How would you sort out a report like this?

I’d separate the observations instead of treating them as one connected event. Animals can react to ordinary sounds or activity people haven’t noticed, and a recording of an unexplained sound doesn’t tell us where it came from. Aircraft trails and unusual flight paths need their own checks, while a light in a night clip is hard to judge without distance, scale, and camera details.

The most useful next step is to find original, timestamped footage and compare it with independent records or other local observations. A clip becoming unavailable doesn’t, by itself, show why it disappeared or prove anything was being hidden.

Short version: intriguing report, not enough to identify what happened. I’d want the unedited files, clear dates and location, and views from more than one camera before calling the light an object or linking it to the sounds and animal behavior.

It’s fair to keep an open mind about an unusual sighting, but the different details don’t automatically support each other. A light over a distant hill could be difficult to interpret from a single nighttime view, and aircraft trails are not evidence that the aircraft were connected to it. Treat each claim as a separate question until there’s evidence tying them together.