Mysterious light prompts UFO sighting reports in Toronto

Skywatchers on the east side of Toronto were a bit spooked on Thursday night to see a “fireball shaped” object hovering over Lake Ontario.

Reports of a large, round, orange light near Scarborough first started coming in on Twitter around 11 p.m.

“Hovering in the same spot for half an hour now,” wrote one observer around 11:30 p.m. “Went out for about 10 seconds then came back. Note the hanging smoke around it.”

— fb (@51fudge) September 7, 2018

The light was atypically bright, illuminating the clouds around it for an estimated two hours before finally disappearing.

— Julian Carvajal (@JuliCarvajalTO) September 7, 2018

“It looked like a meteor, but the weird thing was it just hovered instead of moving or dissipating,” wrote someone on a UFO Hunters reporting website.

“I continued to check the object to the west of me as I proceeded north on the highway, and it remained in the same spot, glowing and hovering,” continued the anonymous spotter. “I thought this was a very odd object – it was not like a normal meteor sighting.”

— 🌲🌳cleo🌳🌲 (@cleopatriia) September 7, 2018

“It looked like the sun was glowing bright but also saw smoke,” noted someone else in a Reddit thread about the light. “It almost looked like there was a huge explosion on the U.S. side as I’m right across the lake in West Rouge.”

— Coco2_caat (@coco2_caat) September 7, 2018

Most people (who don’t believe that aliens have found us just yet) suspect the light was caused by flares from a search and rescue mission.

Durham Police had indeed been searching for a missing boater off the coast of Ajax, Ontario earlier in the day. The 32-year-old man’s fishing boat was found unattended just before 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and he has yet to be located.