UAPs seen in Zimbabwe - Starlink Flares

flarkey

Senior Member.
Staff member
Edit - These have been confirmed as Starlink Satellite Flares.


This video grabbed my attention recently...


Source: https://youtu.be/4npE-Fgh6M4?t=339

On a recent shoot in Zimbabwe, I witnessed and photographed a phenomenal Unidentified aerial phenomenon while on a film shoot in Zimbabwe. During our stay at Tashinga, in Matusadona National Park in Zimbabwe, to be featured in the next Africa 2025 episode, three of us witnessed and photographed a series of UAPs in the night sky to the west. The phenomenon lasted about 15 minutes in all. This is the video of that event. Please help me understand what this was.

It was put out on X too..

Source: https://x.com/UAPWatchers/status/1944783183657992299


Dates (2025)
1752528170659.png

Location - Tashinga, Zimbabwe
16°48'44.0"S 28°26'46.0"E = -16.812222, 28.446111
https://www.google.com/maps/place/16°48'44.0"S+28°26'46.0"E/@-15.2856104,25.4046992,3820705m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d-16.8122222!4d28.4461111?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcwOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

Initial Sitrec

Edit - having trouble saving in Sitrec - standby.

 

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thanks Mick, thats looking great now.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/15857/Zimbabwe Starlink/20250715_073257.js
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Sitrec suggestion - satellite arrows intensity linked to flare intensity? The lookview in this image makes it seem like all satellites would be visible. To recreate the original image from the time-lapse the satellite path should only be visible when it is flaring.
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Your TLE date/time looks wrong, loading the TLE data for the scene still has some Starlinks in that poistion though they are nearer the horizon..
 
Is the TLE date wrong in that one as well or is it a Sitrec issue? When I open the link it says:

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Clicking load TLEs for date

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Gets me the date for the Sittec sim (I assume current date means the current simulation date?)

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Sitrec suggestion - satellite arrows intensity linked to flare intensity? The lookview in this image makes it seem like all satellites would be visible. To recreate the original image from the time-lapse the satellite path should only be visible when it is flaring.
Done, "Flare Lines" in the Satellite menu
 
Freaky to see everything upside down. Hydra is above Leo. And Leo and the big bear are lying on on their back.
 
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Thanks
I edited it with the plane too (green dot) and changed the zoom and angle a bit.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/17922/Zimbabwe With Plane/20250715_073042.js

The key question is: Why hasn't a time-lapse photographer seen satellites in their photos before - one might think people were deliberately trying to make things seem 'spooky' to keep the hype going and make money?
We've seen inluencers/photographers seemingly use UFOS etc as a bit of an attempt to go viral in a promotional sense before

I seem to remember one in Australia, we traced to a rocket launch..

This one:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-canberra-ufo-14-7-23-photo-and-article-wtf.13086/#post-296704
 
Thanks
I edited it with the plane too (green dot) and changed the zoom and angle a bit.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/17922/Zimbabwe With Plane/20250715_073042.js

The key question is: Why hasn't a time-lapse photographer seen satellites in their photos before - one might think people were deliberately trying to make things seem 'spooky' to keep the hype going and make money?

This looks great with the flare lines now showing.
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?cu.../15857/Zimbabwe With Plane/20250715_085134.js
1752569299841.png
 
Really sorry if am I missing something obvious here, but does this not indicate TLEs are from 2 months after the photo was taken?

1752570179746.png
 
A TimeLapse can be shot over maybe 5 hours, so the timeline in Sitrec should be 5 hours long and the video in top only jumps to the next frame after maybe 1 minute.
You can change the simulation speed to match a timelapse.

But this isn't exactly a time-lapse. Normally, when you play a timelapse, you play it back at 30 or 25 frames per second. This appears to be a time-lapse that has been slowed down so you can see the streaks. Originally, it would have looked like this:

 
Slight aside, but this is the second time recently that I've been confused as to why things don't line up before realizing I was looking at a cropped video.

Most cameras are near-rectilinear, with just slight (<1 to 3%) distortion. This means straight lines remain straight. Computer graphics usually just use a pure rectilinear projection. This means things near the center are closer together than when they are at the edges.

