"Schneider's glasses"

The apparition

The Starlink satellites were once shot into space with rockets like this one - now they are returning as stardust.(Bild: Reuters/Joe Skippers)

A spectacle in the night sky recently caused a stir in the Lake Constance region: "What's behind it?" wondered author Robert Schneider. 

We were sitting on the warm summer terrace having dinner when suddenly a multicolored light trail appeared in the sky. Shortly afterwards, the apparition burst into a thousand sparks. I was convinced that it was the Perseids and said to my boys: "Now you can make a wish, but secretly and quietly, so that the wish comes true." - "An e-scooter with more power," the little one blurted out. - "It won't come true because you said it out loud," the middle one grumbled.

"If you hadn't been playing on your phone but had held the camera up to the sky, you could be earning some serious money right now," I said to my eldest. "I filmed it," he replied, his voice breaking, "but there's nothing on it." He looked again in the direction of the night sky where the unusually bright tail of light had just appeared. "You could offer the video to a news platform now. You'd be sure of a few hundred thousand likes and the comments section would be overflowing with conspiracy theories." - "Dad, I just need a cell phone with a better camera," he replied resignedly. "Then it would also be great for earning money," he added.

The next day, the light mystery was cleared up. "Musk has wrecked a Starlink satellite in the Earth's atmosphere," the tall man told me. "Now I can smear the wish in my hair. You can't wish for anything from Musk."