On a clear and rare evening in early May 2020, I stepped out onto my deck in Oshawa, Ontario, ready for a quiet moment at dusk. Little did I expect to witness an extraordinary display spanning over an hour—a procession of slow-moving, star-like lights traversing the sky in an uncanny and mesmerizing fashion.
Just minutes after settling outside, at around 9:10 p.m., a small, faint light appeared, moving smoothly from west to east. It approached my position before vanishing in a brief flicker of mere seconds. Then, about ten minutes later, a brighter light emerged to the west at what I estimated to be about a quarter-mile away, moving south to north. Its brightness diminished before it too faded completely.
The spectacle grew more intense as the night progressed. By 9:35 p.m., a third whitish-blue light, reminiscent of the earlier ones, sailed from the northwest overhead toward the southeast, gradually fading out. At 9:55 p.m., the sky began to fill. One by one, single lights appeared like gleaming pearls strung along invisible threads—first a few, then many, eventually counting over forty in a procession that seemed endless. This slow train of glowing orbs, separated by roughly 20 to 30 seconds each, continued for nearly ten minutes.
I was so compelled that I called a friend in neighboring Whitby, Ontario, guiding him to glance skyward in real time. Nearly simultaneously, we watched and counted these lights as if caught in some silent space ballet. Just as the last light in the first wave disappeared, a second surge of similar glowing orbs took flight, mirroring the path and rhythm of the earlier procession but shifted slightly westward—again trailing toward the southeast.
Approximately twenty more of these silent travelers passed above, and both my friend and I noticed something peculiar: the last one in the line appeared to halt mid-sky, perfectly still, as if attempting to masquerade as a distant star.
I am aware of natural and man-made phenomena such as star link satellites that sometimes light the night sky. Yet this mesmerising event felt far more enigmatic, evoking a sense beyond ordinary satellite patterns or common aerial displays.
Though I attempted to capture this spectacle on video, the fleeting brilliance of these lights resisted clear recording, leaving only poor quality footage. The sky’s pristine clarity that evening served as a rare backdrop to this mysterious procession that continues to linger in my mind.
For those who share a fascination with the unknown, this encounter in Oshawa beckons further curiosity and reflection: are all these lights truly satellites, or might some be messages from beyond? Whatever their origin, that night painted the darkness with an extraordinary dance of shining lights that I will not soon forget.