Researcher

Who Built the Satellite Grid Over Earth Decades Before Humans Could?

  • Dr. Beatriz Villarroel’s team may have uncovered the first real technosignature hiding in 70-year-old sky photos.
  • New analysis of 1950s astronomical plates suggests something was orbiting Earth before Sputnik.
  • What Palomar saw in 1952 might change the timeline of who — or what — reached space first.

Review of the Palomar Sky Survey Transient Events Study (2025)

Authors: Beatriz Villarroel, Enrique Solano, Hichem Guergouri, Alina Streblyanska, Stephen Bruehl, Vitaly M Andruk, Lars Mattsson, Rudolf E Bär, Jamal Mimouni, Stefan Geier, Alok C Gupta, Vanessa Okororie, Khaoula Laggoune, Matthew E Shultz, Robert A Freitas

One of the most rigorously scientific looks at pre-satellite transient sky events just dropped — and it’s a big deal. This new paper, “Aligned, multiple-transient events in the First Palomar Sky Survey,” led by Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, dives into strange, star-like flashes captured in the 1950s — before any human objects were in orbit — and asks a bold question: could these be reflective artifacts not from Earth?

What’s the Study About?

The team analyzed 298,165 short-lived transient events captured in red-sensitive photographic plates from the First Palomar Sky Survey (POSS-I). These exposures, taken between 1949 and 1958, each lasted around 45–50 minutes. The researchers focused on identifying cases where three or more transient points appeared along a straight line during the same exposure — a pattern extremely unlikely to occur naturally.

Why Lines Matter

If a single flash appears on a sky plate, it could be a glitch. But multiple point-like lights, perfectly aligned, and visible only in one long-exposure photo? That hints at something coordinated — possibly spinning or precessing reflective objects.

  • Natural sources (like meteors, stars, or asteroids) don’t line up and appear simultaneously
  • Plate defects usually aren’t evenly spaced or stellar in appearance
  • Artificial reflections — from flat surfaces in geosynchronous orbit — would behave exactly like this

Highlights from the Study

  • 83 linear groupings were found — five were especially promising after manual verification
  • Candidate 5 happened on July 27, 1952 — the same night as the famous Washington D.C. UFO flyover
  • Candidate 1 aligns within a day of the 1954 European UFO wave peak
  • Some alignments reached a 3.9σ statistical significance — rare enough to warrant serious attention

Solar Reflection vs. Defects

One of the key tests involved checking whether sunlight is necessary for these flashes to occur. If the flashes are glints off objects in space, they wouldn’t appear in Earth’s shadow (the umbra). So the team tested this:

  • At 42,164 km (GSO altitude), only 0.33% of transients occurred inside Earth’s shadow — far less than the 1.15% expected
  • At 80,000 km, the deficit was even stronger

This result had a whopping 21.9σ significance level — meaning the missing transients in Earth’s shadow are not a statistical fluke. This supports the theory that sunlight is causing the reflections, and undercuts the idea that plate flaws are the main cause.

‘This lends substantial support to the interpretation that the transients are real astrophysical or near-Earth events, and not plate defects. The disappearance of the population in Earth’s shadow would not be expected for emulsion flaws or chemical irregularities.’ – Dr. Beatriz Villarroel

Could These Be Ghosts or Glitches?

The paper is careful not to overreach. But it does thoroughly analyze (and mostly dismiss) conventional explanations:

  • Plate defects: Highly unlikely to mimic stellar PSFs and align in multiple cases across different regions
  • Ghosting: Unlikely due to the specific shape, intensity, and spacing of the transients
  • Atmospheric sources: Would appear blurred or streaked in 50-minute exposures — these don’t
  • Low Earth orbit objects: Would likely leave trails or repeated flashes, which are not seen

These possibilities weren’t just casually dismissed — they were critically tested with control scans, optical analysis, and statistical modeling.

Modeling the Flash Makers

The team used 3D models in Blender to simulate five geometric shapes (spheres, cones, pyramids, panel reflectors, etc.) and how they might glint sunlight. Only shapes with flat, mirror-like surfaces — spinning or wobbling in space — could create the patterns observed. Spheres and irregular blobs didn’t cut it.

Beatriz Villarroel on X.com (Twitter)

Important Disclaimer

The authors do not claim these are alien craft. What they’re showing is that some unexplained sky events from before the space age match what we’d expect from fast-moving reflective objects in geosynchronous orbit. Whether that means non-terrestrial artifacts (NTAs) or something else remains open — but the evidence demands more investigation.

Why This Matters

This paper pushes the boundaries of legitimate technosignature research — the search for evidence of technology not made on Earth. It also suggests hundreds or thousands of unidentified glint-producing objects may exist in high orbit, completely unnoticed by modern surveillance tools that focus on different detection parameters.

Read the full paper here:

View Full Preprint on ResearchGate

Candidate Alignments – Image

Four instances of aligned satellites high above earth before Sputnik and mankind's ability to launch even near-earth satellites.

Posted by Vern on UFOZen.com – exploring high-altitude mysteries, with our feet on the ground and our heads way up there.

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Max

Experiencer with anomalous experiences attributed to UFO/UAP and the artificial intelligence interacting with us here on Earth. Multiple experiences of all kinds. If you're curious, look at the About Us link and find the link where I tell about all of my experiences.

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