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The lighthouse at Orford Ness
I have just about reached a certain level of frustration with some of the more ridiculous arguments defending the Rendlesham case. In the recent UFO documentary ,“Secret history of UFOs”, retired Colonel Charles Halt once again denied he could be confused by the lighthouse,
There was a distant light house out of Orford Ness, which I was very familiar with....and it wasn’t the lighthouse.1
To follow this up, Leslie Kean added:
It is just absurd to imagine that these gentlemen... you know...would not know what the light house beam looked like and would come up with stories about UFOs. I mean there are people out there that will say anything to make a UFO case go away....2
Kean’s statement is based not on the evidence but on what Halt told her and what she wants to believe. The actual evidence demonstrates that Halt was not as knowledgeable about the lighthouse as he and Kean claim.
The evidence
Colonel Halt has repeatedly stated in interviews that he was not looking at the lighthouse and it was off to the right of his flashing light that he describes on the tape and in his memo:
First, the lighthouse was visible the whole time. It was readily apparent, and it was 30 to 40 degrees off to our right. If you were standing in the forest where we stood, at the supposed landing site or whatever you want to call it, you could see the farmer’s house directly in front of us. The lighthouse was 30 to 35 degrees off to the right, and the object was close to the farmer’s house and moving from there to the left, through the trees.3
How does this claim compare to the actual evidence from 1980? The recording of Halt and his team’s observations that night gave a bearing for the flashing light:
Now it’s stopped... Now it’s coming up... Hold on. There we go... about approximately four foot off the ground, at a compass heading of 110 degrees.4
Based on what Halt has continuously stated to those who want to believe him, the lighthouse should have been at a bearing of 140-150 degrees. We can see on a map that the lighthouse was on a true bearing of 95 degrees (yellow line). Clearly, it was not at a bearing 30-40 degrees to the right if the 110 degree bearing is accurate. Perhaps the bearing on the tape was significantly off. That would mean the bearing to the UFO was about 65 degrees from the lighthouse, which puts the bearing to the UFO in the direction well to the left of the farmhouse and towards the town of Sudbourne (red line).

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The evidence from the Halt tape refutes this direction:
2:44. We’re at the far side of the farmer’s...the second farmer’s field and made sighting again about 110 degrees. This looks like it’s clear off to the coast. It’s right on the horizon. Moves about a bit and flashes from time to time. Still steady or red in colour... 5
Instead of heading towards Sudbourne, to the ENE, Halt took his team almost due east into the field beyond the farm house. Looking at Ian Ridpath’s image of the farm house from where Halt stated he was standing (see right), one can see that the Orford Ness lighthouse is just visible over the ridge line.
The difference between the bearing on the tape and the actual bearing to the lighthouse can be explained by the inaccuracies involved with making such a measurement on an intermittent point source in the dark. Considering this, it seems that a difference of 15 degrees is within the margin for error.
Why would Halt think the lighthouse was to the right? The source of this confusion was first publicly identified by James Easton. At a bearing of about 118 degrees was the Shipwash lightship. (I got the location used on the previous page from http://www.wrecksite.eu/refPosView.aspx?126471 - 52 deg 1.734 min N and 1 deg 38.237 min E). This position may be inaccurate (other sources give locations in slightly different positions) but it serves as a an approximate location for evaluation. The lightship had a flashing white light on it and was over twenty degrees to the right of the lighthouse. Assuming a reasonable margin for error in Halt’s memory, it is reasonable to conclude that he had confused the lightship for the lighthouse.

Finally, we have the obvious description of the flashing light on the tape syncing up with the rotation rate of the Orford Ness lighthouse. This was demonstrated back in 1983 by Chuck DeCaro of CNN and was also presented on the Secret History of UFOs program. It is the most important evidence that this UFO was the lighthouse.
More denial
The other players in the Rendlesham affair are James Penniston and John Burroughs. They also have denied for many years that they could not confuse the lighthouse for their UFO. In 1998, we learned that they were not being completely honest. In 1980, Colonel Halt collected statements from all of the individuals involved that night, including a third team member and the supervisory personnel. James Easton discovered these statements in the case file and published them. What became clear, after reading them, was that all three personnel were confused by the lighthouse. They stumbled through the woods chasing some lights in the distance. One of these was a flashing light, which they pursued for some time before realizing it was just the lighthouse. This was something they had claimed they knew all about and could never be confused by. It appears that these claims, made years later, were less than accurate.
The excuse has been made that these principal witnesses simply lied in their official statements about this lighthouse pursuit. However, the statements of Master Sergeant Chandler and Lt. Buran, who had no reason to lie, confirm that this is what was reported to them on the radio. The truth of the matter is that these individuals, like Halt, have convinced themselves, and others, that they could not be fooled by the lighthouse when they actually were.
Conclusion
When Kean states this it is absurd that AF personnel could mistake the lighthouse for a UFO, she is either ignoring the evidence or simply hoping the viewer would not be exposed to it. The producers of the program, “Secret History of UFOs” submarined her claim by showing the lighthouse and playing the tape. That evidence is very clear that they were confused by the lighthouse and it played a major role in this case on both nights.

Quelle: SUNlite 5/2012