I know there are already a few of these questions on here. But the questions - and answers - seem to get lost in a discussion of coordinate systems and proper time. This is an attempt to set up the thought experiment in a way that doesn't require too much math and isn't embedded too deeply in a choice of coordinates. We have a sphere of some material with an equation of state that gives a strictly monotonic relationship between pressure and density. There is a sensor deep within the material with the exactly same equation of state. It is an arbitrary - though definite distance from the center of the sphere. The sensor broadcasts a signal continuous along a null geodesic to a distant observer. The material is perfectly transparent to this signal. The observer can continue to detect the signal no matter how red-shifted it becomes. We are - if it isn't obvious - purely in the realm of classical physics here. We're not quantizing anything. The material collapses. The density is highest at the center (due to our monotonic equation of state) so the horizon begins at a point there, but the gradient - at least at the first instant - is infinite. The sensor is outside - but arbitrarily close. The event horizon at this point is time-like. Mass continues to infall to bring the mass function - smoothly - to a maximum, after which mass-loss to Hawking radiation takes over and the black hole evaporates slowly to nothing in finite (although incomprehensibly long) time. In this second phase - the horizon is space-like. Signals that were sent at, or after, the moment of black hole formation continue to escape the horizon and reach the distant observer right up until the evaporation of the black hole. At any definite point in their proper time before the distant observer sees the evaporation - they have still not seen the sensor cross the horizon. So does the sensor fall inside the horizon or not? And can this question be answered without recourse to coordinate choices and equations - just a descriptive account of what different observers observe?