Neil Nixon's article on Spooky Isles says that around 10am on 3 November 1953 a de Havilland Vampire flown by Flight Lieutenant Terry Johnson and navigated by Flying Officer Geoffrey Smythe left RAF West Malling. In bright weather with little cloud Johnson saw a bright circular object ahead, glowing more around its perimeter than its centre. Both men saw it move rapidly right toward the east. They estimated it was about a mile away and the event lasted around 30 seconds.
The crew were questioned and the account reached Group Captain Peter Hamley and then the Air Ministry. The article says it was passed to the Duke of Edinburgh through his equerry, and that the Air Ministry first released details, in what it calls Britain's first official military confirmation of a UFO incident. It was raised in Parliament by Lt-Col Wentworth Schofield, and the Secretary of State for Air, Nigel Birch, suggested a weather balloon.
Johnson told the Kent Messenger in 1996 that it was not a weather balloon. The object gave no radar echo to the Vampire during the sighting. The article suggests the 2006 Project Condign report would attribute such unexplained cases to poorly understood atmospheric events. The pin is placed at the airfield site because the sighting was in the air nearby.
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