Canada needs agency to manage public UFO sightings, says new federal report

Canada needs a transparent, public-facing agency in charge of managing reports of mystifying things seen darting, blinking or hovering through our skies, according to a new report commissioned by Canada's top scientist.

The Sky Canada Project report published this week calls for a federal framework for managing UFO sightings by the public and pilots as a replacement for the current patchwork of protocols across departments that "hinder[s] scientific investigation."

"There is some evidence that there's something really unusual going on in the skies … we just don't have enough information," said Winnipeg-based science writer Chris Rutkowski, director of the long-running Canadian UFO Survey who was consulted for the report.

The Sky Canada Project was created in 2022 by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor, Mona Nemer, partly in response to growing public interest in the topic of UFOs — also known as UAP, or unidentified anomalous or aerial phenomena. 

Staff set out to identify challenges related to data collection on UAP sightings and provide a summary of how other countries approach the issue.

The project was tasked with doing an environmental scan of historical reporting practices across the federal government and present-day UAP procedures of different federal agencies, and to consult non-governmental groups and experts in the country tracking and receiving UAP reports from the public.

The report found Canada's "fragmented" UAP reporting protocols across departments "complicates the application of scientific principles ... making it onerous, if not impossible, for researchers to access and compile data for rigorous, science-based analysis."

"Canada would benefit from an improved process for reporting, collecting, and studying UAP sightings," reads a section of the report.

Canada once had a centralized office for that run by the National Research Council beginning in 1967, with help from the RCMP.

That's the same year one of Canada's best-documented UFO cases emerged in Falcon Lake, Man.

The NRC effort ended in 1995. Roles and responsibilities were scattered among the Canadian Space Agency, Transport Canada, NavCanada — and Rutkowski, who amassed vast civilian, military, police and air traffic controller records of UAP reports dating back to the 1940s that Sky Canada has used in its analysis.

In recent years, NASA has conducted an independent UAP study; the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defence erected the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate UAP reports by military personnel; and Congress has held multiple public hearings centering on national security concerns posed by UAP and alleged government coverups.

Most UAP sightings happen to be planes, atmospheric conditions, planets or stars or meteors, satellites, weather balloons, drones, experimental craft, optical illusions or other mundane phenomena.

To date, there's still no evidence definitively proving extraterrestrial life is here or exists, notes the Sky Canada report.