UAPs in the Canadian Sky
A Glimpse at Ontario’s Events and Beyond
The Canadian sky regularly makes headlines with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) events. The most famous have been the UAP encounters between February 10th and 13th, 2023 over the Huron Lake in the Yukon Territory, near the northern border of Alaska. F-22 fighter jets chased UAPs and after Joe Biden ordered their shootdown, military forces attempted to recover the potential remains of the mysterious objects. The US shot down no less than three suspicious flying objects in three days. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was provided a “secret” memo confirming the events, and journalist Ross Coulthart reported on the anomalous nature of the object over Alaska, which interfered with the fighter jet instruments. The NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and the authorities haven’t disclosed anything more to the public to this date.
Chris Rutkowski, a Canadian ufologist and media expert, reports in The Debrief published on November 28th, 2023 that “Canadians report seeing UFOs in the sky at a rate of 3 times a day (…). There are about 1,000 UFO reports filed in Canada every year, and the number remains high.”
Most recent noticeable UAP events in Ontario and beyond
UFO Talker, an Ontario-based radio, issues regular podcasts that gather and highlight Canadian UAP events. From the podcasts broadcasted on January 24th and February 14th, 2024, UFO Talker reports some Canadian civil aviation anomalies that occurred recently:
November 3rd, 2023, Ontario: A 737-81D Santa Clara Cuba flying to Toronto Pearson observed a drone at 10,500 feet (3,200 meters).
January 15th, 2024, Ontario: A commercial airline jet flying from Toronto Pearson Airport to Edmonton, Alberta, reported two to three erratic moving lights above the aircraft while over Lake Superior near Quebec Harbour, southwest of Wawa, Ontario.
January 19th, 2024, Saskatchewan: according to audio obtained by CTVNews.ca, several pilots reported "multiple lights sometimes in a triangle formation" high above the Canadian Prairies. "I had a company aircraft over Thunder Bay, Ontario, suggest he thinks it possibly could be satellites," an air traffic controller in Winnipeg told aviators around 4:45 a.m. local time. "I'm certainly no expert, but they're moving side-to-side and then going away from each other and then forming triangles", an Air Canada pilot from Seattle to Winnipeg replied while flying over Saskatchewan. “I am no expert but this is not satellites”.
As emphasized by the UFO Talk podcaster Michael Ryan, “There are stories which won’t go away”. The Southern Ontario sky has been the backdrop for various anomalies in the past:
March 13th, 1974 in Scarborough, Ontario: Dennis Prophet was closing up his business establishment around 11 PM, at night. He and another employee noticed a silver bell-shaped object descending in the sky. They both looked at it for approximately five minutes and said it seemed to be about 1,000 to 1,600 feet in the air (approx. 300 to 500 meters). After looking at it for about five minutes, Dennis got in his car to drive home.
As he neared his house, he stopped the car and got out. He estimated that the bell-shaped UFO had risen to approximately 5,000 to 6,000 feet (approx. 1,500 to 1,800 meters). He then drove further and when he reached home he got his wife and children to come out. When they looked outside they noticed that there were now five objects in the sky.
They were moving toward the CFTO TV Transmission tower. The five objects were descending in a straight line with the center object pulsating. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing and he called the hotline for the teenagers’ radio station, which broadcasted the top hits in those days. They were not interested in the UFO stories. At about midnight, of these five bell-shaped objects, object number three, which was approximately in the middle, let out what appeared to be a slinky that came down at a fair distance.
A smaller UFO came out at the bottom of the bell-shaped object, and a sort of beam of light, with the slinky-looking thing, seemed to go all the way down to the bottom of the slinky. Then the smaller disk came back up to the bottom of the craft. Some of the disks headed off into Lake Ontario, but some of the bell-shaped objects remained there. A couple of them flashed a green light that, he said, illuminated a large area of the sky. Some of the bell-shaped objects were still there at 3 AM. Dennis Prophet, who has passed away since, also mentions in his book “The Amazing West Hill Pickering Sightings” that UFOs have been seen hovering over the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, and that UFO appearances seemed to be of weekly occurrence around the Nuclear Power Plant back then.
March 18th, 1975, Ontario: an object hovered over the Pickering Power Plant and never moved.
