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.
“flares”16 pages
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) 10 Suppose AARO personnel want to gather images and video of Starlink flares to support the development of this information paper. AARO personnel travel from March 8-12, 2024, and select Sidney, NE as the destination. This is due to its ~4000 feet altitude within the High Plains and the generally flat terrain in this area, both of which make conditions more favorable to observe space- based objects near the horizon. The necessary information is: 1. Observation location: Sidney, NE 2. Year: 2024 3. Day: March 10 after sunset and March 11 before sunrise For steps 4 through 10, see Table 2 below. This was completed using https://www.suncalc.org. Table 2 shows that the measured azimuths and altitudes of the exemplified flares fall within the predicted values. Figure 12 and Figure 13 are example photos taken during the two timeframes noted in Table 2. AARO used https://theskylive.com/planetarium to reference the flare locations against the known positions of other celestial bodies, which are noted in the images. Implications for Airborne Observation Up to this point, the discussion has assumed the observer is located on the surface of the Earth. However, the phenomena of satellite trains and flares are also visible from aircraft. The angles, geometries, etc. may differ, but the fundamental principles are the same. For an airborne observer, the opportunity to see flares can persist longer when flying East to West after sunset in the direction of the Sun or West to East before sunrise in the direction of the Sun because they can stay in the flare light cone longer. Table 2: Example table completed for the scenario described above. Observation Site Latitude 41.0064° NOTES: Sidney, NE Longitud e -103.1260° After sunset Before sunrise Date Time (L) Sun Altitude Azimuth Look Angle Date Time (L) Sun Altitude Azimuth Look Angle 03/10/24 10:22PM -38° 305.2° 10° 03/11/24 2:44AM -46° 38.1° 0° 11:20PM -46° 321.6° 0° 3:43AM -38° 54.7° 10° Measured Values of Satellite Flare Measured Values of Satellite Flare Date Time (L) Flare Azimuth Flare Elevation Date Time (L) Flare Azimuth Flare Elevation 03/10/24 10:38PM 309.6° 3.2° 03/11/24 3:13AM 47.4° 3.7°027Page 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 under it. 18 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.