Moving lights over Kholonevychi , Ukraine

MidasGold

New Member
Hello everyone. I am from Ukraine, so I am using Google Translate for this post. I have been reading this forum for a long time but have never posted here before. Just now—on November 15th, at approximately 8:42 PM Kyiv time—I was cycling home from visiting friends. I live in the village of Kholonevychi, in the Volyn region. Directly to the west of the village (I checked using the compass on my phone), I saw lights in the sky that were visibly brighter than any star. There were about six of them, yellow in color, and—most frighteningly—they were moving chaotically. After about 20 seconds, some of them disappeared, and a few seconds later, the rest vanished as well. It really scared me. At first, I thought they might be some strange stars; then I considered a cell tower (since there is one in the direction I was traveling), but a cell tower only has a single red light. Given that Ukraine is currently a no-fly zone, these couldn't have been commercial aircraft, and since I live in a remote village, drones seem unlikely as well. I also wondered if it might be air defense, but there were no air raid alerts in my region today. I tried to record it, but the camera on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 can't pick up anything at night. I realize it's probably impossible to figure out what this was based on such a vague description and without video, but could anyone perhaps suggest some possibilities? Because it scared me, and as I was driving home, I started shaking.

Edited to add: the lights were not very high above the horizon. They moved in such a way that some would approach each other and then move apart, while others flew off in various random directions. Having seen a train of Starlink satellites before, I can say that the speed of these lights was roughly similar to that of the satellites. However, the objects I observed did not follow any specific flight path. Furthermore, the objects were not far apart from one another; they were all located in the same part of the sky, occupying an area roughly the size of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) or even smaller.
 
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These are Starlink Horizon Flares — satellites reflecting the sun when close to the horizon
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=1/Kholonevychi Starlink/20261115_201551_1b411d13d2cac9952d4beb92b1260fe6.js
1794773870974.png
 
The coming years will be interesting, as more navigation/comms satellite constellations will get in operation. Each having hundreds of satellites. Europe is on it, but also individual countries are planning them. It gets busy!
 
A few days don't make much difference. The region (and time) where they appear will shift over timeView attachment 94285

You can install this web app to check in real time (or predict them)

https://shf.sitrec.org

View attachment 94287
I appreciate the response; I feel at ease now. When I first saw these lights, the unnatural way they moved triggered a sense of panic in me. A friend of mine also mentioned that he had previously seen similar lights in that same direction. I also checked the animation of their movement in Sitrec, and it really resembled what I had witnessed. Everything seems to be just as you described.
 
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