West Malling, England: RAF Vampire crew sees glowing circular object race toward them

At 10:00 a.m. Flight Lt. Terry S. Johnson and navigator Flying Officer Geoffrey Smythe, flying an RAF NF.10 Vampire at 30,000 feet near RAF West Malling, Kent, saw a starlike light far above them. It suddenly moved toward them at tremendous speed; they saw it as circular, with a bright light around its periphery, for about 30 seconds. Air Minister George Ward called it a "balloon." According to Desmond Leslie, Ward told him privately that he knew it was not a balloon, but that it had to be balloons until he had a saucer on the ground in Hyde Park. The entry adds that the object may have been a Skyhook balloon launched from Holloman AFB on 27 October. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.