What Is the Sky Canada Project?

The Canadian Government’s New Blueprint for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Which Canadian website can people visit to report sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena? To which official organization can they send photos, videos, or detailed descriptions for help in understanding what they cannot explain on their own?

These simple questions, posed in the introduction to a 2025 report from the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada (OCSA), cut to the heart of a long-standing policy vacuum. For decades, the answer for a curious or concerned Canadian has been a confusing shrug. There was no single, official front door. No clear process. No one was formally tasked with collecting, analyzing, or communicating about the phenomena.

In the fall of 2022, the OCSA, the independent scientific advisory body to the Canadian government, quietly launched an initiative to address this very gap. Known as the Sky Canada Project, its existence signaled the first formal government-level look into the UAP issue in Canada in nearly three decades. The project was not a secretive, X-Files-style investigation unit. It was a science-policy study, a methodical review of a broken-down, haphazard system that had been left to rust.

The OCSA has been clear and consistent about what the Sky Canada Project was not. From the outset, the government’s official disclaimer has been firm: the project was not intended to “prove or disprove the existence of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial visitors.” It was not a “UFO hunt,” and it was not designed to access or collect first-hand data like photographs, witness testimonies, or videos of specific sightings. The OCSA wasn’t intended to become the main point of contact for Canadians wishing to report their personal experiences.

Instead, the project’s mandate was deliberately procedural, even bureaucratic. Its official objective was “to study how Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings reported by the public are managed in Canada and to recommend improvements.” The final report, a preview of which was released in January 2025 with the full report following in June 2025, is focused squarely on “the services available to the Canadian public for reporting UAPs, and not on the UAPs themselves.” Understanding this distinction is the key to understanding the entire Canadian government’s modern approach to the subject.

The timing and motivation for the project are no mystery. The OCSA’s report states the project was “spurred by increased public interest and recent developments in other countries.” This is a direct nod to the high-profile, paradigm-shifting events in the United States, where the Pentagon established the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and NASA commissioned its own independent UAP study team. The U.S. Congress has held multiple public hearings, rebranding the topic from a pop-culture curiosity into a legitimate matter of national security and aviation safety. As its closest ally and NORAD partner, Canada could no longer afford to have no policy at all.

The Chief Science Advisor, an independent advisor to the Government of Canada, “independently chose” to initiate the project. This fact alone is telling. It signals that the project was not a top-down directive from the Prime Minister’s Office or the Department of National Defence (DND). It was a proactive move by the government’s scientific branch, which identified a growing gap between public curiosity and government capacity. This gap had become a breeding ground for “disinformation and conspiracy theories,” and the OCSA’s main motivations included providing greater transparency to combat this trend, encouraging citizen science, and, critically, supporting surveillance activities to “prevent undetected intrusions into Canadian territory.”

The Sky Canada Project is not the story of a search for flying saucers. It’s the story of a modern, data-driven government realizing it has a significant data-management problem. It’s an attempt to build a rational, scientific, and transparent framework for a topic that has been defined by secrecy and sensationalism for 75 years. It is, in effect, a blueprint for a system that does not yet exist.

The Architect of the Study: Canada’s Chief Science Advisor

To understand the Sky Canada Project, one must first understand the office and the person behind it. The project’s tone, methodology, and recommendations are all a direct reflection of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor (OCSA) and its head, Dr. Mona Nemer.

The position of Chief Science Advisor is itself a relatively recent development, reinstated in 2017 by the Trudeau government. It was a revival of a similar role, the National Science Advisor, which had existed from 2004 to 2008 under Dr. Arthur Carty. That office was quietly eliminated in 2008, a move that was heavily criticized by the scientific community as a sign of a government devaluing independent, evidence-based advice. The 2017 recreation of the office was a direct response to that criticism, with a mandate built around openness.

Dr. Mona Nemer, who was appointed as the first CSA in 2017, reports directly to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. Her office’s mandate is not to run government programs but to provide “independent scientific advice” to the government. A key function of her role is to “provide advice on the development and implementation of guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public and that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work.”

This mandate for transparency is the philosophical engine of the Sky Canada Project. The entire UAP subject has been plagued by a lack of available government science and an inability of officials (particularly military) to speak freely.

