[jadams5]

(also not a physicist) I think you're correct that objects falling into a black hole never cross the event horizon from our reference frame, but at the same time the light from the object red shifts towards zero energy as it approaches the event horizon as well.

[maffydub]

Thanks!

Does the fact that the light red shifts towards zero energy mean that the information has been lost, or just that you can't observe it _at_the_moment_?

If the black hole then shrinks due to Hawking radiation, what happens to the object that _never_quite_fell_into_ the black hole?

If it hasn't yet fallen into the black hole, presumably its light becomes slightly-less-red-shifted once more, meaning that you can observe its information again?