Unsolved mystery: Speculation abounds after B.C. UFO sighting

A strange object has been caught on video flying across the night sky in Esquimalt, B.C., and the people who filmed it insist it’s a UFO.

Brian Cooper and his wife Melissa were relaxing in bed watching a movie on Monday night when all of a sudden they saw something outside their window: two strange objects darting around the night sky.

“At that point we were at a loss for words and we were like ‘what the hell is that?’” Brian Cooper told CTV Vancouver Island.

Cooper and his wife leapt out to their second-storey balcony and used their cell phone to film what he claims is likely a secret military vehicle, or maybe even proof of alien life.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life. I’m a very skeptical person,” he said.

Cooper said the objects first appeared around 8:30 p.m. While one soon vanished, the other kept flying over the area – including over Esquimalt’s Navy base.

He describes it as being as big as a Volkswagen, flying like a drone, except much faster. He said the circular craft had lights that “spun in all different directions.”

The couple weren’t the only ones to witness the strange phenomenon. Veralynn Weaver, who lives upstairs, says she also saw the UFOs, and can’t explain what they are either.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve grown up on military bases and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

The Navy base declined to view the cell phone footage, but confirmed there were no military flights of any kind near the base on Monday. No reports were filed to either the Victoria or Saanich police either.

CTV Vancouver Island showed the footage to Dr. John Willis, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Victoria. He said with grainy and shaky cell phone video – with no audio – it’s impossible to determine exactly what’s in the sky.

“These are taken on the spur of the moment,” he said, adding that 99 per cent of the time there’s a UFO sighting there is also a simple explanation.

As for whether he believes it could be an alien life form?

“I can’t definitely rule it out on the basis of that evidence. But I’m going to put my eggs in one basket and say no,” he said.

Willis said a more likely explanation is that the flying object is a drone, but “with evidence of this quality you can’t make a 100 per cent call every time.”

After being shown the video, an expert in drones said it’s likely that what the Coopers saw was a phantom aircraft.

“That’s a UAV drone. Multi-rotar, electric air vehicle,” said David Carlos of Victoria Air Photos & Survey.

But much like Willis, the expert was careful not to rule everything out.

“I would say absolutely not an alien life form. But never 100 percent,” Carlos said.

As for the Coopers, they’re still would like to definitively know what they saw outside their apartment – and aren’t satisfied with the explanation.

“Myself personally, I do not have a rational explanation of what is was,” said Brian Cooper.

With files from CTV Vancouver Island’s Robert Buffam