Why are Starlink "Racetrack" Flares [Mostly] Reported from Planes?

[jarlrmai]

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1hydga0/im_a_flight_nurse_and_our_medevac_helicopter_crew/


Starlink?

Filmed from a helicopter, on nightvision so there might be some stars to track against.

 

[flarkey]

Flarkey's Post

Yes, probably Starlink flares,.

Time: 0405hrs on 01JAN2025

Location: In desert between Yuma, AZ, and Phoenix, AZ. (see flight radar screen shot).

Filming Equipment: iPhone 14 Pro, filming through a J-31 Binocular White Phosphor Gen 2+ Night Vision

Duration of Sighting: ~45 minutes

Situation Background:

At approximately 0405hrs, on 01JAN2025, my pilot spotted two aircraft, moving from the South to the North. We were heading in a NE direction, from the city of Yuma towards Downtown Phoenix. (See the flight radar photo for approximate location). The two aircraft, one of which appeared to be in similar altitude to us. We were flying at 2000 feet. My pilot noted that neither aircraft were tracked on ADS-B In (this is basically like a passive "radar", it feeds information in to our helicopter in real time about other aircraft in the area). Side note, it does not always give us information on ALL aircraft, such as some military aircraft, crop dusters, paramotorists, etc.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WJfxZx0WE&ab_channel=mandrew338


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1hydga0/comment/m6hcri0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button



Medevac helo KML attached

https://www.metabunk.org/u/wUNuHy.html

 

[flarkey]

The view in sitrec matches the view in the video at 0445hrs (video time cose 17m11s)

Permalink

 

[flarkey]

Response on Reddit from the Medevac guy....

Source

 

[jarlrmai]

The problem with Reddit UFOs is you get these posts, they get huge upvotes "pilots see more UFOs" reinforces all sorts of UFO beliefs.

It gets solved in one tiny comment thread, the OP agrees with the explanation but it's a still a 5000 upvotes UFO confirmation video in the minds of many.

 

[JMartJr]

Would make a good, and deserved, signature quote!

 

[flarkey]

Another video from @UAPF showing multiple 'orbs' seen by pilots. Looks just like starlink flares to me.... let's investigate.


Source: https://youtu.be/V5ZiD6agQMU?si=aYUhgfiRh-1ETKh-

1,368 views Feb 4, 2025 #uap #foofighters #airlinepilot
Orb UAP Footage | Footage sent in by an airline pilot. Pilot sent these in to our UAP_Files Instagram account, but wished to remain anonymous. I know who they are and I'm happy they're a seasoned pilot having done my due diligence. Fascinating footage!

Registration TC-FLI ... ? Selcal ELJP ... ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCAL

Searching for the Selcal ELJP brings up TC-TLI on https://www.airframes.org/

https://www.airframes.org/reg/tctli

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/tc-tli

 

[Easy Muffin]

SIA23 is on frequency, around that time (1610 UTC) that flight seems to usually be crossing the Pakistan/India border.

Sounds like ATC instructs them to contact Delhi Control, which means they (and by extension the crew in the video) is currently talking to Lahore. So they are probably over Pakistan. Looking towards the east (EDIT 2: the west... got my compass directions confused there), i.e. where you'd expect Starlink flares to show up.
TCTLI is currently doing flights between Karachi, Lahore and the Arabian peninula, so that checks too.

EDIT: It won't be this particular flight but I'd guess they are somewhere around here and following a similar route and heading of 230 degs, having left Lahore not quite an hour earlier, as you can tell from the timer below the clock. I'd assume they are enroute to either Karachi or some destination in Arabia.

 

[flarkey]

There's not much that can be gleaned from the video.

The big bright orb is Venus - suggests they are flying SW (despite the Course showing 084)

GMT Time 16:10, time elapsed 0h58m .... that should indicate a take off time of 1512 GMT

On a heading of 230 ...

We might be able to cross reference the times and headings on the FlightRadar24 tracks ( I think the times in this screenshot are local)
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/tc-tli#38df7a6a

 

[flarkey]

This flight fits...

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/tc-tli#38aed351

https://www.metabunk.org/u/9ogUIZ.html

 

[flarkey]

SIA23 is on frequency, around that time (1610 UTC) that flight seems to usually be crossing the Pakistan/India border.