Dr. Nemer’s personal background is also a significant factor in the project’s credibility. She is not an aerospace engineer, an astrophysicist, or a military-intelligence insider. She is a medical researcher and biochemist. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from McGill University, with post-doctoral training in molecular biology. Before her appointment, she was a Professor of Pharmacology, directed the Cardiac Genetics Unit at the Montréal Clinical Research Institute, and served as the Vice-President, Research at the University of Ottawa.

This “outsider” status is the project’s greatest strength. Dr. Nemer’s stewardship lends the UAP file a scientific neutrality it could never have achieved if the study had been initiated by the Department of National Defence, which would be perceived as secretive, or Transport Canada, which would be perceived as purely technical and dismissive. A biochemist’s entire career is built on rigorous methodology, data collection, and peer review, and a deep skepticism of any conclusion not supported by evidence.

By having a molecular biologist at the helm, the OCSA’s study could successfully reframe the UAP problem. It was no longer a cultural or quasi-religious question of “believing” in UFOs. It became a pure data-management problem. The public’s questions, the lack of a clear reporting channel, and the spread of misinformation were all data points to be analyzed.

The OCSA’s approach was that of a systems analyst. The Sky Canada Project’s methodology involved gathering information from all relevant federal departments and agencies, consulting experts, and reviewing the approaches of other nations. The report’s introduction, penned by Dr. Nemer, notes that the preparation of the report “has garnered more public anticipation than any project in the history of this office.”

This high public anticipation is precisely why an independent, scientific, and “un-compromised” figure like Dr. Nemer was the only person in the Canadian government who could have credibly and objectively tackled the file. She wasn’t a “UFO enthusiast” or a “debunker”; she was a neutral arbiter with a mandate for transparency, applying that mandate to one of the most opaque subjects in modern history.

Public Sightings and Public Confusion: The 2024 Canadian UAP Survey

Before the Sky Canada Project could recommend a new system, it first had to quantify the old problem. To move beyond anecdotes and “UFO lore,” the OCSA commissioned a formal, nationwide public opinion survey from Earnscliffe Strategies. This survey, conducted in August 2024, provides the first government-backed, data-driven look into what Canadians actually think and experience regarding UAP.

The methodology was straightforward: an online survey of 1,008 Canadians, drawn from Leger’s research panel, with the data weighted by age, gender, and region to align with the general population. The results, published as an appendix to the Sky Canada report, are the central justification for the OCSA’s recommendations. They paint a picture not of a public in a state of panic, but of a public that is curious, confused, and underserved.

The first key finding was on the prevalence of sightings. The survey found that 27% of Canadians – more than one in four respondents – say they have personally witnessed an object or phenomenon in the sky that they were not able to identify. 11% claimed to have made such an observation in the past year alone. This finding immediately reframes the UAP issue. It is not a fringe, once-in-a-lifetime event for a tiny minority. It is a common Canadian experience.

The second key finding exposed the “data gap.” Of that 27% of Canadians who have witnessed a UAP, only 10% reported their sighting to any official organization. This confirms that for every one report that makes it into any database, nine are lost. This is a massive, systemic data-collection failure. The government, and the scientific community, is missing 90% of the data from the outset.

The third key finding explains why this data gap exists. The survey asked Canadians if they would know who to contact to report a UAP. A full 40% of respondents said they “would not know who to contact.” This is the “policy vacuum” quantified. The public’s confusion is a direct result of the government’s lack of a clear, single, and accessible reporting mechanism. The OCSA report identified this “absence of public engagement” as a primary contributor to the spread of misinformation.

The fourth finding dealt with public concern. Historically, a primary reason for government secrecy on this topic (as revealed in historical documents from the 1950s) was a paternalistic fear of “public panic.” The 2024 survey demonstrates this fear is completely unfounded. Only 5% of Canadians reported being “very concerned” about UAPs. A minority of 30% were “very” or “somewhat” concerned.

Canadians, it seems, are not scared; they are curious. While general concern is low, the public does see a practical risk. 39% of respondents agreed with the statement, “UAPs represent an issue for flight safety in Canada.”

The final set of findings provided the OCSA with a clear public mandate for action. 49% of Canadians think the Government “needs to do something” about UAP reports. And they have a clear idea of what that “something” should be. 55% of respondents agreed (strongly or somewhat) that the government should “establish a federal government service to gather UAP reports and make findings publicly available.”

