Fireball over Calgary
© Ian Turner
Initially considered an unidentified flying object, the mysterious red lights that streaked across Calgary's sky for a few seconds last week are now believed to have been a meteor.

Ian Turner was recording Thursday's lightning at around 10:30 PM when he noticed what appeared to be two sets of red lights.

"They were going too fast across the sky to be flights," said Turner.

Because meteors are typically blue, the light initially puzzled Jason Nishiyama of the Alberta Star Party.

After closer analysis, it was determined the cloud coverage contributed to the unusual colour.


"The red colour was due to the clouds blocking most of the bluer light," explained Nishiyama.

The appearance of two lights was determined to be from the meteor passing through clouds.

UFOlogy, a Manitoba-based research group that studies UFO sightings in Canada, said that most short-duration events turn out to be a meteor or something similar.

In 2019, Calgary had 20 reports of UFOs -the sixth most sightings amongst Canadian cities.