Satellite trains
VISIBLE NOW2RECENT BATCHES
2 batch launches in the last four days. Freshly deployed satellites stay clustered for a few nights and cross the sky as a line of evenly spaced lights — the single most common cause of a wave of reports.
SYS // UNIDENTIFIED
What is actually up there
Most reports of something strange in the sky have an identifiable cause, and increasingly that cause is a satellite. This page is built to help you work out what you saw: what launched in the last four days, where the Space Station is right now, and what each of the usual suspects actually looks like from the ground.
It is not a sightings database, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a gap — the established ones forbid republication, and a worse copy would help nobody. What it is instead: the official record, the current credible reporting, and the part we can genuinely answer.
Space station
TRACKED440KM UP
The brightest human-made object in the night sky, and the most commonly misidentified. It is a single steady white light that crosses in about five minutes and never blinks.
Recent launches
IN THE WINDOW5MISSIONS
Successful launches in the last four days, closest in time first. Anything that reached orbit put something new in the sky.
What went up in the last four days
Every successful launch in the window, closest in time first. If you saw something you cannot place, start here.
Ariane 62 | MTG-I2
3 hours agoArianespace · Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana · 2026-08-27 20:11:00Z
SpaceX · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA · 2026-08-26 09:35:11Z
A Starlink batch releases dozens of satellites into the same orbit. For the first few nights they stay clustered and cross the sky as an evenly spaced line of lights — by far the most common cause of a wave of sighting reports.
SpaceX · Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA · 2026-08-25 09:33:38Z
A Starlink batch releases dozens of satellites into the same orbit. For the first few nights they stay clustered and cross the sky as an evenly spaced line of lights — by far the most common cause of a wave of sighting reports.
Long March 6C | 7 satellites
68 hours agoChina Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation · Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China · 2026-08-25 03:21:00Z
Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat | Glonass-K1 No. 19
92 hours agoRussian Space Forces · Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation · 2026-08-24 02:40:00Z
What it probably was
A field guide to the things most often reported, and how to tell them apart from the ground.
A satellite train
A line of evenly spaced lights, all moving together in the same direction, silent, taking a few minutes to cross the sky.
How to tell: Check the launch list below. A batch launched in the last few nights is the answer far more often than not.
The Space Station
A single very bright, steady white light moving steadily across the sky, brighter than any star, gone in about five minutes. No flashing.
How to tell: It never flashes and never changes direction. The live tracker on this site says where it is right now.
A rocket plume at twilight
An expanding, glowing spiral or jellyfish-shaped cloud, sometimes enormous, usually shortly after dark or before dawn.
How to tell: Sunlight catching exhaust in the upper atmosphere while the ground is already dark. Almost always within an hour of a launch, and visible for hundreds of kilometres.
Re-entering debris
Several fragments travelling together on the same path, glowing orange or yellow, slower than a meteor and lasting far longer.
How to tell: A meteor is over in a second or two. Debris re-entry can last a minute and visibly breaks apart.
Starlink or a bright flare
A brief, intense flash from a moving point of light that then fades.
How to tell: Sunlight glinting off a flat panel. It brightens and dims smoothly rather than blinking.
An aircraft
Steady motion with red and green navigation lights and a regular strobe.
How to tell: Anything that blinks in a regular rhythm is almost certainly an aircraft. Nothing in orbit flashes.
The official record
Primary sources, linked rather than reproduced. Each is described by what it is, not by what it concluded — these servers refuse automated requests, so we cannot read them on your behalf and will not summarise a document we have not opened.
US Department of Defense
All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office ↗
The office the US government established in 2022 to receive, catalogue and investigate reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena across air, space, sea and land. It publishes case resolutions and annual reports to Congress.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena ↗
The June 2021 assessment that put the subject on the official record, prepared for Congress by the ODNI. It is the document most later reporting traces back to.
NASA
UAP Independent Study Team report ↗
NASA convened an independent panel of scientists to advise on how UAP data could be studied with the ordinary tools of science rather than of intelligence. Its report was published in September 2023.
US National Archives
Project Blue Book records ↗
The US Air Force's own investigation, running from 1952 to 1969, and its case files. The archive is the primary source for the historical era of the subject.
Current reporting
Coverage from the spaceflight press. These are news articles, not evidence, and they are listed because they are what is being written — not because this site endorses any claim in them.
Arstechnica
The US military just released a bunch of UAP files, but there's no there there
Here at Ars Technica, we do not preclude the possibility that aliens have visited Earth.
Reported and summarised by Arstechnica. Opens in a new tab.
SpacePolicyOnline.com
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Seeking New Director
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is seeking a new director to succeed Ralph Semmel who will retire next summer. JHUAPL encompasses four sectors: Air and Missile Defense, Asymmetric...
