2002-09-15 - Quebec City, QC - Formation

Sustained observation of multiple objects, independent and in formation, in the Quebec City night sky

At approximately 22:45 on September 15, 2002, I witnessed a chevron-like formation of 5-6 objects approaching Quebec from the SE at approximately 5-10K feet. Each individual object was of an illuminated white colour, and seemed to resemble the shape of a bird. The formation was completely silent, and flew smoothly past several clearly identifiable commercial and private aircraft at a speed >250 mph. After the formation had disappeared in the NW sky, I observed two objects flying independently. Whether these had come from the formation I had observed is unclear. The first object was of the shape previously described. It flew at roughly the same altitude and speed as the formation, yet seemed to circle and hover in the WSW sky. Barring it's speed and luminescence, it's trajectory did fit with that expected from a hawk or other predatory bird. I can only describe the shape of the second object as a point of light. This object flew at a higher altitude than that already described (>10k feet), and reached incredible speeds. What was most impressive was the flightpath that it followed; my best description of this object's trajectory would be "extremely ERRATIC". At such a high rate of speed, this object seemed to turn and bank with almost no leeway, in the same manner one might observe a firefly or other small insect to do as it is blown in the wind. I also described the pattern this object made in the night sky to a colleague as that which might be expected to result from someone moving a laser pointer around the ceiling of an auditorium. The possibility that a ground-based device created this image, however, can be ruled out by the fact that the observed object would come into and out of view as it passed behind sparse cloud cover.