Alien Lore No. 143 - The UFO we couldn't shoot down

Thanks to Jeff Clinton for this tip...for a rationalist, he sure comes up with a lot of these!

Every since Great Britain opened up their UFO files to the public, researchers have been mining some fascinating nuggets from the vaults. This story tells about a joint American-British attempt to shoot down a UFO. Most of this comes from an account that was published by Britain's National Archives last week. A few details come from an Associated Press story by Raphael G. Satter.

In the 1950's, an American fighter pilot was ordered to attack a UFO moving erratically over the North Sea with rockets. As he was about to launch his rockets, the UFO sped up mightily. . .and disappeared.

The story appeared in England's Daily Star newspaper but has never been confirmed or denied by the military authorities. An account of this was included among many released in the first 1,500 pages of UFO archives published in the internet.

The American pilot said he and another pilot were scrambled in May, 1957 to intercept a "bogey" seen on radar at the Manston Air Force Station Manston, 75 miles from 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 frequently motionless."

The pilot was given an order to fire a volley of 24 rockets at the UFO. "To be quite candid I almost s**t my pants!" the pilot said, saying he asked for confirmation—which he received.

Long retired U.S. flier Milton Torres told Britain's Sky News last week that he was the pilot and has spent the last 51 years trying to figure out exactly what happened. Torres never saw the UFO with his naked eye, but watched as it appeared on his jet's radar and sped off before he had chance to 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..."

As he locked on the UFO to prepare for combat, the object began to move wildly (sensing the lock-on?) before fading off his radar. The mission was scrubbed.

"I had not the foggiest idea what had actually occurred, nor would anyone explain anything to me," the pilot said. He said he was led to a man in civilian clothes, who "advised me that this would be considered highly classified and that I should not discuss it with anybody not even my commander."

Britain's military said it had no record of the incident. Neither did the U.S. military (what a surprise). According to the Associated Press story, "David Clarke, a UFO expert who has worked with the National Archives on the document release, said it was one of the most intriguing stories he had culled from the batch of files released Monday."
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