View attachment 76940

Sounds like ATC instructs them to contact Delhi Control, which means they (and by extension the crew in the video) is currently talking to Lahore. So they are probably over Pakistan. Looking towards the east, i.e. where you'd expect Starlink flares to show up.
TCTLI is currently doing flights between Karachi, Lahore and the Arabian peninula, so that checks too.

EDIT: It won't be this particular flight but I'd guess they are somewhere around here and following a similar route and heading of 230 degs, having left Lahore not quite an hour earlier, as you can tell from the timer below the clock. I'd assume they are enroute to either Karachi or some destination in Arabia.

View attachment 76941

That fits on 11 Jan. @Easy Muffin

 

[Easy Muffin]

That fits on 11 Jan. @Easy Muffin

Looks promising, yes! That would have had me searching for ages on ADSBexchange as the B738 doesn't appear at that time...

 

[MonkeeSage]

That fits on 11 Jan. @Easy Muffin

Heading fits

 

[FatPhil]

SIA23 is on frequency, around that time (1610 UTC) that flight seems to usually be crossing the Pakistan/India border.

View attachment 76940

This image, with its bands of twighlight, got me thinking - is it possible to come up with some rules of thumb that let you extrapolate from those twighlight bands (assuming everyone uses the same protocol for their width) to identify areas where starlink flares are more likely to be visible to cuising planes and/or ground observers? Effectively you've got to try to extrapolate spherical slices from the terminator on a non-aligned projection.

e.g. - and this is completly made up - something vaguely like this:

Of course, the concept of working out where the parallel planes are on non-aligned projections is fraught with problems, but rules of thumb don't need to be exact, they just need to be guidelines for easy eyeballing.

 

[Easy Muffin]

That fits on 11 Jan. @Easy Muffin

View attachment 76948

One more thing,

they have the LEGS page open in their FMC.

Here's an example of what these look like, you have your waypoints on the left and your planned speed and altitude on the right.

So here they're first planning to reach an intercept for a runway 05L at 160 kts and 3000 ft or above.


Back to our flight, the video quality is not good enough to clearly identify what it says but checking the charts for Muscat -

https://aim.caa.gov.om/eAIPOman-1-25/eAIPOman-3-24/index-en-GB.html

I'm pretty sure they're planning the ILS 08L arrival right there. First line says ITLAK at 3400 ft, then there's the final intercept (FF) at 2200. The last two lines are part of the standard missed approach procedure, runway heading until 510 ft followed by a turn at 210 kts. Just as it says on the chart - pretty certain then they are in fact enroute to Muscat.

 

[Mendel]

This image, with its bands of twighlight, got me thinking - is it possible to come up with some rules of thumb that let you extrapolate from those twighlight bands (assuming everyone uses the same protocol for their width) to identify areas where starlink flares are more likely to be visible to cruising planes and/or ground observers?

Just use sitrec, it displays these flare bands. (See also #78.)

Add indicator for Starlink horizon flare regions

I think the rule of thumb was that the sun has to be ~40⁰ below the horizon, so you'd need to be ~2400nm from the terminator.

 

[Scaramanga]

It also suggests that the ideal view latitude is 45* plus the tilt of the Earth's axis towards the sun. This is complicated though by the elliptical (oblate spheroid) nature of the Earth.

That would be true if the polar orbit of all the satellites ( which are not all in 90 degree polar orbits anyway ) were all perpendicular to the orbit of the Earth. But if the orbital axis is at an angle relative to the path of the Earth, or is parallel to it, then you'll actually get a 45 degree ( relative to the terminator ) circular path on the side of the Earth opposite the sun, which would pass through every latitude between 45 degrees north and south and the equator. In other words the area of flaring would be a small circle on the opposite side of the Earth to the Sun.

