Recent Research
Four British Fortean researchers, Dr David Clarke, Andy Roberts, Martin Shough, and Jenny Randles, have since conducted a study that has indicated that the incident, or incidents, were very much more complex than the Condon Report had suggested.
Most significantly, the aircrews originally involved in the incident, F/Os David Chambers and John Brady from the first aircraft and F/Os Ian Fraser-Ker and Ivan Logan from the second, were located and interviewed. The aircrews involved all flew with 23 Squadron from RAF Waterbeach and were scrambled at 02:00 and 02:40 on 14 August – around two hours later than Wimbledon and Perkins claimed the interceptions occurred.
In contrast to the reports given in the original classified teleprinter message and in the accounts of both Wimbledon and Perkins, the aircrews both stated that the radar contacts obtained were unimpressive and that no 'tail-chase', or action on the part of the target, occurred. They also asserted no visual contacts were made. The first pilot, Chambers, commented that "my feeling is that there was nothing there, it was some sort of mistake", while Ivan Logan, the second Venom's navigator, stated that "all we saw was a blip which rather indicated a stationary target". At the time 23 Squadron decided that the radar contact had, if anything, been with a weather balloon.
To add to the contradictory nature of the accounts collected, another Venom crew was traced who had been scrambled much earlier in the evening. F/Os Leslie Arthur and Grahame Scofield were not told of the nature of their target and were forced to return to base after the aircraft's wingtip fuel tanks malfunctioned; Scofield recalled listening in to the radio communications of the intercepting pilots while back at Waterbeach later in the evening. Scofield's account of the overheard radio transmissions agreed, puzzlingly, with those of Wimbledon and Perkins, though he felt able to identify the crews as Chambers / Brady and Fraser-Ker / Logan. The time and path of Scofield's flight was identified as one which could also convincingly explain the sighting of a Venom at Ely by the civilian, Killock, who had claimed to see anomalous lights.
The new research additionally revealed that 23 Squadron's CO, Wing Commander (later Air Commodore) A. N. Davis, had also been diverted to investigate the radar returns while flying a Venom from RAF Coltishall. As the interception would have occurred at the same time as that described by Wimbledon and Perkins, it has been suggested that Davis and another pilot were the two described in their accounts.
Read more about this topic: Lakenheath-Bentwaters Incident
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