autoevolution
 

False Alarm UFO Sighting in Pittsburgh Actually Elon Musk's Starlink Satellites

Elon Musk may very well be a space alien from the Zeta Reticuli star system under his human skin. But his Starlink line of mini communication satellites is confirmed to be of this Earth, at the very least. That didn't stop Pittsburgh, PA residents from taking to social media to report their own little version of Roswell a few nights ago.
Starlink 6 photos
Photo: Madison Williams
StarlinkStarlinkStarlinkStarlinkStarlink
It actually makes perfect sense that Pittsburgh residents find abnormal-looking objects flying in perfect formation across the night sky. Their creator's been on quite the roll with launching thousands of satellites into orbit thus far. As many as 48 were launched, with their last launch on December 2nd.

Over 1,600 Starlink satellites have launched into low Earth orbit so far. With as many as 60 mini-satellites stacked together in one rocket on any given launch. The spacecraft orbit in very tight formations compared to typical satellites. In doing so, Elon Musk hopes to provide wireless satellite internet access to hundreds of millions across the globe.

The spacecraft operates in a lower orbit than traditional communication satellites, approximately 1/105th to 1/30th the height of typical geostationary orbits. At this altitude, Elon Musk reckons his proprietary peer-to-peer protocol can distribute high-speed internet at roughly similar rates to standard ISP latency rates.

One side effect of such a shallow orbit is the phenomenon that took Pittsburgh by surprise on the evening of December 4th. A clearly visible formation of satellites rolled across the skies of Pittsburgh and the surrounding North and South Hills neighborhoods. The response was a flood of calls to local news centers reporting cell phone images of UFOs over Western Pennsylvania.

The thought of extraterrestrial beings choosing PA's second most populous city behind Philadelphia as their spot to land and seek out our leaders is humorous, we must admit. Sadly, the whole thing was a false alarm, but people can dream and dream they do.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories