AARO on Starlink flares
An AARO information paper, dated December 2024 and released in April 2025, shows how sunlight glinting off Starlink satellites can produce brief, very bright 'flares' that observers report as UAP, and how to check a sighting against them.
2024 CE · 41.14, -102.98 · status: official
The account
The paper separates diffuse reflection, which makes satellites look like moving stars, from specular glints that are orders of magnitude brighter and visible only in a small 'flare window'. For 550 km orbits it places flares within about 10 degrees of the horizon when the Sun is roughly 38-46 degrees below it, and it notes that simultaneous flares can look like spinning lights, blinking orbs or triangles. AARO staff photographed Starlink flares near Sidney, Nebraska, before dawn on 11 March 2024. A worked example concludes that 'multiple lights moving in different directions' reported by a pilot at 35,000 ft over New Mexico on 9 October 2022 were very likely satellite flares (pp.4-8, 15-16).
The sceptical view
AARO itself says satellites explain 'some' reports; the method can rule satellites in or out but does not address daytime or multi-sensor cases.