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North Sea Blip: A UFO

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 21, 2008

LONDON - An American fighter pilot flying from an English air base at the height of the Cold War was ordered to open fire on a massive UFO that lit up his radar, according to an account published by Britain's National Archives on Monday.

The fighter pilot said he was ordered to fire a full salvo of rockets at the UFO moving erratically over the North Sea. But at the last minute the object picked up enormous speed and disappeared.

The account, first published in Britain's Daily Star newspaper more than 17 years ago and to this day unverified by military authorities, was one of many carried in the 1,500 pages that the archives made available online.

The unnamed pilot said that he and another airman were scrambled on the night of May 20, 1957, to intercept an unusual "bogey" on radars at the Royal Air Force Station Manston, an airfield at the southeastern tip of England about 75 miles from central London.

"This was a flying object with very unusual flight patterns," the pilot said, according to a typed manuscript of his account mailed to Britain's Ministry of Defense by a UFO enthusiast in 1988.

"In the initial briefing, it was suggested to us that the bogey actually was motionless for long intervals," he said.

Ordered to fly at full throttle in cloudy weather, the pilot said he was given the order to fire a volley of 24 rockets at the mysterious object.

"To be quite candid, I almost expletive my pants!" the pilot said, adding that he asked for confirmation and it was received.

Retired U.S. airman Milton Torres told Britain's Sky News on Monday that he was the pilot and that he has spent 50 frustrating years trying to uncover the truth of his mid-air encounter.

Speaking from his Miami home, Torres said he never saw the UFO with his naked eye, but watched in awe as it appeared on his jet's radar and sped off before he could fire.

"All of a sudden as it was coming in, it decided to take off and leave me behind ... The next thing I know it was gone," Torres told Sky News.

"It was some kind of space alien craft. It was so fast, it was so incredible ... it was absolutely death defying," he said.

In the newly published government file, the U.S. airman said the UFO appeared impossible to miss.

"The blip was burning a hole in the radar with its incredible intensity," the pilot said.

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