Is this a photo of a UFO... or a game of Ultimate Frisbee?
You may have noticed that we don't talk about UFOs or report sightings and other supposed evidence as news on Scanner.
However, when mainstream media outlets start running epic stories about Cold War-era pilots coming out of retirement to discuss shooting down alien spacecraft, it's time to explore...
"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."
That's retired American pilot Milton Torres talking about an incident in May 1957 when he was ordered to shoot down a UFO and told never, under penalty of treason, to discuss the incident with anyone. Torres, 77 and now living in Miami, is apparently no longer afraid of G-men... or aliens:
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."
UFO expert David Clarke noted that the object may have been the decoy in a Western program trying to test Soviet air capabilities... or a UFO. What do you think? Are these saucers from outer space or... weather balloons? Or what?
Via Yahoo/Reuters. The UK National Archives on UFOs can be found here.
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