March 21st, 1975, Ontario: at approximately 7:20 PM, two silver objects were seen over the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, one of which was fairly high above the station. The other was hovering about 4,500 feet (approx. 1.400 meters) over the station and he heard that a power failure had occurred in the local area at the time. Around the same period, dates were not precisely mentioned in the book, three employees of the Nuclear Power station saw an orange UFO that hovered over the plant for 11 minutes. The object turned into a bright red color after hovering, as if it had been recharged.
February 4th, 1975, Ontario: at the Pickering Power station, Andy Parkes, a local radio Director, saw a dozen UFOs hovering over the Power Plant; he had been skeptical of all these reports he had heard over the years, so he took a news crew with him and went to the Power station where there were several other spectators. Many witnesses of UFOs were gathered there, watching the sky, including three ambulance drivers and a Durham Regional Police Officer. Andrew called the air controller at Toronto International Airport and the local airport of Oshawa. They said they hadn’t picked up anything. However, Andy Parkes had spoken with the smaller Oshawa airport during the night of the event, and the control tower had confirmed to him that the objects were unidentified. Nevertheless, by the next day, the official comment was “No, we didn’t see anything”. Andy, who was also a private pilot, and who had watched the object, said he had never seen any planes maneuver like that, nor have lights like that.
November 24th, 1979, Ontario: A UFO sighting report exhumed from Daniel Otis’ research mentions that the witnesses, Mr. Wagner Ferdinand and his wife Wagner Margaret, traveling west on highway 401 in a vehicle, saw a “bright white light with strong rays spotted over the Pickering nuclear power plant, Ontario, between 5 PM and 6:15 PM. It was seen chased from the area by a small plane”.
The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of the 1960s-1970s was very different from the GTA of 2024. Back then, the Scarborough area between Markham, Pickering, and Oshawa was made of fields and countryside. People were not media savvy; they were talking about UFOs only amongst themselves, in town.
Today this place is densely populated with extensive housing. The advent of the internet, smartphones, and social media changed everything. Canada, propelled by immigration, is the fastest-growing country in the G7. Among the 13 Canadian Provinces and territories, Ontario ranks first, before British Columbia and Quebec, for Canadian immigration in 2023. Ontario is Canada’s most populated province, with almost 40% of the country's population. The GTA comprises 50% of Ontario’s population, with Toronto holding the highest population density ranking in North America, surpassing Los Angeles (2020). Ontario’s electricity supply (2022) is made of 34% nuclear, 28% natural gas, 23% hydro, 13% wind, 1% solar, and <1% biofuel. Since not all infrastructures are used at full capacity, 60% of Ontario’s energy comes from nuclear power, which represents the base load of its power supply. Despite the high nuclear and hydro supply in Ontario, Canada, with 20.4t per capita in 2022, is in the top 7 of highest GHG emissions per capita in the world. Given its low population level (40 million in 2023, 0.5% of the world population), Canada has a low GHG footprint (1.4% of world emissions).
Ontario has 18 nuclear units in operation, with its top 3 in capacity being: Bruce Nuclear Generation Station (by Lake Huron), Darlington and Pickering (by Lake Ontario). Pickering Nuclear Generation Station is one of the oldest nuclear power stations in the world and Canada’s third largest. Refurbishment of the Pickering Plant is expected to be complete by the mid-2030's and should extend the life of the plant by at least another 30 years.
The Pickering UAP cases of the 1970s are in line with the assertion that many UFO sightings are reported near nuclear facilities around the world.
UAP events in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
Other cases, further to the East of Canada, in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, without links to a nuclear site nearby, were reported on the Ontario-based UFO Talker radio podcast, February 14th, 2024:
1970s, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Shearwater: Rob Furlong recalls a story from family friends who witnessed a Tic Tac-shaped UFO hovering over the water late in the evening. It plunged into the ocean and disappeared. Later a service personnel at Shearwater Air Force Base mentioned that they had already seen these Tic Tac UFOs many times.
August 22nd, 1990, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia: The Ebenezer’s UFO event occurred from about 8:15 PM to about 10:30 PM. Dave Ross mentions to Michael Ryan that the object coming from the southeast reportedly stayed there glowing for two hours. Military helicopters and aircraft then arrived. UFO Talker highlights: “The RCMP was there and Canadian military helicopters, and something was taken away on a flat-bed truck covered in a tarp”. One of the five witnesses took pictures and put the camera on her refrigerator. After talking to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), the camera went missing.
A witness was told by the military on the site that the object was indeed a UFO. A witness, aged 14 at the time, then believed, listening to his uncle, that it was a Russian satellite. The event was covered by the CBC and some other Canadian newspapers; two RCMP officers were sent to investigate as well. One of the officers observed the glowing object - an orange glow.
