Here's my diagram to visualize it. In the diagram, I'm standing at the edge of the zone of totality as the "diamond ring" appears, looking at my hand and a satellite:
(Source, me, drawing "fast and dirty", apologies for some awful cutting and pasting to put the various elements where I want them, instead of where I drew them...)
Now in this drawing/diagram, the angle that the satellite is "missing" the Sun by is more than in the Smarter Every Day video. Keep that in mind. But while my hand and I are both essentially in the same part of the eclipse, right where the umbra starts to transition into the penumbra, the satellite is a pretty good chunk of miles further out. The satellite would be noticeably further from totality than me and my hand.
BUT -- recall that the angle between Sun and the hand-satellite line here is greater than Destin's "UFOs." That angle matters. If the hand-satellite line is approaching horizontal, the satellite is WAY out there in the sunshine. The closer the satellite gets to being aligned with the Sun, the less difference there is between the amount of sunlight it is getting, and the amount I am getting. And I'm getting a little tiny bit -- not much, but not zero.
So distance DOES matter, in a general sense, but the angle is so small in this specific case that it is unlikely to matter much. The satellite and my hand are pretty close to being in the same amount of sunlight, if I were standing by Destin and seeing his "UFOs" while holding my hand up instead of taking video. That would be very little light, as the diamond ring of the returning Sun is just happening, with the satellite getting slightly more, and they'd both be backlit by the Sun.
Which is a long drawn out way of supporting this opinon -- The sunlight is not what's illuminating the satellites/planes/bugs/aliens that Destin videoed, it would be rather faint and would be backlighting them anyway. The other possible light sources that spring to mind would be Earthshine or them emitting their own light. They are not hugely brighter than the aurora that is about to become invisible as the Sun returns -- Earthlight seems reasonable, and would rule out bugs (too low to receive it), MIGHT rule out planes (the higher they are the more likely they would pick up reflected light from the Earth though) and would seem possible for satellites or Aliens at orbital altitude. Whether or not aliens would illuminate themselves is not knowable, since we don't know that they exist and therefore know nothing about their lighting preferences. But since Earthshined satellites seem to work, there is little reason to invoke aliens or paranormal stuff.
Also, note that they pass on either side of the Sun -- one further out from totality than the camera, the other further in towards it. But they both appear similarly lit.
(Of course telling against the satellite hypothesis is the irksome detail that there do not seem to be any that would be there zipping past the Sun like that, see: flarkey
HERE and
HERE.)
EDIT: Replaced "angle" with "distance" where I typed wrong!
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