Air Force Has Quietly Studied UFOs Passing Under Satellites, Documents Show

Information on the phenomenon is rare, but there have been two declassified studies on what are known as “fastwalkers” among Air Force personnel.

Per a 2008 paper, satellite based sensors looking down at the Earth’s surface occasionally observe reflected light from an object passing through the image. They move too fast relative to the background to be in Earth’s atmosphere. A database of fastwalker events exists as far back as the early 70s, and the authors conclude these are multiple objects, though they do not know if they’re consistently in orbit (geostationary or low-Earth), or not.

Source documents 

“Orbit Determination of Sunlight Illuminated Objects Detected by Overhead Platforms,” Capt. Osedacz, USAF: https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/fastwalkers/a209227.pdf

“Space Base dSatellite Tracking and Characterization Utilizing Non-Imaging Passive Sensors,” Capt. Townsend, Air Force Institute of Technology: https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/fastwalkers/ADA478890.pdf

Letter from NORTHCOM to John Greenewald, The Black Vault: https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/fastwalkers/FY14-19NOV2013-07.pdf

Video/image credits 

NASA live stream footage is under the Public Domain, and has been published in several locations elsewhere on this platform under Creative Commons licenses, including here (2011): https://youtu.be/zplqfHpyqpw?t=110

Orbital Altitudes image via Rrakanishu, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit#/media/File:Orbitalaltitudes.jpg