A CBC News article, dated August 30, 2020, stated that witnesses described a white object that looked like a large ice cream cone falling from the sky near Ebenezer, and continuing to glow for about two hours after it landed. Chris Rutkowski wrote in a 2010 blog that "RCMP confirmed that they had received more than a dozen calls about the Ebenezer object and had sent two constables to investigate. They noted that one officer could see it in the distance, but then he just lost sight of it”.
Summer of 1992, New Brunswick: U.S. soldier David Marceau had a nighttime encounter with a triangular shaped UFO that was 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, hovering over the tree line while he was on guard duty at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. The base at Gagetown is a massive (over 420 square miles) training facility. Home of the 5th Canadian Division, it is a major training location for several Canadian units. NATO forces also train there with U.S. Army units as well. Also, the site of several UFO sightings in 1993 and in the early 2000s. David's encounter was also featured on an episode of Unidentified where he met Luis Elizondo.
1997, Nova Scotia, Halifax: retired Halifax, Nova Scotia police constables Rick Prescott and Rob Furlong about their sighting of a black, large triangle UFO during their night shift.
UAP events in Manitoba and Saskatchewan
April 24, 2011, Selkirk, Manitoba: Canadian police officer reported seeing “an unidentified bright yellow and orange light” over Selkirk, Manitoba, and said they captured it on video. Leaked by a government source with knowledge of the incident, the 55-second video was purportedly captured by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) cruiser’s dashcam early on April 24, 2011, in Selkirk, Manitoba. The recording simply shows the hood of a vehicle, a town, and a lit object traversing a dark sky.
August 23rd, 2003/2004, Saskatchewan, Regina: 19-20-year-old Jay was jogging on a cooler night with his girlfriend when he spotted a UFO hovering only a few feet above a river next to the Wascana Memorial bridge at Wascana Lake. Some kind of an organic bioluminescent object, with a surface made of reflecting filaments of light, 4 feet high, 3-4 feet wide, which they observed for a minute or two. In the blink of an eye, the object levitated 40 feet (12 meters) above them. He then vanished from sight, just as quickly. The entire experience lasted for about 5 minutes.
Investigations from Canadian reporter Daniel Otis
In UFO Talker, dated June 14th, 2023, Daniel Otis, a CTV News and Toronto-based journalist, explains that Canada has a policy of how aviation UFO reports are to be handled. The company NAV CANADA is an air traffic controller which owns and operates all civilian air traffic control in Canada. If a pilot sees something unusual, the first point of contact will be one of these NAV CANADA air traffic controllers. NAV CANADA has a very clear policy for what to do with sightings of unidentified objects, called service procedures.
This procedural mechanism for communicating vital intelligence sightings was developed during the Cold War in Canada and the US, at a time of extreme tension. There are no real UFO investigations in Canada, but there are reporting procedures enabling UAP events to be documented. Once a report comes in, forms are filled out, and shared with federal transport authorities, NORAD and the Air Force. There is no real follow-up of those events, although there are exceptions. This procedure is more related to aviation-related sightings of commercial airlines activities. The Canadian Air Force does document these events, and saves these reports, and there is communication about it, but in most cases, there is no follow-up.
NAV CANADA issued the aviation-related procedure manual for pilots, which outlines rules and regulations for pilots flying over Canada. This procedure manual mentions that service reports “should be made immediately upon of vital intelligence sightings of any airborne and ground objects and activities that appear to be hostile, suspicious, unidentified or engaging possible illegal smuggling activity”, with examples quoted for those reports such as “unidentified flying objects, submarines, service warships, violent explosions…”
On top of those procedures, Daniel Otis explains that Canada has a specific squadron located at North Bay, Ontario that is tasked, under NORAD, with identifying air traffic approaching North America. This squadron is the one receiving those reports shared with relevant parties that may be forgotten forever. When he contacted the military, they confirmed that they “do not typically investigate sightings of unknown or unexplained phenomena outside the context of investigating the credible threat, potential threat or potential distress in the case of such circumstances”. Authorities don’t have much interest in accessing those so-called UFO reports unless there is some sort of clear security or safety at stake.
But Daniel Otis insists that some of these reports do meet this criteria, there are cases where airline pilots reported they had to maneuver to avoid unidentified flying objects, those are very clear safety issues. Cases in which NORAD radar detects things approaching the continent for which they send fighter jets that scramble to investigate. Those are a small percentage of the cases that came in but that necessarily enabled a defense response.
