Show HN: Live 3D satellite tracker and the declassified Pentagon UFO archive

Let me get this straight — someone built a live 3D satellite tracker and then decided to bolt on the declassified Pentagon UFO archive. That's not a pivot, that's a personality. And honestly? It's the exact kind of unhinged-but-deliberate project that makes the open source ecosystem worth subscribing to. This isn't just another KML overlay of Starlink's traffic jam; it's a portal that lets you watch hardware fly overhead while simultaneously checking whether the government ever admitted to something weird in the sky. The satellite tracking space has been crowded for years — there's stuff like N2YO, stuff like the CelesTrak data dumps, and a dozen hobbyist dashboards that all do the same thing. But the UFO archive angle is the differentiator here. It's a bold move because it flirts with a topic that most serious engineering types would rather not touch with a ten-foot antenna. Yet here's the thing: declassified Pentagon documents aren't conspiracy bait anymore, they're just public records. The 2023 UAPTF report and the AARO releases are real, they exist, and someone decided the right UI for them was a satellite tracker. That's a statement. That's saying, "This is all part of the same sky, and we should be able to look at it all at once." I can't verify the actual implementation of the tracker or the completeness of the archive without digging through the source myself — and the Show HN post doesn't give us a ton of detail beyond the headline. But that's fine. The point here isn't just the tech; it's the framing. It's taking two usually separate domains — orbital mechanics and national security transparency — and putting them in the same frame. It's the kind of thing that makes you think about the layers of what's actually up there, and whether the government's official story about "unidentified" is doing enough work. Now, let's be honest about the reception. 36 points and 17 comments is a quiet debut. It's not a front-page blowout. But for something this niche — a tracker with a UFO filing cabinet — that's a decent audience. It's an audience of people who care about both the engineering and the weirdness, which is exactly the intersection this project lives in. If the dev follows through with open-sourcing the tracker code and keeping the archive updated, this could become a go-to resource. If it's just a static page with a fancy map, it'll fade. The open source community rewards utility and transparency — and right now, the transparency part is the hook. Source: https://skylens.yantraai.app/