Sighting in Mexico, November 12, 2023

During a transatlantic flight, a pilot and their crew noticed lights moving along paths that seemed random. The witnesses first thought of satellites, but these unusual displays left them puzzled.

GEIPAN rated the case as having low strangeness and good consistency: there were several witnesses, and the single account was fairly complete. The description fits flashes from Starlink® satellites well: several points of light of varying brightness, moving in apparently random ways and confined to one specific region of the sky. A check with Stellarium showed that the phenomenon was located 45° above the apparent position of the Sun, which at that moment was between 30° and 45° below the horizon. A similar lighting configuration had already been analysed in detail in a news item on the GEIPAN website.

The case was therefore classified "A": observation of Starlink® satellite flashes.