Pilot Report Unclassified Complete

237UAP00522

National Archives and Records Administration

Released

—

Published

—

Added to archive

Jun 14, 2026

Department

NARA

Original size

242 KB

External ID

5db6c1a0ed16a9f85d9c0b6091a7db4843708f4bcdc12731eec135968026080d

Confidence

85%

Credibility

90%

View original document ↗ hosted at the official government source

Intelligence summary

On July 16, 2023, Southwest Airlines flight 549 reported seeing a string of lights while flying at 38,000 feet near Memphis, TN. The sighting was later correlated with Starlink satellites, and no evasive action was taken by the crew.

Tags & topics

Locations referenced

Location	Context	Confidence	Supporting text
Memphis, TN	Incident Location	Medium	On July 16, 2023, Southwest Airlines flight 549 reported seeing a string of lights while flying at 38,000 feet near Memphis, TN. The sighting was later correlat
MEMPHIS, TN	Incident Location	Medium	Date: 7/16/2023 9:33:00 PM (-05 CDT) Title: SWA549 UFO-UAP ACTIVITY 07-16-2023 Latitude: 34.207361910000003 Latitude: -88.976516770000003 PRELIM INFO FROM FAA O

Extracted timeline

Jun 15, 2023

Document Date (year hint)

Document Date (year hint) for 237UAP00522

Jun 14, 2026

Ingestion Date

Ingestion Date for 237UAP00522

Jun 14, 2026

Document Record Date

Document Record Date for 237UAP00522

Jun 14, 2026

Update Date

Update Date for 237UAP00522

Entities mentioned

Southwest Airlines Flight 549 Starlink String of lights

Full document text

548 characters, transcribed via OCR. Errors reflect the source scan. Compare with the original ↗

Suggest a correction

Date: 7/16/2023 9:33:00 PM (-05 CDT) Title: SWA549 UFO-UAP ACTIVITY 07-16-2023 Latitude: 34.207361910000003 Latitude: -88.976516770000003 PRELIM INFO FROM FAA OPS: MEMPHIS, TN/UFO-UAP ACTIVITY/2136C/MEMPHIS ARTCC ADVISED SOUTHWEST 549, B737, RSW - STL, REPORTED AN UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENON OF A STRING OF LIGHTS ABOVE ACFT WHILE NW BOUND AT FL380 81 SE MEM. NO EVASIVE ACTION TAKEN. SIGHTING CORRELATED WITH STARLINK SATELLITES. NO LEO NOTIFICATION. WOC 7-3333 RC/JA Washington Operations Center DESCRIPTION