Skywatchers Freaked Out As They Thought SpaceX's Starlink Satellites Were UFOs

As the Starlink satellites of SpaceX pass over the sky, some British skywatchers reported noticing a trail of lights when the night fell. However, those who don’t know what they are looking at have been baffled by the light show, some even take to social media claiming that they were meteors or UFOs.

On Sunday, April 19, people of Essex, a region in southeast England saw a trail created by SpaceX’s Internet satellites on the night sky at around 9:20 P.M local time.

@stevethebath, a Twitter user asked around if anyone knew about the chain of satellites and he estimated that there must be 50 of them visible to people on Earth.

The post attracted attention and more people joined the thread with their own speculations. Many immediately thought of UFOs.

People might prefer a visit from aliens than just a few satellites in their orbits but the truth is, they are part of SpaceX’s Starlink project.

What the tech giant aims at with this plan is to launch a huge megaconstellation consisting of a minimum of 12,000 satellites to provide worldwide Internet for everyone.

So far, the company has launched 362 satellites into orbit and yesterday, it deployed 60 more.

Yesterday’s launch was a smooth sail for SpaceX, a stark difference from the last endeavor of the company.

The mission right before the one happened on April 22 got into some trouble as nine first-stage engines suddenly shut down. The culprit here was isopropyl alcohol trapped inside.

Yesterday saw the seventh attempts of Starlink. So now SpaceX has had 422 satellites in orbit. According to Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, they will soon deorbit the two test satellites.

>>> SpaceX Hopes To Launch Starlink Satellite Internet In Mid-2020