Saturday night lights

COEUR d’ALENE — The Saturday night light show lasted only a few minutes, but Bill Campbell can still see it.

It was a string of perfectly aligned, eight to 10 lights in the western sky, angling downward, the brightest one in the middle. They were so bright, Campbell and his wife noticed them while watching TV at their home on the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

He grabbed his telescope and went outside for a better look just before 9 p.m.

As he watched, the string of lights suddenly disappeared, leaving behind what seemed to be a single multi-colored, pulsating light.

“It was the strangest, most bizarre thing,” he said.

Campbell wasn’t alone in wondering what was up.

Ron Miller, with the National Weather Service in Spokane, said there were some inquiries.

The answer seemed to be that the lights were from a SpaceX rocket topped with 52 Starlink internet satellites that was launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday around 7:30 p.m. EDT.

The launch “continues the buildout of SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, which provides internet service for people around the world,” according to space.com.

Campbell said the lights seemed to be just a few miles away over Lake Coeur d’Alene. The multi-colored, sphere-shaped object stuck around another minute before it also disappeared.

He said in all his years of being an avid outdoorsman, he had never seen anything like it.

“With all the people on the lake, there have to be others that saw this," he said.

There were.

The lights were spotted by more people in North Idaho and Eastern Washington.

A Coeur d'Alene woman told The Press the lights grew brighter, before fading away.

While pleased to hear an explanation for the lights, Campbell still questioned the pulsating, multi-colored light.

Miller said a possible answer could be it was a reflection from the sun.

Campbell had doubts.

"The colors of this sphere were not reflections," he wrote. "They emanated from the sphere — light blue, white, light pink, and light orange. "

Campbell had only one regret.

“I wish I would have taken a picture,” he said.