Reported and summarised by SpacePolicyOnline.com. Opens in a new tab.
NASA
NASA JPL Developing Underwater Robots to Venture Deep Below Polar Ice
Called IceNode, the project envisions a fleet of autonomous robots that would help determine the melt rate of ice shelves. On a remote patch of the windy, frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California huddled together, peering down a narrow hole in a thick layer of sea […]
Reported and summarised by NASA. Opens in a new tab.
SpaceNews
NASA releases independent report on UAP research
NASA announced it would take new steps to help understand unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), vowing transparency while also being reticent to disclose some details.
Reported and summarised by SpaceNews. Opens in a new tab.
SpacePolicyOnline.com
NASA Wants UFO Discussion to “Shift from Sensationalism to Science”
NASA released the report of its year-long analysis of unclassified data about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, today. Government interest in UAPs has skyrocketed in recent years […]
Reported and summarised by SpacePolicyOnline.com. Opens in a new tab.
NASA
UPDATE: NASA Shares UAP Independent Study Report; Names Director
In response to a recommendation by an independent study team for NASA to play a more prominent role in understanding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the agency announced Thursday it is appointing a director of UAP research.
Reported and summarised by NASA. Opens in a new tab.
NASA
NASA Shares Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Report
In response to a recommendation by an independent study team for NASA to play a more prominent role in understanding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the agency announced Thursday it is appointing a director of UAP research.
Reported and summarised by NASA. Opens in a new tab.
The Launch Pad
NASA Releases Independent UAP Report "UAP Pose A Threat To US Airspace Safety"
NASA Independent Study Team releases final report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
Reported and summarised by The Launch Pad. Opens in a new tab.
NASA
NASA to Release, Discuss Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Report
NASA will host a media briefing at 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 14, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington to discuss the findings from an unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) independent study team it commissioned in 2022.
Reported and summarised by NASA. Opens in a new tab.
The Launch Pad
‘Non-Human Biologic’ Pilot Found Aboard Crashed UAP
The US House Oversight Commitee held a historic hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.
Reported and summarised by The Launch Pad. Opens in a new tab.
The Launch Pad
Congress introduces new UAP Transparency Amendment
Congress introduces new Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Transparency Amendment
Reported and summarised by The Launch Pad. Opens in a new tab.
NASA
NASA Provides Coverage of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Meeting
NASA is holding a public meeting at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, of its independent study team on categorizing and evaluating data of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The agency also will host a media teleconference at the conclusion of the meeting.
Reported and summarised by NASA. Opens in a new tab.
Standing questions
- I saw a line of lights moving across the sky. What was it?
- Almost certainly a satellite train — most often Starlink. A batch launch releases dozens of satellites into the same orbit at once, and for the first few nights they have not yet spread out, so they cross the sky as an evenly spaced line of steady lights, silent, taking two to five minutes end to end. This page lists the launches of the last four days so you can check. The giveaway is that they do not blink: aircraft navigation lights strobe in a regular rhythm, and nothing in orbit does. If the lights flashed, it was an aircraft.
- What was the glowing spiral or jellyfish-shaped cloud?
- A rocket exhaust plume lit by sunlight. Shortly after sunset or before sunrise the ground is dark but the upper atmosphere is still in sunlight, so the exhaust from an upper stage — expanding freely in near-vacuum — catches the sun and glows as an enormous, slowly growing cloud, sometimes spiralling if the stage is venting while rotating. It can be visible for hundreds of kilometres and looks nothing like anything else in the sky. It always follows a launch within an hour or so.
- Is there an official record of UAP reports?
- Yes. The US Department of Defense established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in 2022 to receive and investigate reports, and it publishes case resolutions and annual reports to Congress. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a preliminary assessment in June 2021, which is the document most later reporting traces back to, and NASA convened an independent study team whose report was published in September 2023. This page links to all of them rather than reproducing them — their servers refuse automated requests, so we cannot mirror them, and summarising a document we cannot read is how a page like this ends up asserting something that is not in the source.
- Does this site have a database of UFO sightings?
- No, and deliberately not. The best-known sightings database forbids both scraping and redistribution in its terms, so republishing it is not available to us at any price. Rather than build a worse copy from scratch, this page does the thing we can actually do well: tell you what was genuinely overhead when you saw something. Between the launch manifest and the Space Station's live position, that identifies the great majority of reports.
How this page is sourced
Launch data is from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Station position is from a live public feed. Reporting is from the Spaceflight News API, which indexes spaceflight publications — it is used here in preference to a general news index precisely because it does not surface tabloid coverage.
There is no sightings database on this page. The best-known one forbids scraping and redistribution in its own terms, and the official US archives block automated requests from servers, so they are linked for you to read directly. Nothing on this page asserts what any official report concluded.