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.
“Low Earth orbit”3 pages
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) 19 [12] J. e. a. Zhang, "LEO mega constellations: review of development, impact, surveillance, and governance," Space: Science & Technology, pp. 1-17, 2022. [13] NOAA Global Monitoring Division, [Online]. Available: https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/solareqns.PDF. [14] T. Hoffmann, "SunCalc.org," [Online]. Available: https://www.suncalc.org/. [15] "Sunrise and Sunset Calculator," [Online]. Available: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun. [16] O. R. &. W. A. P. Hainaut, "Impact of satellite constellations on astronomical observations with ESO telescopes in the visible and infrared domains," Astronomy & Astrophysics, vol. 636, p. A121, 2020. [17] "Kansas State University," [Online]. Available: https://www.math.ksu.edu/~dbski/writings/haversine.pdf. [18] "In The Sky," [Online]. Available: https://in-the-sky.org/satmap_planetarium.php?. [19] O. S. o. America, "Snell’s Law, Reflection, and Refraction," 2008. [Online]. Available: https://osa.magnet.fsu.edu/tutorials/snell.html.
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.