It appears to be coming towards them, which is not the same thing. You are mistaking illusion for reality, which is the error at the heart of so many UFO sightings. The stars no more moved than did the lighthouse, which was also reported as approaching and receding.
As discussed here in great detail, the default explanation that our star-like object, which otherwise behaved exactly like a star, was doubtless a star...
Unless, of course, what we have documented is correct.
Not all three, at the exact same time though...
"What could cause stars apparently to move towards or away from the observer? The answer is obscuration by thin, moving cloud. The resulting changes in the brightness of a star can give the false impression of approach (brightening) or recession (dimming)."
Of course it is and I once came across a classic example of scintillating stars ultimately being shown as an explanation for a publicised, 'UFO' sighting.
Well, my post 1191 examines this, to some extent.
That's a critical point that remains an open issue. Until and unless one knows which (if any) such instrument was being used at the time of a reported observation it's effectively impossible to specify the range of possible visual effects that must be ruled out to be confident about what was being seen.
Of course, however, this does not satisfactory explain why, even if three people are confused at the precise same moment, one of them thinks he is seeing a beam of light descending, whilst someone next to him evidently sees an apparition at, again at the same time, prompting an exclamation about colours being observed.
That will remain forever a mystery, I'm afraid. Even the people who witnessed this would not remember this accurately enough to be certain. But we can note that only one person seems to mention the beams at any one time, and it is a different person to the one who notices the colours.
Two completely different things.
What a find!
Has he perhaps forgotten his own report of smaller, twin-blade helicopters, not from the base, operating in that area, shortly afterwards?
I don't know. I was gobsmacked when searching for info on VTOL / helo drones from the period and got a hit on Rendlesham - from one of the documented witnesses, no less ...
Taking my lead from David Clarke's fabulous work, I have been researching any UFO related documents within the Scottish government archives.
Well, that may be so, but what we need to do is establish where Burroughs was when Halt saw his beams and apparently moving lights. Burroughs does not appear on the tape in any significant way, and the tape is our best evidence - so where was he? If he was significantly distant from Halt he can't confirm what Halt saw.
And we also need confirmation that he is't just repeating what he heard from others. Hearsay bedevils investigations like this, and we don't have a written statement from him like we do for Night One.
The point is not that the light was apparently moving towards them on the same bearing, but that it appeared to move over them, which implies a considerable angular change, as I pointed out. It may be some bizarre illusion but I know of no psychological mechanism that could have that effect. The physical response is also different, i.e. if you see an aircraft heading towards you you will eventually have to crane your neck considerably to keep it in view. It must have been apparently overhead as is implied by the claim that it was sending down a beam just in front of the witnesses.
Now that is interesting! Suppose that there was a black project crash and they were using such drones to search for it and give guidance to searchers, then maybe Penniston and Burroughs did see one of the drones and they had to be encouraged to report it as something ET, no doubt with narcohypnotic methods.
My contention is that the starscope probably caused these apparent beams; the lens flare in that .gif I keep posting is a long, thin stream of smaller flares, that seems to track directly towards the observer. That, I believe, is the reason for the apparent beam phenomenon, beaming straight down at their feet. It is much more likely than a real beam of any kind coming down from a real UFO, or even from a drone; that is just pulp fiction.
Not only that, we ridiculously, all these years later, have no related testimonies in that regard from anyone who was with Halt.
Only yesterday, I watched part of a video which came up as a YouTube suggestion - presumably because I had previously searched for, 'Bentwaters'.
As I have pointed out repeatedly, the claim that the light moved over them was made later by Halt, by when he was embellishing the story for the media. On the tape, he only ever refers to it as being about 5-10° off the horizon, over Woobridge. How carefully have you read the transcript, if at all?
Lastly, re the Burroughs archives, he claimed that there was a, 'lot missing' from Halt's recording about what happened at 03:15
He may have referred to it initially being 5-10 deg off the horizon, but it is clear from the tape that he is claiming that it came over them -- otherwise why link it with the beam of light that came down in front of them?
Given that they were in what must have seemed a bizarre and scary situation, I would imagine that the odd verbal error might not be unexpected. But this extract certainly clarifies an issue that I had previously with his evidence, the apparent conflict between the two descriptions of the light beam as (1) like a laser and (2) several inches in diameter.
