What is documented is fairly short. Moore went ashore alone and found the gate and main door closed, the beds unmade and the clock stopped. The lamps had been cleaned and refilled. One set of oilskins was left indoors, so one man had gone out without his. At the west landing a supply box had been smashed, railings were bent and heavy rock had been shifted, with turf torn from the cliff well above the sea. Moore said the kitchen utensils were clean, which suggested the men had left after a meal. Muirhead, who had hired all three men himself, wrote that they had most likely gone down to secure the ropes and box and were taken by a wave that reached some 110 feet above sea level.
The case is among the best known unsolved disappearances in British lighthouse history, but nothing in the official record points to anything beyond the sea. The famous log entries, the weeping keeper, the praying men and the untouched dinner come from later retellings, and are dealt with in a separate record on the embroidery. Three men died, and they had families. The lighthouse was automated in 1971.
Comments