Sighting in St-Jacques-de-Compostelle, October 24, 2023

During a night flight, while cruising west of the French coast, the main witness and the co-pilot noticed a phenomenon that neither of them had ever encountered in their flying experience. Points of light appeared and disappeared, moving in various ways along straight or sometimes slightly curved paths. The next day, on another flight along a similar route, the main witness reported seeing the same thing.

Only one testimony was collected. The case had low strangeness and good consistency, and photographs of the phenomenon were available. The description and visual appearance match flashes from Starlink® satellites: points of light with varying brightness and seemingly random paths, always located in the same area of the sky. An analysis with Stellarium software, based on the stars identified in the photographs, showed that the phenomenon lay directly above the apparent position of the Sun, which was 30° to 45° below the horizon. These conditions are favourable for observing Starlink® satellites in orbit. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as A: observation of Starlink® satellite flashes.