One evening my phone rang and I went out to speak. The sky was clear and my eyes began to wander among the stars. One of them moved steadily - across Cassiopeia. Definitely a satellite then. It got steadily brighter and suddenly flashed for a few seconds. Ha! That was one of those Iridium flares. Heard of them, but never seen one before.
Iridium satellites were an attempt in the 1990s to create a worldwide satellite telephone network. Attempt failed commercially big time and bankrupted in nine months. It wasn't just a coincidence, that I was speaking to a GSM phone instead of Iridium. The satellites however followed mechanics rather than economics and stayed in their orbits. Eventually they found another investor to get them in use again.
Unless you're on Antarctica or in the middle of an ocean, Iridiums' only effect to the lives of casual observers, are the flares they produce. They have shiny flat antennas, that can reflect beams of sunlight on Earth. Professional astronomers usually don't fancy this light pollution at all. Luckily, they are very predictable and one can track them on a space nerd website. As there are 72 Iridium satellites, flares are practically an everynight occurrence.
So there was another flare coming next evening and by chance I was on GSM phone again. The sky happened to be clear at both ends of the signal. The calling distance was 300 km but as the satellite orbited as high as 780 km we could both see the same satellite and were able to share the flare experience telepresently. The world is huge, but the sky can be so small. Oh, somebody should put this phenomenon into romantic use.