 

[flarkey]

So looking in sitrec, I struggled a little to get the satellite formations to match up with what is in the video. I'm pretty sure the date & time is right and we've got the right flight & kml data, so the only other thing that could be wrong is the satellite data. I made sure I was updating the TLE for Date in sitrec, but that didnt work. So I went back to space-track.org and downloaded the archived Starlink TLEs for that date (file attached, link below, account needed) . This gives an an exact match for the satellite flares seen at 1m38 seconds in @UAPF 's video.

https://www.space-track.org/basicsp...T_ID,EPOCH/format/3le/OBJECT_NAME/STARLINK~~/

Sitrec permalink - https://www.metabunk.org/u/Po8Suo.html

You can actually see the aircraft clock tick over from 1609hrs to 1610hrs at the 0m58s mark in the YouTube video, so the timings match up perfectly. (@Mick West - not sure why but the TLEs don't seem to updating correctly for the date in sitrec)

[Edit - comments re the Starlink TLEs have been moved to this thread. Bug is now fixed]

I'll try and do a video later.

 

[jarlrmai]

I tried to give it ago in Stellarium but I'm not sure why but the position of Venus relative to the horizon is not matching sitrec, I must have something wrong.

 

[FatPhil]

Just use sitrec, it displays these flare bands. (See also #78.)

Q: How can I navigate using the stars?
A: Use a GPS system

Here, you've not answered the question.

I think the rule of thumb was that the sun has to be ~40⁰ below the horizon, so you'd need to be ~2400nm from the terminator.

And what's 2400nm from the terminator on the maps that were the subject of the enquiry? Here, you've not answered the question, you've reworded it.

 

[Mendel]

Q: How can I navigate using the stars?
A: Use a GPS system

Here, you've not answered the question.

For most people, who really want to know how to navigate at night, I would have.
"is it possible to come up with some rules of thumb that let you [...] identify areas where starlink flares are more likely to be visible to cuising planes and/or ground observers?"—no need for rules of thumb, use sitrec (but I gave you a rule of thumb anyway).

And what's 2400nm from the terminator on the maps that were the subject of the enquiry? Here, you've not answered the question, you've reworded it.

that would depend on the map scale, now wouldn't it? 2400 nautical miles from the terminator is a location. It's an answer. If you know how wide these twilight bands are, you can put it in terms of these. (I'm neglecting that there aren't any satellites over the pole caps, because it's a rule of thumb. And I've ignored refraction.)
Look at what Mick did in sitrec to find how wide the band needs to be,

 

[flarkey]

Video syncing the @UAPF recording with Sitrec. It's a match

 

[jarlrmai]

Video syncing the @UAPF recording with Sitrec. It's a match
View attachment 76963

Man is this the 1st one fully synced from a plane? I think so.. bravo.

All we needed was that time stamp and a distinctive enough pattern, so beautiful.

And good ole Venus is right there as a reference point as well, wowsers

 

[flarkey]

Man is this the 1st one fully synced from a plane? I think so.. bravo.

All we needed was that time stamp and a distinctive enough pattern, so beautiful.

And good ole Venus is right there as a reference point as well, wowsers

Yeah maybe. I think this is the first fully sync'ed using sitrec. I think the vidoe below was the first one I ever synchronised from a plane, but that was done manually using Stellarium. That case thread was also my first geolocation of an aircraft from a video taken inside the cockpit (maybe that should be an aerolocation?). I am quite proud of that one.

Thread: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mid-atlantic-racetrack-ufo-cockpit-video-starlink-again.12787

Video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K32l9eQlyk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Flarkey


Its just a shame that @UAPF wont get to see this one solved. He hasn't been on Metabunk for months, and he has me blocked on all social media (X, Instagram, Reddit, Substack and YouTube). So if anyone is on X and follows him then please share this link to post #334 with him.

 

[Mick West]

Look at what Mick did in sitrec to find how wide the band needs to be,

That's not 100% accurate; you still get sightings from outside the band. I should refine it a bit.

 

[Ann K]

have.
"is it possible to come up with some rules of thumb that let you [...] identify areas where starlink flares are more likely to be visible to cuising planes and/or ground observers?"

Hours before sunrise or after sunset, as a percentage of the night-time hours at the particular time of year? Would that do it?

 

[Mendel]

Hours before sunrise or after sunset, as a percentage of the night-time hours at the particular time of year? Would that do it?

No, because in summer, the sun's track is more shallow, and may reach -40⁰ later or not at all, depending on the observer's latitude.