But here,
2025-07-15_20-04-31.jpg

The inset image is cropped from the larger video, but the optical center is where the red dot is. This leads to some odd distortion and makes it impossible to line up the stars in Sitrec.

The other example was the a correspondent sent to me, he had helpfully clipped it to the region of interest.
priola crop.jpg


But, as I eventually discovered, the original video looked like this:
2025-07-15_20-20-20.jpg


So even though there were some great stars (and a plane track) to line up, I had trouble for a while until I realized and asked for the uncropped version.

Something to keep in mind for future Sitrec cases - and maybe a feature I could add to correct it.
 
Andrew St Pierre White has posted a video stating that he is happy with the explanation of Starlink flares:



Source: https://youtu.be/By6jsJuS4bw?si=y4mhd6eZBGSbykjJ

Transcript:
A very warm welcome to you. My name is Andrew St. Pierre White. I'm an adventure travel filmmaker and uh a little more than a week ago I posted a video asking a question. We are filming this folks because we are witnessing a UFO right here. Now, there is a camera I set up about 2 hours ago, maybe a little less over there before the moon came up, which is a time lapse. We were watching, we watched a star, bright star, and it was quite bright and it turned off and I noticed it turn off. Then it came back. It's coming back. That

That's coming back. It's moving across the sky. So now looking at through the binoculars, there's the second. There's the second one. Second one below it. I was camped on the banks of Lake Kuri in a place called Matus Dononna. The sun had gone down and I witnessed an unidentified aerial phenomenon and I the video broke all channel records. Uh, I think at the moment we're a little under 300,000 views and over 1,500 comments. Thank you for all of those comments. I want to talk now about

I know what they are. I've been presented with evidence. I have accepted that evidence. And for me, I'm happy that I know what these things were. But for many of you, you probably won't accept this evidence. So what I want to do is talk about the idea that when we have something that is unknown to us and we see it and we go what is that? Wow. And we wonder at the universe, we wonder at man's creation, we wonder at what these things are. We don't automatically jump to a conspiracytheory where we say, "Well, it's somebody out to get us." However, I don't want to for a minute discount conspiracy theories because some of them are absolutely worth investigating and worth questioning. And that is my point here. I'm asking a question. I'm not making a claim. I'm saying what on earth are those? And I will show you now the evidence that has been presented to me, sent to me. And then following that, I'm going to tell you a short story about another unidentified aerial phenomenon that happened to me many, many years ago. But I did not photograph it. So I didn't make a video. I had no evidence apart from the memory in my head.

So, let's get on with it. This evidence was sent to us by a chap called Mick West. He runs uh his own website called metabunk.org. And the dedication of Metabunk is an interesting read. Metabunk is about debunking specific claims of evidence, not arguing the merits of broader theories. So if Metabunk's goal is to debunk ideas, theories, then I have a little bit of a problem with that. I don't want you to debunk it. I want you to scientifically analyze it. And to me what is important is when science is unable don't change the evidence to make it suit known scientific criteria because the evidence is the evidence. Okay. And it and it often, you know, my my my this is my personal thing is that that that that scientists tend to tend to say, well, we know everything, so we'll base all our knowledge on what we know. Of course, you're going to base your knowledge and your hypothesis on what you know, but then the good ones will always go and say and admit there are many things that we don't know. So, a debunking idea I have a problem with. In other words, you're going to state it as fact and eliminate all other ideas in the interests of debunking it. It's not a search for truth. It's a search for debunking claims. I don't like that. Okay? Because we know as humans that we don't know very much at all about us and our existence.

We our minds are very very narrowed as they have been through the ages. They are still as narrow as they were 300 years ago when we didn't know that we were on a spinning ball at part of part of the Milky Way galaxy. Okay. So what I'm saying is that there is so much more to learn. Don't automatically take it just because it appears scientific. This however does appear scientific but it also appears plausible. So from what I saw where I was I provided them with a latitude, longitude, a time and they took that information and they have extrapolated the following data. Not only were these Starlink satellites, they were in fact these guys down here. Uh SL, I assume that stands for Starlink of 4536 or 4478. And another one down there looks like a 3294. Okay, they have actually uh numbered four. I saw four. So, if we look here, that's where I was in Africa, 20 ft above ground level, which is yes, I would say that's a that's accurate. Uh 1,631 ft above mean sea level. That I would say is accurate. The direction in which

