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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...

Hmm. Halt started seeing the 'beams' at 03:15, while the star was quite a bit higher, and at 04:00 Halt says he thought the star was 5-10 degrees off the horizon; quite accurate for Sirius at 04:00. The mere fact that these witnesses saw the phenomenon for at least three quarters of an hour...

Burroughs said in his original witness statement; Cabansag said; http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2c.html

Sirius would have moved further west over time; curiously Halt did the same thing, assuming he eventually returned to Woodbridge at the end of the night. So the witness, and the star, would both have converged on the base.

The SpaceX launch from Canaveral occurred on May 3, at 02.37 GMT. https://newsroomin.eu/en/ufo-sighting-explained-as-spacexs-falcon-9-rocket/ This translates to 19.37 Pacific time on May 2. Would this launch cause a report at 21.15 Pacific time? Perhaps the second stage de-orbiting after one orbit?

I'm fairly sure that bright stars and planets can appear to 'wander' due to contrast effects, even when the observer is relatively motionless. This is probably a kind of autokinesis effect, coupled with the different sensitivities of the rods and cones in the human eye.