[AERO] DE ST-JACQUES-DE-COMPOSTELLE (ES.SCQ) VERS EDIMBOURG (UK.EDI) 24.10.2023

On 24 October 2023, the main witness, T1, was flying from Santiago de Compostela (SCQ) to Edinburgh (EDI). During cruise west of the French coast, he and the copilot, T2, saw a night-time phenomenon unlike anything in their aviation experience: points of light appeared and disappeared, moving in various ways along straight or slightly curved trajectories. On a similar flight the following day, T1 reported the same phenomenon. Only 1 account had been collected at the time of the source report. GEIPAN assessed the case as low in strangeness with good evidential support from several witnesses and photographs, and identified Starlink® satellite flares; see the investigation report. It defines evidential strength as the quantity of reliable, objectively supported information collected for an account. The description and appearance were consistent with this phenomenon: lights changing brightness and following apparently random paths while remaining in one region of the sky. After identifying stars in the photographs, Stellarium analysis confirmed that the UAP was vertically above the Sun's apparent position while the Sun lay 30–45° below the horizon. GEIPAN explains that this geometry favours sightings of orbiting Starlink satellites, as detailed in its website article “New phenomenon explained: Starlink satellite flares”. The case was classified A: Starlink® satellite flares.