Documents / Official release
This information paper from the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is dated December 2024 and was released in full in February 2025. It explains how sunlight reflecting off Starlink and other low Earth orbit satellites produces bright flares and satellite trains that observers can mistake for UAP. It gives step-by-step methods for predicting flare windows from the ground and from aircraft. It concludes that lights reported by an airline pilot near Gallup, New Mexico, in October 2022 were very likely satellite flares.
“Low Earth orbit”4 pages
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) 6 that discuss how to the predict the azimuth and elevation angles of satellite flares to assist a ground- based observer. The key to performing this prediction is to understand the position of the sun relative to the satellite and the observer. Figure 7: Image of Starlink flare taken by AARO personnel before sunrise on March 11, 2024 near Sidney, NE. Image was taken using a 10 second exposure time which led to the Starlink flare appearing as a streak instead of a point source. [7] Figure 8: Image of multiple Starlink flares taken by AARO personnel before sunrise on March 11, 2024 near Sidney, NE. Image was taken using a 10 second exposure time which led to the Starlink flares appearing as streaks instead of point sources. [7] The Sun’s position in the sky can be described using two measurements: (i) the Sun’s altitude angle, and (ii) the Sun’s azimuth angle. The Sun’s altitude, or solar altitude, is the angle between027Page determined to be Unclassified Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841(a)(1)(C) Date: 2/14/2025
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 18 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.