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The 'Security Police' involved on the first night were Fred ‘Skip’ Buran, John Burroughs, Ed Cabansag, J. D. Chandler, and Jim Penniston. As far as I can tell, these individuals were not involved on the third night. The party on the third night included Halt, Nevels, Englund and Ball. If any...

But no compass. (edit, it does appear they took one, but may not have used it much in the dark). What is a 'trained SP investigator', and what would they be trained in? Security policemen?

Quite plausible. However I note that (in Dr Clarke's timeline) the guy who reported 'they're back' actually stated this on Friday night; site’ (unimpressed) 2130 SPs arrive...

No, but Sirius was south of Halt, and gradually losing altitude, as described in the tape. At 0400 it was approximately the same height off the horizon as Halt stated ('five to ten degrees' ) . Note that any object that hangs around in the sky for at least three quarters of an hour, gradually...

So it has gone completely now, it seems. The last time I was in that part of the country it was to visit the archaeological site at Sutton Hoo, but we drove past the Rendlesham forest.

Bear in mind that the lighthouse was not a point source; indeed, it was a complex source issuing from a Fresnel lens.

Airy disks are quite variable, and depend on the focus and optics of the device; but some do have darker circles in the centre.

I think they are probably the same effect, appearing on different types of electronic imaging devices.

Those look like Airy disks. The instrument Halt was using to look at the lighthouse was a Starscope photomultiplier, which produces a lot of artifacts, including flares and glare. According to Ridpath, a very bright light could burn out the centre of the image as well, making it look dark.

The only problem I have with the hypothesis that this object was suspended from the wire seen in the photo, is that a freely suspended wire hanging from two points will form a smooth catenary curve, but if you hang a weight from the midpoint it changes to a flattened 'Y' shape'. I'm not really...

Yes, perhaps so. A thin layer of mist would be enough to show the beam quite clearly. Judging from this photo, the loom would have reached around almost to the location of the observers, so it would have shone over their heads briefly before winking out.

Yes, Orford Ness will have had a beam. It still has, but much less bright than in 1980. When the beam is visible but you can't see the light itself, that is called the 'loom', and it can be very difficult to tell where it is coming from or going too. Here's an interesting image about...

Only third-hand at the moment, reporting indirectly what the family said. But if I find a better one I'll post it. For what it is worth, here is an article that mentions Barker, Carey and Kerr, but it has few details...

I won't give more than a passing mention to the account of the local gamekeeper David Boast, who never gave an account in his lifetime, but members of his family have recounted second-hand stories that he is said to have told them about the event. Or the radar witnesses found by Robert...

Halt. (sorry- I'm not asking you to stop; just pointing out that Halt's name is Halt, not Holt). Carry on.

The reason I mention the 'loom' (the light cast by an invisible lighthouse on the sky) is that it affords another possible explanation for the 'beams' described by Halt on the tape. If the beams were not an artifact of the Starscope, perhaps the beams cast by the lighthouse in the sky may have...

Even Halt hadn't been at Rendlesham very long, and he does not seem to have been in that part of the forest at night before.

Burroughs and Cabansag were looking at the lighthouse on the 26th. Halt was looking at the lighthouse on the 28th, somewhere between midnight and 02:44 am. This was a completely different location from where they started to observe various stars and planets at 03:15 am - as far as I can tell...

I speculate that Penniston saw some distant vehicle through the trees at some point; as a relatively new arrival in the UK he may not have been familiar with British agricultural vehicles, or maybe some other vehicle (Ridpath suggests a police car). But Penniston's later descriptions seem to...

And I have always also assumed that Halt and his associates were periodically using the Starscope, an instrument that can create a wide range of artifacts through internal reflections and refractions. This may be the cause of the 'beams' he reported. A similar light-intensifier was responsible...