If there is any place you might half-expect an alien encounter, camping in the South Dakota Badlands might be on the list. Yet, my skeptical partners and I were floored when we looked up from the campfire over Memorial Day weekend and saw a thin line of interconnected lights too fast to count, trailing tightly across the night sky . We tried getting video, but nothing showed up on camera – just audio captured of us guessing what the hell we were looking at.
Luckily, an astronomer in the Netherlands captured what we didn’t know we saw – 60 Starlink satellites launched May 23 by SpaceX, the start of a project meant to encircle the world with high-speed internet satellites. Interestingly, the sharp visibility of the satellites have already sparked concerns of interference with scientific observation and radio astronomy.
My chance to claim I witnessed a true UFO last only two short days – but it left a satisfying memory of four friends, gazing up at space across the prairie.
IN OTHER NEWS: Artificial intelligence can now erase the Tiananmen Square massacre from Chinese memory online (FAST COMPANY); How will 5G interact with weather forecasting? (MADISON.COM); In other 5G news, the BBC blames carrier EE’s just-launched network for disappointing transmission errors during a live broadcast (VENTUREBEAT).