Canada’s Federal Science Office has Launched a New UFO Study

Canada’s top scientist has launched a study aimed at evaluating who is collecting UFO information in Canada, how they are collecting the information and what analysis is being performed on the gathered data, according to a document obtained by a major Canadian news outlet. This study, the results of which are expected to be released early next year, is the first known official study on UFOs conducted in Canada in nearly thirty years.

The study, titled “Sky Canada Project”, was leaked to CTVNews.ca by an anonymous government source through a nine-page PowerPoint document prepared for February of this year. The document states that the project was launched in response to an official request made by Member of Parliament Larry Maguire in 2022 for “the Chief Science Advisor… to undertake a comprehensive study on UAPs in Canada.”

The project will be conducted by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada (OCSA), and will focus on inquiring “how UAP reporting is managed in Canada and recommend improvements if necessary,” and aims to “identify the key Canadian players and how they deal with UAP observations,” presumably referring to agencies such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Transport Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces, etc.

The study will also “compare the Canadian approach with some G7 countries’ systems;” and “prepare for potential collaboration with current U.S. initiatives on UAPs,” with efforts such as the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Harvard University’s Galileo Project and NASA’s UAP Study listed as examples of US-based investigations.

The presentation stresses that the OCSA itself will only be conducting this study as an evaluation of the nature of UFO reporting in Canada, and will not be collecting individual UFO reports from witnesses; it also points out that this study “is not meant to prove or deny the existence of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial visitors.”

Motivations for the project include the discovery of “rare natural phenomena” by citizen scientists, such as the aurora-like phenomenon named STEVE; to improve the state of national security by spotting potential airborne threats, such as the Chinese high-altitude balloon that was shot down over the US east coast; and to promote greater transparency, allowing open access to the collected data to help prevent the spread of misinformation.

“The Chief Science Advisor’s project is a signal to the government, the scientific community, the media, and Parliament that they can no longer ignore this,” Maguire said. “The vast majority of reports should be explainable and that’s where we need the Sky Canada Project to lay out a scientific plan to do that. The government needs to quickly and accurately determine what is in our skies with a high degree of confidence.”

“My motivation for specifically asking the Chief Science Advisor to undertake this initiative is that we need a fresh set of eyes to investigate this issue and I wanted her office to outline specific recommendations the government can implement,” Maguire continued. “We need a whole-of-government approach, which should include open data. It’s long past time to involve academics, researchers and experts to bear down with the aim of investigating the origin and intent of UAP.”

UFO investigations by the Canadian government began with Transport Canada’s Project Magnet in 1950, headed by the Department’s senior radio engineer Wilbert Smith, in an attempt to measure possible magnetic anomalies that might be generated if a flying saucer were to appear close to the sensing equipment; in 1952 Project Second Storey was launched, intended to deal with UFO reports themselves.

The last known official UFO investigation in Canada was conducted by the National Research Council; although the Council was receiving UFO reports from across the country, the reports were filed away with little or no follow-up performed by NRC officials, and the program was terminated in 1995.