jarlrmai
Senior Member.
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.
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.
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!
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
Looks promising, yes! That would have had me searching for ages on ADSBexchange as the B738 doesn't appear at that time...That fits on 11 Jan. @Easy Muffin
SIA23 is on frequency, around that time (1610 UTC) that flight seems to usually be crossing the Pakistan/India border.
View attachment 76940
One more thing,
Just use sitrec, it displays these flare bands. (See also #78.)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?
Add indicator for Starlink horizon flare regions
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.
Just use sitrec, it displays these flare bands. (See also #78.)
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.
For most people, who really want to know how to navigate at night, I would have.Q: How can I navigate using the stars?
A: Use a GPS system
Here, you've not answered the question.
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.)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.
Man is this the 1st one fully synced from a plane? I think so.. bravo.
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
That's not 100% accurate; you still get sightings from outside the band. I should refine it a bit.Look at what Mick did in sitrec to find how wide the band needs to be,
Hours before sunrise or after sunset, as a percentage of the night-time hours at the particular time of year? Would that do it?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, 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.Hours before sunrise or after sunset, as a percentage of the night-time hours at the particular time of year? Would that do it?
yeah, we're talking "rule of thumb" hereThat's not 100% accurate; you still get sightings from outside the band. I should refine it a bit.
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.No, because in summer, the sun's track is more shallow, and may reach -40⁰ later or not at all.
Well...that's the condition when "hours after sunset" overlap with "hours before sunrise".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.
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.
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!
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.
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/
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.
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."
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.I know enough, just pilots that want to see extraordinary stuff in their boring flights.
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%)In Sitrec (permalink http://tiny.cc/gkxk001)
(@Mick West - permalink doesnt seem to be working (yes I'm logged in).)