Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter

The Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter is a case reported by a former jet pilot in the United States Air Force, Milton John Torres, of Miami, Florida. On May 20, 1957, the 25-year-old Torres was ordered on a mission to intercept and shoot down a large UFO that had been picked up by radar in the skies over East Anglia, United Kingdom. Torres, flying a North American Aviation F-86D Sabre jet approached the object and prepared to fire upon it. As he locked on his weapons, the UFO suddenly zoomed away at a high rate of speed. The details of this case were first made public in a release of UFO-related case files by the British government in October 2008.
This case shares some similarities with the Del Rio, Texas UFO Crash of 1955, which also involved an aerial encounter between an F-86 Sabre and a UFO.
Events Prior to Sighting
On May 20, 1957, Milton Torres was a 25-year-old lieutenant with the 514th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in the 406th Air Expeditionary Wing based at RAF Manston in Kent. Torres was the pilot of one of two North American Aviation F-86D jets that were on five-minute alert at the end of the runway at RAF Manston airfield, awaiting the signal to scramble. The two American pilots were on standby and their jets were fully powered for immediate take-off. The exact time of the incident is not known, but it occurred late in the evening on May 20.
Ordered to Intercept
Torres and his fellow pilot were in the "alert shack" at RAF Manston when they received instructions to take to the air. The two pilots raced to their respective F-86Ds and took off well within the allotted five minutes.
"The initial briefing indicated that the ground was observing for a considerable time a blip that was orbiting the East Anglia area." Torres was then told that the object of his pursuit "was an unidentified flying object with very unusual flight patterns" and that "the bogey actually was motionless for long intervals."
Torres and his wingman were vectored by Met Sector to a position over the North Sea, just east of East Anglia. Asked to report any visual observations about the UFO, Torres told ground control, "I'm in the soup, and it is impossible to see anything." High altostratus clouds and night flying conditions prevented him from making any visual contact. According to Torres, the UFO "didn’t follow classic Newtonian mechanics. It made a right turn almost on a dime. The (Royal Air Force radar) scope had a range of 250 miles. And after two sweeps, which took two seconds, it was gone. And I was flying almost at Mach 1, at .92."
Aftermath
After the mission, Torres was advised that the mission he had just completed was classified and that he would receive further information about it from an "investigator." Torres later wrote, "I had not the foggiest idea what had actually occurred, nor would anyone explain anything to me." However, recently released CIA documents show that the Palladium program did not actually begin until the early 1960s.
Case Files Released
The MoD began releasing declassified UFO-related files in 2005 as requests were made under Britain's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). According to the British National Archives Web site, "In 2008 MoD announced their intention to transfer all their remaining records on UFOs to The National Archives before 2010. This transfer has now begun with 27 UFO files dating from 1979 to 1991 opened to the public via The National Archives UFO website during 2008."
Documents released in October 2008 included a 1988 letter from Torres to the MoD relating his UFO experience and expressing his desire to know more about what really happened on that day.
Recent Comments by Torres
In an interview with the Miami Herald published October 23, 2008, the 77-year-old Torres stated that the UFO he saw on radar in 1957 "was not made of this Earth" and that his mission to fire upon the UFO was "just a dumb little kid going to slaughter." He expressed gratitude at not having fired because he surely "would have been vaporized." Speaking to Miles O'Brien of Cable News Network (CNN), Torres said he is convinced the UFO he encountered was designed by an "alien" intelligence and was not manufactured on Earth. He also said,"It was some kind of space alien craft. It was so fast, it was so incredible ... it was absolutely death defying."
"To this day, when he goes outside, he always looks up, half expecting to catch a glimpse of the prey that escaped him that night," according to an article in the Toronto Star.

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