I’m an airline pilot, and early this morning, at around 2–3 a.m., I was flying over the state of Pará, Brazil, cruising at FL360 (36,000 feet), when I noticed several lights to the left of our flight path.
Some of the lights were brighter than others, and they appeared to move in very unusual ways. They remained within a small area of the window, slightly above the horizon, approximately four to five finger-widths above the horizon line, toward the ocean, at a magnetic heading of roughly 130°–170°. One of the lights even moved to a position slightly below the horizon.
I can’t say whether the objects were very close to us or extremely far away. The points of light were similar in color and size to stars, but some would suddenly become brighter and more intense, reaching a brightness slightly less than Venus at night. Some of them also made rapid movements that I had never seen before.
I’ve seen Starlink satellite trains passing overhead before, and what I witnessed this morning was nothing like that. I also considered the possibility that they were satellite flares, but I’m not sure whether those can occur within such a small area of the sky or whether they follow a continuous trajectory, similar to Starlink satellites.
Does anyone have any idea what this could have been? Could it be some kind of phenomenon I’m not familiar with yet? I have to admit, I was genuinely surprised by what I saw at the time.
I observed this unusual dance of lights and movements for approximately one hour.