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An American fighter pilot flying from an East Kent air base at the height of the Cold War was ordered to open fire on a massive UFO that lit up his radar, according to an account just published by Britain's National Archives.

Pilot Milton Torres, then aged 25, was on standby at RAF Manston near Ramsgate on 20 May 1957 when he received an urgent order to scramble to intercept a UFO with “very unusual flight patterns” over East Anglia that ground radar operators had been tracking for some time.

It was so cloudy he could not see anything, but the object showed up clearly on his radar as similar in size to a B-52 bomber.

Ordered to fly at full throttle in cloudy weather, the pilot said he was given the order to fire a volley of 24 rockets at the mysterious object.

"To be quite candid I almost **** my pants!" the pilot said, saying he asked for confirmation ,  which he received.

But before he could carry out this instruction the UFO suddenly darted off and disappeared from his scope in a matter of seconds.

The next day a man claiming to be from the US National Security Agency threatened him with losing his flying status if he told anyone what happened.

Dr Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, Florida, said he was flying at about Mach 0.92, while the UFO was travelling at over Mach 10.

The retired civil engineering professor said: “There are people who are still alive on Earth who know about this. I'm talking about the RAF, USAF, whatever.”