SIGHTING: CORTES ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA)

Witness Testimony

"Outside on my property viewed two unusual bright "stars" close together to the northwest relatively low to the horizon between a pair of trees. Estimated to be magnitude 0 or possibly even brighter, and immediately felt they were unfamiliar in the sky, two stars, that bright, that close together. Then I noticed they were slowly moving together against the background, eventually passing behind a tree, emerging out again on the other side of it, before disappearing from my view altogether behind the next set of trees. My initial thought is that they must be satellites, but it was quite late into the evening, and it is the middle of winter. Far too deep into Earth shadow for a low Earth orbiting satellite to be in sunlight. They were also moving very slow for satellites, so I gave some thought to the possibility of higher orbiting satellites, but they were very bright for that to seem likely. I checked a satellite database on my phone which revealed no passing satellites. I checked for Iridium flares scheduled for my location, but none were scheduled at this time, and it appears even Iridium satellites don't flare that late at night at this time of year here. Plus, there were two of these lights. I considered the possibility that these were like the NOSS triplets. I saw a set of NOSS triplets in 1997, and this was similar. The NOSS triplets are out of formation now, but apparently the Chinese Yaogan satellites fly in formation. I checked their known orbits and they don't seem like they were in the neighbourhood. I also believe their altitude places them too low to be in sunlight at that time of night. I am highly confident that these were not planes. Solid white/yellow steady star-like light, no sound, no nearby airports, very little air traffic on this part of the coast at all really.Honestly, I am stumped. I thought I would share, in case it's of any value to anyone, or if we are fortunate enough to learn of other reports."