When the lights dimmed in Victoria at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, it wasn't the unidentified flying object that caused it. It was lightning hitting two transmission lines near Campbell River, a B.C. Hydro spokesman said.

The strike blew out generators at Strathcona and Ladore stations, which caused momentary voltage drop here.

But at 3155 Uplands Road, the dimming caused a distinct stir.

POWER SOURCE

Mark Lougheed, 13, had been reading about flying saucers and recalled a theory that they took power from transmission lines.

When the lights dimmed, he rushed to the back door of the house, then rushed back in again.

“There's a flying saucer going over!” he announced.

“That's nice,” replied his parents.

THERE IT WAS!

“Then we went to the back door – and there it was,” said his father. He said the object was a circle of whitish-orange light, made no sound and moved extremely fast.

Five members of the family watched the object and agreed that it travelled 90 degrees in 30 seconds curving over the city. It disappeared over the horizon in a southeasterly direction.

“At a rough guess, I would say it looked one-eighth to one-tenth the apparent diameter of the moon,” the boy's father said. “I never saw anything like it before.”