Secret UK government files released during the week reveal that two US fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War.

One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like ‘a flying aircraft carrier.’

The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it [the UFO] spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 12,000 kph (7,600 mph).

His story was among dozens of UFO sightings in defense ministry files released at the National Archives in London after the 50-year secrecy laws allowed for their release.

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.

“The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets. At the last moment, the object disappeared from the radar screen and the high-speed chase was called off.”

Torres said the item his weapons system locked on to “had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier.”

According to Torres, the next day he was debriefed by an unnamed man who ‘looked like a well-dressed IBM salesman’, who “threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone”.

Torres said he has been waiting 50 years for an explanation, saying on the night in question he was “ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before”.

The files are online at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos