One summer night in late July 2001, I found myself sleeping outside under the vast, star-studded sky with my two young children. Our backyard in Castlegar, British Columbia, is a secluded haven nestled against the mountain with a breathtaking view of the city and lake below. The night was warm and crystal clear, ideal for stargazing. We admired the constellations and spotted satellites until exhaustion nudged us into sleep around midnight.
Suddenly, around 2:00 a.m., I woke with an uncanny urge to glance northward. There, cutting a silent path across the darkness, was an intensely bright light traveling steadily from north to south. At first, I thought it might be a low-flying satellite due to its steady, unblinking glow—like a streetlight about a hundred yards away—but its brilliance was unlike anything I’d seen before. There was no sound, only the silent glide across the heavens.
After about eight to ten seconds, the light halted abruptly midway across the sky. What happened next was stranger still—the glow seemed to flicker out rapidly, as if someone had turned off a television set in mid-play, or perhaps it shot off at impossible speed in the opposite direction. The entire experience lasted barely fifteen seconds.
Unbeknownst to me, my youngest daughter had also awakened and watched this spectacle. Her whispered words, “Dad, what was that?” and “I’m really scared right now,” hung heavy in the still air. An eerie sense of dread settled over us, a chilling reminder that some mysteries resist understanding.
That night, our backyard camp-out ended abruptly. The silent visitor left more than just a fleeting impression—it stirred an unsettling awareness that, beneath the peaceful stars, inexplicable things sometimes watch back.