Size of Object(s)

Larger than apparent star-size

Distance to Object(s) & Altitude

Upper atmosphere

Shape of Object(s)

Lights

Color of Object(s):

Bright white

Full Description & Details

On 13 August 2005 at approximately 11pm my friend and I were star gazing from a north-facing balcony in Kitsilano, a suburb of Vancouver, looking towards the night sky above Burrard Inlet and Stanley Park. We were hoping to catch the last of the Perseid meteor shower. It was a clear night but with lots of artificial sodium-light pollution. My friend pointed to an area of night sky and said there was a funny light there, I looked up just in time to see a single brilliant bluish-white flash at a fairly low level, several times larger than a star and much more intense. No more flashes appeared. My friend said he has seen 3 flashes leading up to that final flash, travelling east to west and appearing irregularly over several seconds. We thought this odd.

The following evening 14 August 2005 we were returning from Swartz Bay to Tsawassen by BC ferries on the delayed 9pm departure. As dusk turned to night we went up on top deck to star gaze, intrigued by the sighting the previous night and carrying binoculars and we scanned different sectors of the sky. It was absolutely clear, calm and mild with good visibility and some contrails from jet airliners. We saw plenty of air traffic. After a few moments my friend pointed directly overhead and said there was another light flashing. I looked up and saw a flash of brilliant light followed by three increasingly faint and smaller flashes at intervals of a few seconds and slightly off to the left of the first; it was as if a flashing object were travelling vertically but slightly diagonally at great speed. It then disappeared. We both thought wow, this is weird, two sightings in two consecutive nights.

We then watched two assumed satellites tracking extremely fast on slightly different lines from south to north and watched these disappear well out toward the horizon, perhaps taking 15 seconds to cover the whole sky distance. I pointed out a third satellite travelling slower than the first two but roughly in the same direction and we watched this until suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light from it a little over half way across the sky. I thought it had exploded but then saw the object, fainter, was still travelling on its course but this was only for a short distance then it disappeared from my view but my good-sighted friend exclaimed it had stopped dead near Polaris. We got the binoculars out but with unsteadiness of hand failed to isolate the faint object against the other stars. We were incredulous, even if the flash had simply been reflected sunlight this was no satellite behaviour. Possibly it was a meteor bouncing off the upper atmosphere but I've not seen one travel as slow or aslong as this, survive burn up to continue travelling and then stopping! We saw two meteors as well that evening and plenty of air traffic, with which we are both familiar, and I can assure that what we observed and describe above was not a case of mistaken identity for those. We would love toknow if anyone can explain what we were lucky enough to see twice in two consecutive evenings.

Witness Background

Chartered forester and post-graduate student (me), graduate biologist and farmer (friend).

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