1952, Ontario, North Bay NORAD military base: An Air Force officer, at the same base, saw something moving erratically over the base.
The North Bay base has both Canadian and American personnel. There is another base in Winnipeg where Americans are stationed permanently. At Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, a third of the people there are Canadian military, and when the American Commander is not there, a Canadian commander takes charge. This is a pretty unique situation due to shared defense interests.
2007, Ontario, North Bay NORAD military base: Military base officers saw a large luminous object or light hovering over the base. They took a picture with their cell phones and cameras; the base security cameras also captured the object. They filed a report. Twelve people were involved in this event. Daniel got the report but is still working on getting videos and photos.
December 22nd, 2016, Newfoundland and Labrador: Otis mentions the case of the American Airlines flight from London to New York, approximately 300 km south of Labrador, a pretty remote area. He was able to access the files under the freedom of information Act. The aircraft reported taking an invasive maneuver. The Canadian Air Force scrambled fighter jets to investigate. Two other aircraft reported an object: a rotating white beacon of light.
Swiss flight from the Gulf of Saint-Laurent also reported something very similar at the same time. Boston air traffic controllers ordered all flights in the area to report unusual activities. Fighter jets arrived to investigate this near-miss accident but unfortunately, they didn’t see anything and returned to base without making any contact. This case is one of those examples where a commercial pilot sees an object they cannot immediately identify, and which is so close to them that it presents a safety issue, making them perform an evasive maneuver, which the military see as a clear safety threat demanding investigation.
November 2018, Newfoundland and Labrador: The Canadian side of NORAD noted unidentified radar tracks steadily moving toward North America. Fighter jets were launched to investigate, but didn’t see anything and returned. It was later determined that this false positive was created due to issues at a remote NORAD radar on the coast of Labrador. The coverage in this area hasn’t been ideal in this case. Such event reports would have never been released by NORAD in the US.
The case of 2016 highlights what kind of threshold and contact needs to be met to solicit a Canadian response. This shows that “the Canadian Air Force is responsive and responsible. They are not ignoring reports, there was a safety issue and they’ve looked into it” emphasizes Daniel Otis.
The reporter reports difficulty in getting official responses from the government, although some members show interest in this topic. He mentions the Manitoba member of Parliament, Larry Maguire, who has been leading the charge in Ottawa, getting other members up to speed and doing the behind-the-scenes work about this subject, updating them about new developments that occur in the United States. Mr Maguire publicly said that he had been speaking with former AATIP director Luis Elizondo. Another member of parliament was briefed by the Scientific Coalition for UAP studies (SCU), Christopher Mellon also attending that briefing. Nevertheless, Canada’s budget is inferior to that of the US on that topic.
There is little to gain for politicians for speaking out and commenting on this issue in Ottawa. Stigma is still a big issue there, Canada being somewhat behind the US in that regard, but things are moving along and could make even more progress, so long as facts get favored over speculation, which has impeded on the reputation of the UAP topic. There are still a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations in Ottawa; conversations are happening, and more and more people are talking about this topic. “Politics still have nothing to gain and a lot to lose, so kudos to Maguire and other members in Ottawa” comments Daniel Otis.
NORAD is the mother load of the UAP issue, it is the entity that deals with any events occurring in the sky. Daniel Otis has connected with NORAD, the binational organization. Indeed, although Americans cannot solicit NORAD under the Freedom of Information Act… Canadians can, since NORAD’s Canadian facilities also host the RCMP by sharing combined spaces and operations. NORAD has access to reports, and tracks UAP on radar. Unlike Canadians with the freedom of information, American citizens cannot get access to the documents emanating from NORAD's Colorado base, for example.
2023 Canadian UFO Survey by Chris Rutkowski
On March 4th, 2024, The Canadian UFO Survey released the “Results of the 2023 Canadian UFO Survey”. This work led by Ufology Research and ufologist Chris Rutkowski aims at making the inventory of UAP events across the country. UAP statistics of the Canadian sky have been collected and gathered since 1989. “More than 24,000 Canadian UFO reports have been carefully cataloged during the past 34 years” emphasizes the Ufology Research group led by Chris Rutkowski. This impressive dataset classifies UAP encounters by Province, time of observation, color, shape and type of UAPs. The report summary notes: “The percentage of UFO cases considered Unexplained in 2023 was about six percent”. This is in line with percentages recorded by GEIPAN and other international statistics. The Canadian UFO Survey claims that this dataset “is much more than the files of the United States Air Force’s infamous Project Blue Book, which investigated and recorded 12,618 UFO reports from around the world between 1952 and 1969. And, while Blue Book listed 701 cases as Unexplained, there are currently about 2,612 Unexplained cases in the Canadian UFO Survey database”.
