How to see deployed Starlink "Racetrack" flares

@Mick West has written an article summarising the full Starlink-UAP saga.....

The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022
In the late summer of 2022, a new flap began. Commercial airline pilots flying at night started seeing lights in the sky from inside their darkened cockpits. These were like nothing they had seen before. The lights seemed very far away, possibly in space, and the pilots described them as moving in “racetrack” patterns due to the way they brightened then dimmed like planes flying in a racetrack-shaped circuit with their landing lights on.
Click to expand...
The pilots were adamant that what they were looking at were not satellites and, more specifically, that they were not Starlink satellites. They knew this because they had seen Starlink satellites, and this looked nothing like what they had seen.

The pilots were not entirely wrong. Starlink is a constellation of thousands of low-orbit satellites that are designed to provide internet connections to remote areas. The satellites are launched in groups of fifty or more, and the groups are deployed all at the same time. For a time, before they reach their final orbits, the satellites circle Earth in a “train” that, from the ground and illuminated by the sun, looks like a long string (or train) of bright lights (see Figure 2).
Click to expand...

Full article: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/02/the-great-starlink-racetrack-ufo-flap-of-2022/
 
flarkey said:
@Mick West has written an article summarising the full Starlink-UAP saga.....

The Great Starlink Racetrack UFO Flap of 2022
Click to expand...
Yeah, I actually wrote it early December. That's an issue with paper publications, long lead-times mean it's not always the most up-to-date take.
 
A nice example of Starlink flares seen in Maryland recently has been posted on Reddit...

https://v.redd.it/wjs2dv3gc5sa1




Updating to share a few more videos I received from my mom. These were taken between 2:48 and 3:02am Tuesday (apologies i misheard her in my original post) according to the data on the videos. I can definitely see this being satellite glares, but it also is interesting that there was a pilot who described something similar in the skies a few hundred miles south in NC around the same time.
Click to expand...
Source: https://imgur.com/a/j79G24b
 
Last edited:
My initial reaction is surely thats too early for the satellites to be catching the sun?
Nearly 4 hours before sunrise, as they don't orbit that high.
Maybe other satellites?
Or I could just be wrong
 
captancourgette said:
My initial reaction is surely thats too early for the satellites to be catching the sun?
Nearly 4 hours before sunrise, as they don't orbit that high.
Maybe other satellites?
Or I could just be wrong
Click to expand...
No, that time is when the sun's at the right elevation this time of year in MD. As we get closer to summer the right viewing conditions move towards the middle of the night and in a few weeks' time the sun will never be low enough at that latitude for the sats to become visible at all. I guess people there will then habe to wait until mid August or so before it'll be possible to see them again.
 
captancourgette said:
Are you sure?
I checked here, and between 2:45 and 3am seems a lot earlier than possible viewing times in maryland
https://findstarlink.com/#4361831;3
Or am I understanding this wrong?
Click to expand...
The findstarlink.com website only really deals with the Starlink trains that go overhead. The ones that have been seen here are very low to the horizon, maybe only 5° above. The sun should be around 40° below the horizon and in the direction that the flares were seen, in this case NW (I think).
 
Starlink flares seen from Texas...

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/12g4pkl/compilation_of_uaps_captured_near_friona_tx_march/


wanted to send some videos i took before heading into work while riding passenger. these lights had been showing up before since the 22nd of March at around 4:20AM (no pun intended). finally on Monday (27th) morning I decided to keep my phone camera recording constantly to see if i could capture the same lights that had appeared before and sure enough they did and even disappeared shortly after, then repeated it 4 times. They preferably like to show up near a meat processing plant called Cargill Meat Solutions near Friona TX on highway 60 and it seems like it adores the attention of drivers too.
Click to expand...

Source: https://youtu.be/2z9sIw5GFWU

Sun position and direction is as we'd expect for Starlink Flares.
https://www.suncalc.org/#/34.5861,-102.7928,10/2023.03.22/04:25/1/3

1681072236693.png
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
FatPhil said:
If what they're looking at is over Fearrington and Sanford is behind them (both mentioned in the first 60 seconds), then there's a good chance they're looking NNE more than E.
Click to expand...

Mapped for reference.

