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",[12] while Ivan Logan, the second Venom's navigator, stated that "all we saw was a blip which rather indicated a stationary target".[13] 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. Flying Officers 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.[14] 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.
