After a tutorial on the night vision goggles — we would be able to see more than 70,000 times clearer than the naked eye — and instructions on alerting one another anytime we spotted something in the sky, Ms. Carlsberg got to the most important bit of guidance: how not to confuse other things with a U.F.O. In addition to airplane lights, which flash red and white and appear at a relatively low altitude, there would be shooting stars, planets, satellites and birds, and depending on the clarity, maybe we would spot the Milky Way galaxy and its neighbor, Andromeda. (Under no circumstances, “are you to point the laser in the direction of a plane or each other,” she said, referring to the pointer, which she carefully guarded). What was a surefire sign that what we had succeeded in spotting was an alien spacecraft? The light emanating from within the vessel, usually shaped like an orb, triangle or tube: It pulsates.

Minutes later, we were in a pitch-black expanse helping Ms. Carlsberg unload plastic folding chairs, bags with gear and a small boombox that played a new age score that Sacha and I could have done without. Looking upward at the sky through the night vision goggles was spectacular and in itself worth the $90-per-person fee. Before Ms. Carlsberg was able to slip on her goggles, our U.F.O.-enthusiast spotted something that turned out to be a shooting star. Ms. Carlsberg pointed out constellations. Sacha and I said little, standing close to each other and peering up at what looked like an inverted highway. And then we started seeing things that we simply couldn’t explain.

“Look up here!” Sacha shouted, taking the laser from Ms. Carlsberg and flashing it in a direction where two objects were pulsating a bright light. Sacha laughed as I watched, dumbstruck by the two objects that floated above us to join two other dimmer ones, ultimately forming a square. As they floated away together like a group of synchronized swimmers, Ms. Carlsberg shouted up into the sky, “Woo-hoo!”

Minutes later, I spotted a large object pulsating brightly like a heartbeat in the distance, gliding quietly through the sky. The light made it look like a round cotton ball. “What in the —!” I yelled. We were told to quickly remove our goggles. When I flashed the laser in its direction, the object — it was not an airplane, or satellite, a bird or a huge drone — dimmed its lights and shot up through the sky before it started brightly pulsating again, then floating away. We all studied the object quietly as Ms. Carlsberg, fired up by the sighting, gave us a spirited explanation about the differences between the larger, more conservative objects, the “mothers,” and their smaller and sometimes more playful counterparts, or “teenagers.” The smaller ones, she said, sometimes responded by flashing their lights.

There would be plenty of time to second-guess what we were seeing. But not that night, when we were swept up in the sense of euphoria that came with abandoning doubt. In approximately two hours, we counted about 40 unidentifiable things flying high above us. We never checked with the military to see if there was an explanation because that would have seemed a surrender to skepticism.