Documents / Report
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office issued this information paper in December 2024 on how sunlight reflecting off Starlink and other Low Earth Orbit satellites can be mistaken for UAP. It explains the difference between diffuse and specular reflection, Starlink trains, and flares, and it gives a step-by-step method for predicting flare windows. The method is shown with AARO photographs taken near Sidney, Nebraska, and applied to a 2022 airline pilot report near Gallup, New Mexico. AARO concluded that the lights in that report were very likely satellite flares.
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) 13 Figure 14: Diagram illustrating that an airborne observer at position O1, shares the same observation horizon as a ground-based observer at position O2. d is the projected shift of the observation horizon for the airborne observer. The LOS distance can be found using the Pythagorean theorem as: 𝑅𝑅𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 = �(𝑅𝑅𝐸𝐸 + ℎ𝐴𝐴𝐿𝐿𝐴𝐴)2 − 𝑅𝑅𝐸𝐸 2 (2) which simplifies to: 𝑅𝑅𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 = �2𝑅𝑅𝐸𝐸ℎ𝐴𝐴𝐿𝐿𝐴𝐴 + ℎ𝐴𝐴𝐿𝐿𝐴𝐴 2 . (3) Since ℎ𝐴𝐴𝐿𝐿𝐴𝐴 ≪ 𝑅𝑅𝐸𝐸 , then 𝑑𝑑 ≈ 𝑅𝑅𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 . (4) This relationship is plotted in Figure 15. Figure 15: Projected shift in observation horizon (O1 to O2) as a function of observer altitude. The latitude and longitude at position O2 (the new effective observation point for the airborne observer) can be then estimated using the Haversine formula [17]. There are online calculators available to find the terminal coordinates when given a starting point, bearing and range, e.g., https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/find-terminal-coordinates. Alternatively, one could use the ruler tool in Google Earth to estimate the terminal coordinates.
Report, from the aaro collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 19 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.