years ago
  • frodo640
  • heatX
  • petarro
  • simplecj
    • 0
      simplecj  

    • No Pericles... that's ok. I understand the need for lighter material. Was this report just barely declassified? There's lots of accounts similar to this one already out there though.. I live sort of near Area 51 and have some odd-ball friends that have told me some crazy stories about driving out to the border of the property in the middle of the night and seeing "strange things"... not to mention being greeted by Humvee's and being told to leave the area.

    • 3 years ago
  • Pericles_Lewnes
  • simplecj
    • 0
      simplecj  
    • simplecj:

      No Pericles... that's ok. I understand the need for lighter material. Was this report just barely declassified? There's lots of accounts similar to this one already out there though.. I live sort of near Area 51 and have some odd-ball friends that have told me some crazy stories about driving out to the border of the property in the middle of the night and seeing "strange things"... not to mention being greeted by Humvee's and being told to leave the area.

    • 3 years ago
  • Pericles_Lewnes
    • 0
      Pericles_Lewnes  
    • Image
    • simplecj:

      Yes, it's supposedly newly declassified.

      I'm not really sure what to think about it. I just thought it odd. If you go to the link, there is a link to a UK government site, that DOES exist, but at first the link did not work - now its fixed.

      But it was in the MSM though and I found it odd.

      Here is the government site it is supposed to be on

      www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos

    • 3 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  
    • simplecj:

      You wrote:
      I live sort of near Area 51 and have some odd-ball friends that have told me some crazy stories about driving out to the border of the property in the middle of the night and seeing "strange things"

      Uh...do I know you?

    • 3 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  

    • Living out in the sticks in southern Nevada allows for seeing strange things in the sky.
      Little gray/green men in spaceships? I doubt it.
      Humans piloting experimental craft? Yep.

    • 3 years ago
  • simplecj
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • csmonut:

      An *experimental* aircraft the size of an aircraft carrier that could hover without moving and also suddenly pick up speeds of 7,600 miles per hour, thirty years ago? I don't think so. Even today, I don't think humans have been able to develop such a craft. Your mileage may differ.

    • 3 years ago
  • lenhart
    • 0
      lenhart  
    • csmonut:

      Speed can be verified. I daresay --no nation on earth had a craft capable of those speeds. This report is very credible. Certainly --many US astronauts have seen 'craft' while on NASA missions and are, at last, speaking out.

    • 3 years ago
  • Leonidis
  • asherp
  • Big_Black
  • Greenpointer
  • brittjoy
  • Alex_French
  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  

    • I'm always highly skeptical of this stuff, it might just be the dude wanted attention, but then... who knows?

      As far a lore goes, the little dude in the suit is known as a "man in black."

      Nobody knows what the deal is, but they show up after big UFO sightings-- like there was one in the southern USA that involved the military, where guys followed a low flying UFO for several hours through the woods, and the men in black showed up and started threatening them to stay quiet.

      The Will Smith's "Men in Black" movies kind of put spin on what Men in Black are. They likely aren't human, they are likely aliens dressed as humans.

    • 3 years ago
  • asherp
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