1683107103370.png

They talk of two helicopters, a UNC (Univeristy of North Carolina Hosptial) over Fearrington at 2200ft and an AirLife at 2800 ft coming up from Sanford. Checking FlightRadar24 that suggest the time of the video is approx 06:05 AM

1683109185703.png
 
Last edited:
Fox News published a story back in February saying that The National Weather Service have captured a video of a "swarm of meteors" towards the east at dawn in Kansas. Looks more like deployed starlink flares to me. Maybe they didn't realise the video was a timelapse?

https://www.foxnews.com/us/kansas-night-sky-lit-small-swarm-meteors

1683705057919.png

Kansas night sky lit up by 'small swarm of meteors'

The National Weather Service's Goodland office captured video of meteors lighting up the night sky on Sunday.

Video shows several streaking lights low on the horizon in the early hours of Sunday morning. A small swarm of meteors burned up as they traveled through Earth's atmosphere near Goodland, Kansas, early Sunday morning. (National Weather Service Goodland)

The National Weather Service captured the video with an eastern-facing camera in Goodland, a small town in northwestern Kansas. Roughly 48.5 tons of meteoritic material strikes Earth every day, almost all of it vaporizing as it travels through the atmosphere and creating "shooting stars," according to NASA.

The meteorites that do make it to Earth's surface go unnoticed for the most part, but occasionally they strike in an inhabited area close to humans. Several meteors were captured by a camera at the National Weather Service's Goodland office. (National Weather Service Goodland)

Earlier this week, a nearly 1000-pound meteorite measuring two feet wide crashed near McAllen, Texas.
Click to expand...

This is the source of the video - the NWS Goodland (Kansas) Twitter account...

Source: https://twitter.com/NWSGoodland/status/1627298976893661184?s=20
 
Last edited:
flarkey said:
Another case on Reddit that turned out to be (probably) Starlink flares. This was in South Carolina, looking to the North at 1am on 14 August 2023.
Click to expand...
This one too, I think — to the right of bottom-center, starting around 00:16:



 
Max Phalange said:
This one too, I think — to the right of bottom-center, starting around 00:16:
Click to expand...
Yes I saw that and commented that it was Starlink

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15q5tec/i_dont_believe_in_aliens_visiting_us_ive_been/jw4qdyn/

I find that debunking comments can get lost when they are in a thread with many others, 620 in this case. When I'm in a debunking mood on Reddit I tend to filter the posts by "New" so that I can get in early before the bunk arrives. :p
 
Last edited:
What's annoying is that guy just ghosted without so much as a thanks when his sighting was explained. Maybe the second astrophotographer this month to use UFOs to get some eyes on their work.
 
What I think are starlink flares in West Virginia.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/16lcgso/i_recorded_uapufos_in_west_virginia_links_below/


First time
Unedited UFO/UAP footage from West Virginia - YouTube

Second time (no video)

Third time
Source: https://youtu.be/WSHwik9dbvk?si=D6D9OLoRJeoJu9LD


All 3 times were at approx. 3am on a Friday night/Saturday morning

LOCATION:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/LNzGov39UDYEkTzy7
Content from External Source
I checked suncal and stellarium and the Sun was around 40 degrees below the horizon and there were starlink satellites potentially flaring NNE near the Big Dipper around the time of the videos. (Note I accidentally checked the 17th in the screenshots but I went back and checked the 16th and it looked similar in both respects). The OP got offended at suggesting satellite flares and didn't confirm what direction they were filming so I didn't press.

Source: https://imgur.com/a/psr7dQb
 
MonkeeSage said:
What I think are starlink flares in West Virginia.
Click to expand...
Maybe you can ask him how he can reconcile his "it's not that there's [...] anything anywhere out there" (1st vid, ts=1m04s-1m09s) with the number of starlinks above the horizon in your imgur gallery right in the direction he's looking? His statement appears to be devoid of factiness.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Mick West
Why "Racetrack" UFOs are mostly Starlink Flares
2
Replies
56
Views
13K
Mendel
Mendel
Mick West
Why are Starlink "Racetrack" Flares [Mostly] Reported from Planes?
2 3
Replies
89
Views
12K
flarkey
flarkey
S
Bright light in Carribean during Starlink outtage
Replies
2
Views
388
Ann K
Ann K
Mick West
Stars and Other Celestial Object in Sitrec
Replies
13
Views
990
Mick West
Mick West
lockedupsafe
A merchant ship reported 8 UFOs coming out of the ocean in Argentina
Replies
4
Views
889
flarkey
flarkey

Latest posts

Back
Top