Correct, what they see is a 'star' or multiple 'stars' moving around in the distance close to the horizon
Yep. Mostly because the pilots say it is doing things that Starlink wouldn't do.
Haven't got to that bit yet.
Need to work out an accurate position for the 0525z time.
Are there any earlier crossings that could be a match?
Its possible, but I haven't found any. However - I think the fact that we've found a plane of the right type (A321) with the right elapsed (2hr26m) time in the right location ("past 48N 40W") at the same time as N61MN is nearby is enough of a correlation to be confident that this is the plane that the video was recorded from.
Yes, as they are so far away they will appear very similar to aircraft that are close by each other.
the problem with Starlink is that people have learned what a starlink train in orbit-raise looks like, so when they hear the word they don't identify it with the on-station flare sequence causing the "racetrack" sightings, and object to the analysis.
Sure, but the trains used to generate a lot of "mysterious UFO" claims, until people got used to them. (Presumably there are still people seeing one for the first time and being amazed, but I for one am seeing fewer reports, and more people eager to explain what was seen.)
I don't think it will be quite as easy as with the trains. Those were really obvious and recognizable phenomena, bright and visible from the ground. The deployed Starlink flares are dim, best seen from a plane, and somewhat ambiguous.
On the other hand, they are seen largely by pilots, a smaller group in communication with one another, so hopefully the information will spread in that community.
But, pilots also frequent reddit and no, they are not super human, nor are they all seriously looking for truth. I predict this "race tack ufo" stuff will be going on for quite a while.On the other hand, they are seen largely by pilots, a smaller group in communication with one another, so hopefully the information will spread in that community.
But we'll see how it plays out -- the last few years have certainly dealt a blow to my thinking that I can accurately forecast what people will believe or disbelieve, and what they'll do about it!
This thread is getting some traction on PPrune, which is a Pilot's Message Board. Hopefully that will create some awareness amongst airline pilots ...
https://thedebrief.org/recent-pilot-uap-sightings-point-to-aviation-safety-challenges-experts-say/External Quote:
Come to think of it I suppose that to someone who's looking at all of this from the outside these satellite matchings might even appear like a cheap way of discrediting every sighting as bunk: Starlink sats seemingly everywhere -> point at random sats that happened to cross that part of the sky -> use them as an excuse to explain the sighting away, maybe not realing that a) it's a bit more involved than that and b) those sats are still nowhere near ubiquitous enough for this kind of thing.
the strongest counter is this:
1) this is fairly easy to approximately verify by lay people (using a 24-hour clock face to approximate the sun direction)
Isn't that true for any remote object that depends on solar reflection to be visible from a distance?
Non-flaring satellites you see in the sky are visible via diffuse reflection, which is non-directional; they stop being visible once they enter Earth's shadow.
Review of the available video evidence strongly suggests that these reports are caused by optical illusions, created by the unusual repeating nature of the starlink flares.
On top of that, the starlink satellites are in orbits going in different directions. This creates an additional illusion of "swirling", nicely illustrated from 2:30 in the video below. If you look at the horizon in this video, you see the "swirling" illusion clearly.