In a nutshell, the report states that, in 2023:
“570 UFO reports were officially filed in Canada” across all channels
“around 50 UFO sightings were reported each month in Canada”
6% of the cases were considered Unexplained
“Provinces with larger populations tended to have the most UFO reports”
“noticeable monthly peaks in reported UAP activity in February and August”
“the most common shape (...) was a simple point source of light” i.e. 45% of the cases
The Canadian government position on UAPs by Larry Maguire, Manitoba’s member of Parliament, giving a speech at the SOL conference, November 2023
Larry Maguire is Member of the House of Commons of Canada since 2013. He advocates for disclosure at Ottawa to be led by the best scientific minds. He asked the government, the chief science adviser, to take on this initiative in Canada under the Sky Canada Project.
The chief science adviser will provide recommendations for departments and agencies in 2024. This report will be public. The politician emphasizes that their own government has not been fully transparent with the Sky Canada Project, at least “an indication that they are not willing to engage the way he wanted” as he pointed out in his speech at the SOL conference. “Breaking down decades of stigma will take time, but we cannot let democracy bury this in red tape”.
He continues saying the public doesn’t get access to classified information, providing examples in Canada and the US. The opposition in Canada, the one that Larry Maguire leads, believes the government should be working with the American government and their allies to determine the origin and attempt of UAP. They were the first Canadian political party to do this.
Parliament Member Maguire explained how this initiative actually happens: the chief science adviser gets a table in Parliament, then a parliamentary committee conducts a study, bringing researchers and scientists of the country to reveal what they legally can. The Sky Canada Project follows the events of the US Congress and Maguire pointed out that this helps politicians engage and help to build the groundwork for this UAP initiative. However, there is still a “lack of evidence” for politicians to easily take this issue.
“What should politicians be thinking about?
One, what is the process to be the best way to declassify to the public?
Secondly, how do we collaborate with our allies and avoid adversaries to access this information?
Third, what is the best way to involve civilian scientists, academics and researchers? A question for politicians who should make sure we tap those expertises outside military and intelligence agencies.
Last and most important, how do governments admit to their citizens that they haven't told the truth?”
Larry Maguire finishes: “It’s never too late”.
What’s next?
In late 2023, Daniel Otis tried to access the reports in an attempt to access the ones that were subject to further investigations. He hired a law firm after being denied access to files on UAP sightings at Nuclear Power facilities. He has the support of the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), a national and non-partisan charity with the mission to defend constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. With a lawyer and organization behind him, he reached the federal government using Freedom of Information Act requests.
The freelance reporter has submitted over 200 requests under federal and provincial freedom of information laws to various Canadian agencies, including the Department of National Defense, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Royal Canadian Air Force.
In particular, the main focus of his research and request is a NORAD-affiliated group located in North Bay, Ontario. Where the specific squadron is tasked with identifying all the traffic approaching North America. They’ve been the focus of his freedom of information requests because this is the unit that gets notified if and when a pilot files a report and are also in charge of monitoring the radar screens to see anything coming in.
The Federal Transports authority in Canada has 3 decades of reports from commercial pilots, and through the freedom information requests, Canadians can get access to those reports in 99% of the cases, essentially because it isn’t, in Canada, seen as a security and defense issue as it is in the United States, where a vast array of subjects are considered a national security issue.
Last but not least: the Sky Canada Project, described on its website: “The Sky Canada Project was launched in the Fall of 2022 to study how UAP reports from the public are managed in Canada and to recommend improvements. The Office of the Chief Science Advisor (OCSA) will focus on the Canadian process for capturing and treating UAP observations. The OCSA is preparing an internal draft report with the collected information. A public report will be released on our website in early fall 2024.”
UAP researchers in Canada have in principle higher chances of getting access to data from the events. However, as pointed out by many scientists in the UAP field, the data collection during an encounter must be improved. One would start with low-hanging fruits first: why not equip every commercial aircraft with high-definition cameras and recorders ?
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0