Red Lights over Termas de Almirón, Paysandú, Uruguay

February 2023 was a nervous month for the sky. Over the United States, high-altitude objects were being shot down. A reported object over China made headlines too. And in western Uruguay, a crowd had gathered for the Festival de Termas de Almirón, around Estancia "El Por Qué No" in Paysandú Department.

The night of February 10. Toward 00:30 on the 11th, festival-goers noticed something to the south, low over the horizon. Red lights. Several of them. They blinked on and off.

The Paysandú newspaper El Telégrafo described "llamativas luces intermitentes emitidas por algún artefacto volador a escasa altura, de color rojo, que se prendían y apagaban". Striking intermittent lights, red, from some flying craft at low altitude, switching on and off. About a dozen people saw them, by the paper's first count. Later accounts put the crowd at twenty or more. Among the witnesses was José Manuel Galván, Paysandú's Director of Tourism. Some filmed what they saw and posted the videos on social media.

They were not alone. Reports came from along the Río Uruguay, including Colonia Caseros, Herrera and San Justo in Argentina's Entre Ríos province. At Paysandú Airport, Capitán (Nav.) Carlos García, head of National Defence there, said four objects had been seen elsewhere, and that "el control aéreo local no tiene registro". Local air control had no record of them.

Saturday, 11 February. The Uruguayan Air Force announced that, following the reports of intermittent lights in the sky at Termas de Almirón, CRIDOVNI had been ordered to intervene. Its investigators arrived that afternoon to gather information and interview witnesses.

Col. Marcelo Lorenze, the Air Force's Director of Public Relations, told CNN that CRIDOVNI "dispuso el envío de investigadores, cuya tarea es entrevistar a testigos y reunir elementos." Carlos Pérez Lavagnini, technical adviser and commission member, confirmed the trip. By 16 February, El Observador reported that the Air Force had received more than 100 reports of "un fenómeno con un nivel de extrañeza interesante".

Early on, an Air Force source listed the standard options under review: fraud by witnesses or third parties, illusion, or a conventional phenomenon. Some observers pointed to debris from the Soyuz rocket carrying Progress MS-22, launched from Baikonur on 9 February. No official body backed that idea.

Around May 2023, CRIDOVNI published its finding. After interviews and analysis of photos and video, checked against aerospace data, it concluded that the lights seen at 00:30 from Almirón and Paysandú Airport, about 15 degrees above the southern horizon, "se trataba del pasaje de satélites Starlink, pertenecientes a la empresa Space X". Other reports from 10 to 13 February across the country, it said, were Starlink and other satellites too. Its statement counted 25 reports.

One question lingers. Starlink trains usually appear as steady white points moving in a line, and the commission's own summary of the wider wave speaks of white lights moving in formation. The festival crowd described red lights that blinked on and off. The published accounts do not explain the difference.

The lights did not stay away. In February 2024, El Telégrafo reported more near Almirón and Guichón, watched by one of its journalists and by María Centurión at the Cautiva del Arazá lodge. Uruguay had been here before. In November 2020 the Air Force traced earlier reports to "satélites de Elon Musk". Termas de Almirón shows how quickly one festival night can become a national investigation.