And on December 26th, there will be millions of children reporting that they saw Santa Claus the night before. And that is on just one night.
Yes, I have looked through night vision devices, and have no idea how someone could mistake a sweeping lighthouse beam for a stationary object on fire.
You know what? The Sci-Fi people should have waited until nightfall, shot some footage of the lighthouse beam playing through the woods (if it's still operable) and let the viewer decide if grown men with serious military responsibilities would have thought they were within a few feet of an unprecedented air craft based upon what we see.
My guess is no.
If the lighthouse is inoperable, they (SciFi) should have paid to fire it up.
Col. Halt also (in his initial memo) assigned dimensions to the craft he saw, and said that it went back and forth. Not consistent with a sweeping beam.
Why do you ignore the factor of many witnesses from different angles seeing inexplicable phenomena (all of whom were familiar with the lighthouse and its location)? Or the fact that the phenomena was not repeated, though the lighthouse was still in operation, and the base patrolled in the same manner?