2014-10-20 - Saskatoon, SK - Light

Flashing lights stationary in sky.

I was leaving the house at about 9:25 this evening to pick up my spouse from an appointment. As I was locking the back door a bright flash of light caught my eye in the northern sky. I turned to look to see what it was. About 15 seconds later, it flashed again. It was about 15 degrees above the horizon, about 5 or 10 degrees west of due north, between two closely spaced pine trees in a neighbor's yard that I could use for reference. After about 40 seconds, it flashed again (I was counting off the seconds to myself). I could not discern that it had moved at all in that time. About 15 seconds later, it flashed again. Immediately after that, another bright light flashed to the east. It was about 20 or 25 degrees above the horizon, and about 5 or 10 degrees east of due north, between two tall pine trees that I could use for reference. In fact, I would say that it was in almost exactly the same location as a similar flashing light I reported to NUFORC in 2008.

The first light flashed again about 40 seconds after its last flash, and the light to the east immediately flashed again. I watched for another couple of minutes or so. The one on the left seemed to flash at 15-40-15-40 second intervals; the one on the right at 40 second intervals. Both lights had not changed their positions in that time, as near as I could tell.

After a minute or so, I could hear a high flying jet aircraft. I looked high to the northeast and could see an airliner traveling a familiar flight path, typical of commercial flights between central or eastern Canada and Edmonton International Airport. It was about 60-70 degrees up and northeast of my position. I could clearly see that it was a commercial flight, as I have seen many on this route. The navigation lights were flashing regularly and could be clearly seen. It was then that it occurred to me that the other flashing lights were much brighter, easily 3 or 4 orders of magnitude brighter than the airliner.

In total, I may have watched the lights flashing for four or five minutes, and then had to leave to meet my spouse. I mentioned this to my spouse, and when we returned home, about 9:50 p.m., we watched the northern sky for about two minutes, but did not see the lights.

I considered whether the lights might belong to aircraft. I have never seen commercial flights in the direction of the first light. It is too far north and west. However, it is possible that military traffic from Cold Lake, Alberta, could be in that area, en-route to eastern Canada or overseas (the CF-18s assigned to the current missions in eastern Europe and the Middle East are stationed in Cold Lake). The other light, to the east, may have coincided with commercial traffic on a Great Circle route between western cities in the USA and Europe. It's possible that I was seeing the navigation lights at the rear of various aircraft, but I've never seen any aircraft lights as bright as what I was seeing tonight, especially if (being perceptually closer to the horizon) they were a long distance away. But that doesn't explain why the lights did not appear to change position in the time I was watching.