Two US 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 鈥渁 flying aircraft carrier鈥�.
It spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 12,000 kilometres per hour, said pilot Milton Torres, who is now 77 and living in Miami, Florida.
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After the alert, an unnamed man 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 (see UK releases classified UFO files).
The files blame other UFO sightings on weather balloons, clouds or normal aircraft.
UFO expert David Clarke said the sighting may have been part of a secret US project to create phantom aircraft on radar screens to test Soviet air defences. 鈥淧erhaps what this pilot had seen was some kind of experiment in electronic warfare,鈥� he said. 鈥淪omething very unusual happened.鈥�
鈥楩lying aircraft carrier鈥�
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.
鈥淚 was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets.
鈥淚 had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier,鈥� he added. 鈥淭he larger the airplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself.鈥�
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 鈥渓ooked like a well-dressed IBM salesman鈥�. 鈥淗e threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone,鈥� 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.
鈥淚 shall never forget it,鈥� Torres told the Times. 鈥淥n that night I was ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before.鈥�
