Video · April 2009
Milton Torres at the 2009 X-Conference: the Manston intercept in his words
EyesOnTheSkies · April 2009 · 2 min · Watch the original
A short excerpt of Milton Torres's talk at the X-Conference in 2009, describing the night of 20 May 1957 when, flying an F-86D from RAF Manston, he locked on to a radar target over East Anglia, was ordered to fire, and saw it leave his radar in seconds. Here he says the debriefer came from the embassy; in his 1988 written account in the MoD file he describes a civilian who appeared the next day.
Source: X-Conference 2009, via the EyesOnTheSkies YouTube channel. Auto-captions.
Key moments
- 0:16 Milton Torres: Torres describes the closing intercept: he was at about Mach .92 and the target was “still wasn't moving”, as he put it.
- 0:47 Milton Torres: Then “he had decided to get the hell out of there”, at a speed “beyond anything I could measure… this happened in maybe one or two seconds”; the GCI told him it was off its 250-mile scope too.
- 2:01 Milton Torres: On the ground he was told: “this Mission has been declared top secret and you not to mention this to anyone not your commander not your wife”, and that someone was “sending somebody down from the embassy to debrief you”.
Transcript
From automatic captions; names and terms may be misspelled. Check the original video before quoting.
0:16 the the circle starts CH on the on the circle we have overtake speed uh the overtake was inning I was going po 92 and this thing is probably pretty near Ste still wasn't moving CU it was about that that much closure being as I was getting closer uh I noticed that my my radar was basically so damn strong that I could see all the lights were coming on and what what was going on was he had decided to get the hell out of there and when he got out of there he went mocked him or something was beyond anything I could measure so I mean he left me just standing there and he was gone and this happened in maybe one or two seconds and you know my speed is nothing I could do that was it it was all over for me I told the radar people I said GCI I said what's happening with boy he said I'm sorry sir but he's off our screen he has
1:18 250 M rain scope and he was already off of that screen as well so there's nothing I can do I can't do anything except fire rockets and then got land of n I don't want to do anything like that so he said well if you release the home PL meaning I can go home on the way home they called me and said when you get on the ground call me on the landline I've got to give you a briefing I said Roger I'd like to know what the hell happened too so anyway I got on the ground I called him this me seor was RAF control this is the mod that that PA shot and at any rate they said this Mission has been declared top secret and you not to mention this to anyone not your commander not your wife not anybody Mom's the Word you didn't fly this Mission you understand I said yes sir I understand he said now we're sending
2:19 somebody down from the embassy to debrief you
Connected files
People
- Milton Torres (features)