On the evening of Tuesday August 11th a group of friends from the Kolymbari area were gathered for drinks on the balcony of a house in Ravdoucha which has a commanding view of the bay of Kissamos and the Western horizon. The sun had set but there was still sufficient light to illuminate objects at a certain altitude, and Venus, the evening star, was shining brightly to the West.

Suddenly a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky – a puff of white cloud heading at a fair speed in a south-easterly direction and seeming to change shape as it moved. “Look, a UFO,” several people cried. “Nonsense, it must be an aircraft,” a more practical person suggested, and there followed a lively discussion on the possible explanations of the phenomenon. While no-one was seriously upholding the interpretation of a UFO, it did not have the normal appearance of an aircraft passing overhead.

It was suggested that the white cloud could be a kind of vapour trail preceding the aircraft and illuminated by the aircraft’s lights or the setting sun. However this seemed unlikely since aircraft at cruising speed do not have landing lights on and generally only show their red and green navigation lights; moreover there was no sign of the aircraft’s body. After a minute or so, as the shape was moving out of view to the East, the white cloud faded, to be replaced by a long cigar-shaped streak of light, and there was a final puff of white vapour before it disappeared from view.

The matter was forgotten as the party proceeded to attend the annual yiorti being held in the playground of the Old School in Ravdoucha – a lively affair with the usual accompaniment of Cretan dancing and Cretan music played at deafening volume. However, the following day, some minds returned to an investigation of the possible explanations for the phenomenon they had witnessed. What transpired was not as strange as a UFO sighting, but still a remarkable demonstration of the achievements of modern space technology. The sequence of events was thus:

At 15:58 GMT on Tuesday (18:58 in Kissamos) a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket consisting of two stages and carrying a pod containing 29 Starlink satellites was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, rapidly gaining height as it headed out across the Atlantic.

Approximately two and half minutes after the launch, the first stage separated and started dropping back towards Earth, leaving the stage 2 rocket with its load of satellites to continue on its eastward path. By this time both objects were travelling at about 8,000 km/h and at an altitude of 65 km. Eight and a half minutes after lift-off the stage 1 rocket landed on a barge in the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina, performing the amazing feat (to anyone witnessing it for the first time) of using reverse boosters to slow down and land upright on the platform.

In the meantime the stage 2 rocket, by now travelling at a speed of 25,000 km/h and at a height of 145 km, continued across the Atlantic, arriving over Kissamos some 2 hours later. (A photograph taken by one of the party was timestamped 20:58.) By this time the rocket, having presumably released its load of satellites to continue into low earth orbit, had reversed position and started a process of outgasssing of kerosene fuel, prior to burning up over the Indian Ocean. This explains the appearance of the white cloud ahead of the rocket’s body, which it had concealed from view.

Such operations, while now routine for SpaceX, can still produce a sense of awe in the casual observer.

Sources:
Starlink Satellite Observing Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2365809903441367
SpaceX video of rocket launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyvNqXe1N2M