Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
What was that in the night sky?
It’s a question being asked by many residents across B.C.’s north and Interior, as well as parts of Alberta and Vancouver Island, after an unusual sighting Tuesday night.
Between about 10:15 and 10:30 p.m. PT, multiple residents, including this CBC reporter, reported seeing a large, white shape slowly move across the horizon before disappearing from view.
Videos have been posted by residents in community Facebook groups from Williams Lake to Prince George to Fort St. John, over a span of hundreds of kilometres. Reports of the sighting have also been received from the Nass Valley, Kamloops, Oliver, Vancouver Island and Sherwood Park, Alta.
Suggestions as to what it might be range from an errant weather balloon to something more out of this world. Another recurring speculation is plumes from the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which could be seen earlier in the evening over California after it took off just before 9 p.m. PT from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Patricia Seymour was one of dozens of people to observe this shape moving across the horizon on the night of May 5, 2026.
Night sky getting busier
Michael Unger, director of programming at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, said while he didn’t see the shape himself, based on video it didn’t appear to be a natural occurrence such as a meteor or cloud cover.
“It certainly looks controlled,” he said, while adding any guesses he could offer would be pure speculation.
Unger said instances of unidentified phenomenon sightings are becoming more and more common as night skies become more crowded by everything from drones to private satellites to rockets, operated by groups like SpaceX.
A bright light was seen streaking across the sky over Victoria on Vancouver Island on April 28. The American Meteor Society reported hundreds of sightings as far south as Oregon.
“Those things are just more common in our society now,” he said.
Unger also said there are more opportunities to film and share what people spot, a trend that is useful to scientists trying to track sky and space activity — such as when an apparent meteor lit up southern British Columbia a week ago.
“I think when we do get some of these instances, it sparks that curiosity of reminding ourselves that there is a lot up there that we’re missing and we don’t know,” he said.