Message posted by Griffon_314 on March 15, 2017 at 6:36:10 PST:

Short answer: Those are Chinese SIGINT satellites.

Longer answer:

You have recorded three satellites orbiting in formation - this is not unusual, as there are many "triads" and "pairs" of satellites in orbit.

These formations are naval SIGINT satellites - each one has antennae to receive RF signals, and by measuring precise differences in when the signal reaches each satellite in the formation, they can triangulate the position of the emitter (usually, a ship). So with several of these formations in orbit, you can track the location of ships all over the world (and other RF emitters).

The US used to triads (codenamed PARCAE), but now uses pairs (codenamed INTRUDER). The Chinese still use triplets, and that is almost certainly what you recorded here. Specifically, this appears to be one of Yaogan 9A-C, 16A-C, 17A-C, 20A-C, or 25A-C. With the location and time of the video, it's possible to figure out exactly which it was.

In Reply to: Re: Object identification posted by Steve on March 14, 2017 at 17:30:33 PST:

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