sighting

Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter

1957-05-20 · East Anglia, United Kingdom · UK
Sourcing status: Sourced and not flagged as disputed (see Sources section below for the 2 citations this entry is based on).

Operating out of RAF Manston, USAF pilot Milton Torres was ordered to intercept an anomalous radar target the size of an aircraft carrier hovering over the English Channel. Torres achieved a radar lock and was ordered to fire a salvo of unguided rockets, but the object instantly accelerated to Mach 10 and vanished before he could pull the trigger. The incident was classified at the time, and Torres reported being instructed by an intelligence officer never to discuss it. He did not speak publicly until 2008, after Britain's Ministry of Defence released the relevant files under FOI legislation. The released documents corroborate the basic outline of his account, including the order to engage and the rapid disappearance of the target. The case is now one of the most thoroughly documented Cold War-era intercept events.

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