 

[Mendel]

That's not 100% accurate; you still get sightings from outside the band. I should refine it a bit.

yeah, we're talking "rule of thumb" here

 

[flarkey]

No, because in summer, the sun's track is more shallow, and may reach -40⁰ later or not at all.

it's true that there are places that only see the continuous flares at certain times of the year. Where I live in the UK we only see them in December & January - this is because of my latitude of 52°N and most of the satellite orbits only go up to 53°. Most places on earth will see them in winter towards the east before dawn and in the west after sunset, but in summer those two areas converge and they are seen towards the poles around midnight.

A general rule of thumb that I use to describe the conditions under which the flares occur is - look towards the direction of the sun when it is around 40° below the horizon, either after sunset or before dawn..

 

[Ann K]

No, because in summer, the sun's track is more shallow, and may reach -40⁰ later or not at all, depending on the observer's latitude.

Well...that's the condition when "hours after sunset" overlap with "hours before sunrise".

 

[flarkey]

Starlink is still being seen by passengers on planes and reported as UFOs:

Time: November 2024
Location: Flight on the Katowice – Marsa Alam

Outside the window, objects appeared in the sky, changing brightness and disappearing one by one. I managed to record one of them. I didn't use zoom due to the excitement, so unfortunately, not much is visible, but at least something. Toward the end, I lost focus, but you can still see the object disappearing.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1iy4jxn/a_curious_phenomenon_in_the_sky_captured_from_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

 

[flarkey]

Another Pilot Report on NUFORC.

https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=187811

NUFORC UFO Sighting 187811

Occurred: 2025-02-17 21:00 Local
Reported: 2025-02-19 12:02 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes
No of observers: 2 - Pilot

Location: Red Bluff, CA, USA
Location details: see above

Shape: Light
Color: white
Estimated Size: tiny white dots
Viewed From: Aircraft
Direction from Viewer: 270
Angle of Elevation: 40
Closest Distance: unknown
Estimated Speed: fast, not sure, but not like a streak.
Explanation: Starlink (Racetrack) - Possible
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

High up in the western sky is where we saw 4-5 tiny lights moving around, coming and going. Brite, then dim, then disappear.

High up in the western sky is where we saw 4-5 tiny lights (dots) moving around, coming and going. Brite, then dim, then they would disappear. Moved around in all directions. Sometimes in a triangle. Video will better explain. My self and other pilot on our corporate jet saw and recorded what we saw. FL 43,000, speed mach .90. Been flying for 40 years, corporate for 23 years. Other pilot flying for 15 years. Neither one of us have seen anything like this!

Screenshot from the pilot's video, looking west. The lower-left light is Venus, the upper-right light is a 'UFO'?

"Occurred: 2025-02-17 21:00 Local" (which is 18 Feb 0500 UTC) at" FL 43,000," near Red Bluff - it can only be one aircraft... (kml attached)

nice looking plane.

Sitrec Permalink - shows that Starlink satellite flares would have been occurring in the west, to the right and up from Venus.

 

[flarkey]

Pilots are still reporting Starlink flares as UAP....


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kl38r2/funny_stuff_ive_been_watching_the_last_2_years/

Date: July 13 2024 Time: 20:51 Location: South coast of Brazil, near Florianopolis.

I work as a pilot in Argentina and I wanted to share with the sub this experience I had many times the last 2 years. This video was shot from the left window of the aircraft I was flying, and then random moving lights start to show (not like satelites, this things move randomly) Any guess what these could be?

I was flying over Brazil, and this objects seemed to be flying over the atlantic ocean, really far away. This Happened to me many times, in other sites too.

I assume 20.51hrs is local probably Brazil time, so 2351UTC

Possibly an Argentine carrier, over the Brazil near with the Atlantic Ocean out to the left, so probably this one....

Copying the kml into Sitrec shows that Starlink Flares would have been visible, not over the ocean like the pilot reported but towards the west.

Sitrec permalink

 

[FatPhil]

Pilots are still reporting Starlink flares as UAP....

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kl38r2/funny_stuff_ive_been_watching_the_last_2_years/

But you knew it was satellites as soon as you read "not like satelites".

