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) 2 comparable to starlight. Due to their construction and orientation, many man-made satellites in LEO diffusely reflect sunlight and can appear as stars that move across the night sky. Figure 1: Graphic of Starlink satellites in orbit. Ref: https://www.heavens- above.com/StarLink.aspx Specular reflection, also known as glint, occurs from a very smooth, mirror-like surface as illustrated on the right side of Figure 2. Unlike diffusely reflected light, the light striking a smooth surface reflects light at the same, or nearly the same, angle as the incident light. Therefore, the reflected light cone from a satellite in LEO is much narrower for specular reflection as compared to diffuse reflection, as illustrated in Figure 3(b). This dramatically increases its observed brightness by several orders of magnitude, but greatly decreases its observation time as the cone passes over the observer. Figure 2: Image illustrating the difference between diffuse reflection (left) and specular reflection (right).
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.