Pilots don’t have real-time data about the thousands of low-orbit, sun-reflecting objects zooming around Earth. There’s a fix for that.
On the night of August 10, 2022, five pilots on two separate commercial airline flights were wholly convinced they’d documented proof of an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP) over the Pacific Ocean. Pilots from both flights reported seeing odd lights zipping through the sky—but the single incident they all witnessed turned out to be Starlink telecommunications satellites.
In recent years, pilots—as well as the public—have mistakenly identified these low-Earth orbit satellites as UAPs. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of 69 reports just from January 23–April 27, 2023 that identify “UFO-UAP,” and according to one paper, more than a third of them could be Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, such mysterious sightings lead to pilot confusion and potential safety consequences because of the distraction and extra chatter about them over the airwaves.
The core issue with pilots misidentifying satellites as UAPs stems from the fact that pilots cannot access real-time data about satellite movements, leaving them unprepared to recognize strange lights in the sky. These satellites may appear to move in unexpected ways, based on their orientation, and they may also appear and disappear, since their solar arrays reflect sunlight at different angles when deployed, relative to the pilot’s position in flight.
Starlink satellites orbit about 342 miles above Earth, according to Starlink’s website, and that places them lower than most other satellites, making them visible to our eyes as spots of light, no magnification needed. More than 6,000 Starlink satellites are currently circling Earth, and the SpaceX-owned company aims to eventually have 42,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, which means pilots will need to have surefire methods for identifying them.
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