Originally Posted by
Xhorst
Most of the Starlink satellites are at a 53deg inclined orbit.
This means that they will appear to be
tracking north as they approach 53N, then appear to stop and then track south. That's a likely explanation for the "they can't be satellites because they change direction" assumptions.
There are also newer satellites at 43deg inclined orbit, and some polar ones at 97.6deg.
You can see them all here:
https://beta.starlink.sx
I'm going to have to drop the red challenge flag on that. Satellites in earth orbit are going in a straight line (actually a really really small arc aka centripetal force) with the earth slowly rotating below. Their ground track depicted on a flat wall map looks like a sine wave (going up and down), but they are going in a straight line. You can only see the spacecraft in orbit for a minute or two then it's gone. So from the ground you are only seeing about 1/100th of it's orbit. That's not long enough for it to
appear to change directions. The same thing happens when you follow the great circle route on a cross country airplane flight (looks curved on a chart) from east coast to west coast (or vice versa). Over time the airplane's magnetic heading is slowly changing but you are flying in a straight line. People on the ground watching your jet fly over at high altitude in cruise see a perfectly straight vapor trail.