 

[flarkey]

Another NUFORC Report from pilots in which they say "Every pilot in the cockpit has seen Starlink on red eyes many times before, this was something completely different. " (Souce on reddit)

https://nuforc.org/sighting/?id=185156

NUFORC UFO Sighting 185156

Occurred: 2024-12-08 03:45 Local
Reported: 2024-12-13 22:11 Pacific
Duration: 1 hour or more
No of observers: 5 - Pilot - Aviation Expert

Location: Gary, IN, USA
Location details: While in Minneapolis Center Airspace it was first until bottom of descent into Chicago O'Hare

Shape: Triangle
Color: Bright White
Estimated Size: Unknown, but not bigger than an airplane
Viewed From: Aircraft
Direction from Viewer: Directly in-front of the aircraft East Bound
Angle of Elevation: 2
Closest Distance: 30 miles while on descent to Chicago
Estimated Speed: Faster than known air or space craft
Explanation: Starlink (Racetrack) - Probable
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail, Emitted other objects, Aircraft nearby

From B777 cockpit, observed multiple craft moving rapidly at angles dimming and reappear. Often formed triangles and other shapes.

From the cockpit of a United Boeing-777 at FL370 flying SFO-ORD
between the UTC time of 930z-1030z+ we observed three to seven lights for over an hour directly in front of us get really bright and form triangles. They would then move in 360° spinning patterns while forming different shapes. Sometimes the lights would hover in place, other times they would dart off really fast at unnatural speeds, and eventually form back together. It looked like a "space dog fight" sometimes, if that makes sense. The lights would get bright, dim out, and then get bright again. There was no consistent pattern except for they were synchronized in their brightness. As we got closer to Chicago, and the light show, it appeared the lights may have been directly over Lake Michigan or Northern Indiana. We witnessed multiple times at least one or two of the objects descending into Lake Michigan before shooting back into the Flight Levels or Space. Every pilot in the cockpit has seen Starlink on red eyes many times before, this was something completely different. The lights would move around in patterns, not straight lines like Starlink reflecting off the sun. Sometimes the objects looked like they were in space, other times at the Flight Levels, and sometimes at lake level.

With extensive knowledge and training in Aviation we can confirm they were not landing lights or any known airplane navigation lighting.

A flight attendant in the cockpit during a bathroom break and meal delivery confirmed with us that what we were watching was unnatural and not our imagination. It was "the strangest thing they had ever seen."

We were reluctant to report it on ATC, but then an American Airlines aircraft reported it first and queried about possible F-16 or other military training. We then confirmed with ATC we were witnessing the same thing. ATC informed us they had nothing on radar in-front of us and there was no military activity.

(It wasn't until later we realized we could see these objects for hundreds of more miles until Chicago)

This ATC report was from between 930z-959z on MinneapolisCenter ZMP28 Sector Hi frequency 119.725z

The lights continued until we began our descent into Chicago, once we were below 10,000ft, the light pollution and haze layer made it hard to view the objects any longer. We did witness multiple impressive shooting stars from the same area towards the lake afterwards and on departure from ORD 14 hours later that evening, but we couldn't confirm they were the same objects or shooting stars.

In conclusion, the objects were nothing we have ever witnessed from the air before and suspect it is undisclosed military tech or something else unknown.

looks like it was this United 777: (FR24 filtered to only show flights SFO - ORD at the time of the sighting - there was only one 777)

In Sitrec (permalink http://tiny.cc/gkxk001)
(@Mick West - permalink doesnt seem to be working (yes I'm logged in).)

Again this shows that just becasue a pilot has seen Starink trains before does not mean that they can identify Starlink flares as such.

 

[Ravi]

I know enough, just pilots that want to see extraordinary stuff in their boring flights.

A flight attendant in the cockpit during a bathroom break and meal delivery confirmed with us that what we were watching was unnatural and not our imagination. It was "the strangest thing they had ever seen."

 

[Mendel]

I know enough, just pilots that want to see extraordinary stuff in their boring flights.

They did see something unusual. Given they couldn't identify it, "suspect it is undisclosed military tech or something else unknown" seems like a rational outlook.

 

[Mick West]

In Sitrec (permalink http://tiny.cc/gkxk001)
(@Mick West - permalink doesnt seem to be working (yes I'm logged in).)

That link seems to work in that it loads something like what you see, but not with all the right setting. Maybe unrelated, you're not using the right TLE (i.e. didn't click on "Load Satellite TLE for Date"), which is why it says "In Range 94.3%" (it should be 100%)

The Starlink-specific editor and permalinks are being deprecated in favor of custom sitches, which should give you all the functionality (and more) without the code duplication and bugs.