After extracting themselves from the coal, both Aldington and Want made their way to Button's signalbox and said "What is the meaning of this? Your distant was off!" but Button replied that such a thing was impossible. Button was correct, as he could not have 'pulled off' any down signal, and while the down distant showed clear via the repeater, this was found to be due to debris on the actuating cables and the weight of the debris was not enough to lower the blue lens (semaphore signals were lit with paraffin oil lamps at the time, which gave a distinctly yellowish flame - a blue lens covering the lamp would result in a green light being shown) to show the green light Want claimed to have seen.