I was looking, I thought I was looking a little bit south of the of west, but then again, I didn't have a compass, so I didn't take a true bearing. I'm going to take what they have said as true and they have here seen these Star Link satellites flaring. That's where I was. That's Lake Kuriba there. That is a still image of three of the satellites flaring. Those are the satellites there. And that is the night sky. Those two stars coordinate with those two stars. That star and that star is that star and that star and that bright star there. Here's that star there. Everything Metabunk has presented to me is yeah I I have no contrary evidence. So thank you Mike West. very interesting, absolutely fascinating.
<snip>

He makes a good point about the website. Metabunk just doesn't debunk claims anymore - we have become a crowd-sourced investigation collective. We don't just respond to claims, we identify the unidentified, and present the evidence and argument that explains the unknown. Maybe we need to add this to the website description?

edit - this is the current 'About' section . It doesn't match his description of " Metabunk is about debunking specific claims of evidence, not arguing the merits of broader theories".
 
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Surely he knows we can know the direction by time/date and star position?

Reads a little like "you're right, but I am not mega happy about it" and you are all narrow minded anyway.

It's astonishing to me how soured the word debunk is though...
 
Surely he knows we can know the direction by time/date and star position?

I agree. He also doesn't seem to know that we've been learning a lot about ourselves and our existence generally for thousands of years. The things we don't know now are so marginal we wouldn't even be able to explain most of them to someone from 300 years back, as they are so many boundary-pushings beyond what was relevant to even the best scientists of the day. He's insulting every physicist, every engineer, every chemist, every biochemist, every biologist, every doctor, every psychologist, every linguist, every anthropologist, every paleontologist, and a whole lot more besides (no slight was meant by not listing other specialities, no ranking was intended) with his "Because we know as humans that we don't know very much at all about us and our existence.".

Reads a little like "you're right, but I am not mega happy about it" and you are all narrow minded anyway.

It's astonishing to me how soured the word debunk is though...

Indeed. However, there is a simple solution to his "It's not a search for truth. It's a search for debunking claims. I don't like that. Okay?" complaint:

Stop making easily-debunked false claims.

Do that and debunking, true debunking, will evaporate in an instant.
 
edit - this is the current 'About' section . It doesn't match his description of " Metabunk is about debunking specific claims of evidence, not arguing the merits of broader theories".
That's outdated language. I've moved away from the work "debunk" as much as possible for a few years now. I'd missed the notice shown to new members, which is where he saw that (it does not get seen by Google). Changed now. to:
The focus of Metabunk is more about investigating specific claims of evidence, and less about arguing the merits of broader theories. Either way, we try to do it politely.

There is also a site tagline "All about bunk, and how to (politely) debunk it.", which I'd forgotten about. I've just changed it to "Unusual claims, politely investigated."
 
I've just changed it to "Unusual claims, politely investigated."
I like that, but a part of me doesn't find UFO reports of starlink flares, balloons, etc. unusual at this point... hopefully saying so does not come across as snarky or impolite, if so please feel free to delete.
 
In a way traditional 'bunk' is no longer really a thing, the meta narrative has changed from "this is an alien spacecraft" to "what could this be" ("other than, wink, an alien spacecraft")
 
In a way traditional 'bunk' is no longer really a thing, the meta narrative has changed from "this is an alien spacecraft" to "what could this be" ("other than, wink, an alien spacecraft")
So we do our best to explain exactly what it could be. It's possible that when we eliminate comets, aircraft, spotlights, balloons, beetles, and butterflies, the UAP believers will have less and less to talk about, or will have fewer followers listening to them.
 
That's outdated language. I've moved away from the work "debunk" as much as possible for a few years now. I'd missed the notice shown to new members, which is where he saw that (it does not get seen by Google). Changed now. to:


There is also a site tagline "All about bunk, and how to (politely) debunk it.", which I'd forgotten about. I've just changed it to "Unusual claims, politely investigated."
Google will eventually pick up the changes organically, but if you haven't already you can go to your Google Search Console and request a reindexing of your home page and usually get updated results showing up in search results within a week.
 
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