What was that light in the sky? How to tell Starlink, the ISS, planets and rockets apart

Three questions sort out most sightings: did it move, how long did you see it, and did it blink? Our sky checker asks exactly that, adds the time, place and direction, and compares your answer with what was overhead at that minute. For cities outside Israel, see tonight's sky by city.

This has been the most common "UFO" of recent years, in Israel and everywhere else. SpaceX launches dozens of satellites at a time, and for the first days after a launch they travel close together in a long line before climbing to their working orbits and spreading out. When the Sun has set for you but still lights them hundreds of kilometers up, they look like a string of pearls crossing the sky. That is why they show up mostly in the first hour or two after sunset or before sunrise.

Israel has had two well-known waves. At the end of Independence Day in 2020, dozens of lights crossed the sky and people across the country called in. In July 2022 a "glittering trail" over the north turned out to be the same thing; astronomer Yigal Pat-El explained that the satellites pass in a low orbit and, at the right angle, reflect sunlight. More in our glossary.

The International Space Station is one of the brightest things in the night sky. It looks like a bright white star moving in a straight line, usually from west to east, with no blinking lights and no sound. A good pass lasts a few minutes, and sometimes it simply vanishes mid-sky as it enters Earth's shadow. You only see it near dusk or dawn, when it is dark where you are but the station is still in sunlight.

NASA's Spot the Station app lists passes for any location, and our sky checker shows them for Israel. Smaller satellites look like faint dots drifting slowly. A brief flash as a satellite catches the Sun is a satellite flare.

After the Moon, the brightest light in the sky is almost always Venus. Low on the horizon, turbulent air makes it shimmer and flash colors, which produces a fresh crop of "hovering UFO" reports every year. In late 2026 Venus is the morning star: it rises in the east before the Sun and brightens through November. Jupiter is bright enough to fool people too. If the "star" keeps the same position against houses and trees for many minutes, it is a planet.

A light that seems to hang still can also be a plane flying straight toward you. In the evening over central Israel there is a queue of aircraft approaching Ben Gurion Airport, and their powerful landing lights look like a star slowly getting closer. After a minute or two the blinking navigation lights appear, and sometimes the engine noise.

A meteor, or shooting star, is a grain of space dust burning up tens of kilometers overhead. It is gone in a second or two and doesn't come back. An exceptionally big one, a fireball, can light up the whole sky, leave a glowing trail and be seen across a whole country at once.

Meteor showers bring more of them. The 2026 Leonids should peak on the nights around November 17, at roughly 10 to 15 meteors an hour under dark skies; after midnight is best, once the Moon has set. The Geminids, the strongest shower of the year, peak on the nights of December 13–14, with only a thin crescent Moon in the way.

In Israel, "what was that in the sky?" is a security question first. An interception looks like a sharp flash, sometimes several, followed by a delayed boom and white smoke trails from the interceptors. During an alert, don't stop to film: go to a protected space as Home Front Command instructs. Afterwards, don't post the locations of interceptions or impacts online; that information can help the enemy.

A satellite launch from Palmachim Airbase looks different: a point of light climbing slowly over the sea and leaving a plume that can take on strange colors when the Sun, already below your horizon, lights it from below. Israel launches westward over the Mediterranean so that spent rocket stages fall into the sea, not on populated areas. Recent launches, such as the Ofek 19 satellite on September 2, 2025, took place after dark. Defense missile tests, such as the Arrow system's, are also sometimes held over the sea.

And spirals? On June 7, 2012, thousands of people from Rosh Hanikra to Beersheba watched a light curl into a spiral and fade. The IDF said the event was not known to it; that same evening Russia announced a successful long-range ballistic missile test, and a similar spiral over Norway in 2009 had turned out to be a Russian missile test. What the IDF has said about other sightings is collected here.

A drone at night looks like a point of light that hovers, darts and changes color. Drone light shows at holidays and events draw whole shapes in the sky. Near Israel's borders a drone is also a security matter: if there is an alert about a hostile aircraft, follow Home Front Command.

A sky lantern is a flickering orange ball that drifts slowly with the wind, rises, then dims and goes out. Balloons look like a steady white dot in the daytime sky. And searchlights and lasers from events throw patches of light that sweep across the clouds.

If something might be a security threat, such as a fallen object, a drone over a town or a suspicious item, call the Israel Police on 100. Rocket and hostile-aircraft alerts come from Home Front Command, through its app and website.

If you've checked and still have no explanation, write it down: the exact time, the direction (north, south and so on), how high above the horizon, how long it lasted and how it moved. Film a long, steady video with a landmark in the frame, like a building, a pole or a ridge line, and avoid digital zoom. Then share it in the sightings feed and the community will help identify it. Before sharing someone else's viral clip, run it through our guide to checking UFO videos.