Strange lights in sky

[Flyboy]

As a pilot one of the frequent questions I've been asked over the years is if I’ve seen a UFO. Well, I can finally say yes after the other night flying from Phoenix to Baltimore. The lights were in the Eastern sky near Venus. There was at least three of them and they seemed to orbit each other in a circle. Their luminosity would slowly change from barely or not visible to nearly as bright as Venus. They were definitely very high in the sky, so maybe that was because of reflections from sun like a satellite. But these were not normal satellites. Satellites travel in a straight line as they orbit the earth but these were on a tight (maybe 5 degrees angular) orbit. This article pretty much describes what we saw but it says here the pilots reported them around the Big Dipper but the ones we saw were in the SE sky near Scorpius. My First Officer had seem them before and heard another crew report them to ATC and the controller said they had many reports about them but didn’t know what they were.

 

https://www.cpr.org/2023/08/25/strange-lights-in-the-sky-reported-by-pilots-around-eastern-colorado-thursday/

 

 

[Vonrd]

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

[Flyboy]

I have since shared this with my pilot friends and most of them have seen this too but can’t explain it. 

[Flyboy]

My friend in Japan just reported back to me that they have been seeing them over there also and are suspecting Musk's low orbit Starlink satellites but I'm not so sure. I don't see how even in low orbit they can move that way.

[Vonrd]

Starlink satellites images. Maybe atmospheric lensing gives the illusion of movement? (I'm still hoping for actual E.T.s) 

[Vonrd]

6 hours ago, Flyboy said:

The lights were in the Eastern sky near Venus.

Would that be the correct position for satellites to reflect the sun? What time was it?

[Flyboy]

My ambition originally was to be an astronomer and was a physics major before discovering flying. I’ve seen many many satellites before and this was not like any satellite I’ve ever seen before. If you watch the video above you seem them equally orbit about a point within about 5 degrees relative angle (the angular diameter of the moon is 30 arcseconds or 0.5 degrees). Satellites travel a straight line as they orbit earth, whether in a polar orbit or something else (equatoria, stationary, etc.). I’ve never seen any in 40 years of sky watching do this.  
 

Was near New Mexico at 37,000 feet and about an hour before sunrise. Venus was nearby and partial moon higher in the sky. 

[Vonrd]

Agreed, the video doesn't look like satellites. Just responding to you friend in Japan's speculation about Musk's Starlink. 

52 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

at 37,000 feet and about an hour before sunrise

Would that not be the correct time and bearing (looking east) for whatever it is to be reflecting sunlight?

I'm not doubting you at all. I would really like to see something like that myself.

[Flyboy]

Yes it was perfect time for them to reflect the sun as they moved and that’s what I was thinking at the time. 

[bowlek]

I've seen this a lot in the past. Lately almost every time I cross the pond. They're most visible about an hour or two before sunrise while flying eastbound. First time I saw them I thought they were flares or afterburners, until I actually saw such things while flying near an overwater warning area.

So I put a night sky app on my phone, and somewhere between 30 and 20 West longitude one night, there they were again. Plug in our lat/long and zulu time, point my phone at the lights, and sure enough, a constellation of Starlink sats crossing the horizon.

The patterns they orbit, how they criss-cross one another, and how they catch the sunlight from over the horizon, makes it look like 3 or 4 lights "dancing" around one another.

As it turns out, there are more than a just few of them up there at any given time:
https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=starlink&norad=52339

[Flyboy]

I’ll look into that. I’ve seen many satellites before and these sure look like they are doing a right circle rather than crossing the sky in a straight line orbit. 

[Vonrd]

1 hour ago, bowlek said:

As it turns out, there are more than a just few of them up there at any given time:
https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=starlink&norad=52339

Holy Crap! That's a lotta satellites! (all the white dots are sats... right?). Looks like a snowglobe.