[Gingernutmonkey]

Morning Average.. how rude of me I fell asleep but hey every day is a new day.... So many questions you have and forgive me for saying so, very few answers. But if you need more info I'm happy to oblige, as always.
The flying point you mention is not irrelevant, if I'd been minded to I could have tried to keep up with the object but as the top speed in the R44 is 110k I would have been left standing but alas I was stood on the deck in the back garden.
In my first post I mentioned I thought at first it was the police heli but as there was no noise it could not have been. Heli's mainly operate between 1k and 2k (feet). I would think the width of the beam of light from the police heli is around 5 to 10 feet dependant on distance and the angle you view it from. In my humble estimation I was looking at a glowing orb of around 10 to 15 feet, the perspective was gained by the poplar trees we have in the distance over the back garden and the scattered cloud at 4k.
As I mentioned in previous posts when you fly almost every day and deal with weather, cloud base, wind speed, air speed and ground speed you build up a knack for having a pretty good guess. I think I have provided all the information you'd need to start answering the wind speed question and how this relatively small object (Lantern) could manage the speed it was travelling.
If you have further questions then please let me know, happy to oblige as always. As an aside if I or you could not tell the difference between 200ft and 2k ft or the speed to 20kts and 200kts of an object 1/2 a mile away we would be in serious need of an eye exam or under the influence, maybe that was it after all these things do go hand in hand with the time of year and what is more likely that someone would be sober surely not.