The public’s desire is for information, not necessarily for defense. The survey showed that 27% “strongly agree” the government should inform Canadians about UAP, while only 17% “strongly agree” the government needs to take UAP seriously. This subtle distinction is important. It suggests the public wants a “librarian” – a trusted, transparent collector and disseminator of information – not a “soldier” (a defender against an existential threat). The 2024 survey proves the modern Canadian public is ready for an open, scientific discussion.

The following table summarizes the key data points from the Earnscliffe survey, which collectively form the evidence-based foundation for the Sky Canada Project’s recommendations.

Armed with survey data showing a public that is confused and underserved, the Sky Canada Project’s next step was to diagnose why the system was failing. The report’s central finding is that Canada does not have one broken system for UAP reporting; it has several separate, siloed, and “fragmented” systems that do not coordinate, leading to a “haphazard” approach.

This patchwork “complicates the application of scientific principles… making it onerous, if not impossible, for researchers to access and compile data for rigorous, science-based analysis.”

The OCSA’s consultations with federal departments and agencies revealed that they do receive UAP reports, but no single entity is responsible for them. A report of an anomalous object in the sky can follow three distinct, parallel paths, each leading to a different “data graveyard.”

Finding 1: The Public Black Hole (The RCMP)

The first channel is the one most members of the public might use: calling their local police. The OCSA’s consultations with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s national police force, confirmed the 2024 survey’s findings.

The RCMP confirmed that they receive UAP-related calls from the public. The problem is what happens next. The OCSA report found that “there is no specific guidance for RCMP call takers or members regarding UAP reports.”

A call from a citizen about a strange light in the sky is not logged as a “UAP.” It might be categorized as a “suspicious vehicle,” “public disturbance,” or “nuisance call.” As a result, the data is instantly “lost in a large number of non-UAP reports.”

The outcome is a complete data black hole. The RCMP’s own records system is not designed to track this. As the OCSA report bluntly states, “It was therefore impossible for the RCMP to provide statistics about UAP reports.” For the 40% of Canadians who don’t know where to report, and who might default to calling the police, their observation effectively vanishes from any official record, uncounted and unanalyzed.

Finding 2: The Aviation Safety Funnel (NAV CANADA and Transport Canada)

The second channel is the most formal and public-facing: the civil aviation system. This is the primary pipeline for high-quality reports from professional observers like pilots, cabin crews, and air traffic controllers. But this system, the OCSA found, is a narrow funnel designed for only one purpose: immediate aviation safety.

The process begins when a pilot or air traffic controller (ATC) observes a UAP. They report this observation to the nearest ATC tower or flight service station. These stations are operated by NAV CANADA, a private, non-profit corporation that manages Canada’s civil air navigation system.

NAV CANADA personnel then file an Aviation Occurrence Report (AOR). This is the first formal record of the incident.

NAV CANADA, in turn, provides this AOR data to Transport Canada (TC), the federal department responsible for transportation safety. Transport Canada provides about 80% of all its aviation occurrence data from NAV CANADA. TC’s Civil Aviation Directorate then assesses the report and enters it into the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS).

The CADORS database is a key part of Canada’s aviation safety framework. It tracks any incident that could affect aviation safety, and it is publicly accessible online. This is where most journalists and researchers find official Canadian “UFO” reports.

But the Sky Canada Project identified the critical failure point of this system. CADORS is a flight safety tool, not a scientific research tool. Its purpose is to identify and address immediate hazards, like a drone operating too close to an airport or a bird strike.

The OCSA report found that UAP sightings “are not further analyzed unless they are deemed to pose safety or security risks.” If a report is “baffling” but does not represent an immediate collision risk, the investigation simply stops. The data is logged in CADORS, but it becomes “orphaned.” No one is tasked with following up, correlating it with other sightings, or applying scientific rigor to find an explanation.

This “orphaned data” problem is compounded by a “stigma” problem. The OCSA report’s recommendations include a pointed suggestion that Transport Canada should “encourage pilots, cabin crews and air traffic controllers to report UAP sightings without fear of stigmatization.”

This is a quiet but significant admission. It confirms what many in the aviation community have long known: a professional stigma currently exists, and it is actively preventing our most trained observers from filing reports. Pilots, who spend their lives in the sky, are self-censoring for fear of ridicule or professional repercussions. This means the CADORS data, which is already siloed and unanalyzed, is also woefully incomplete.

Finding 3: The National Security Funnel (CIRVIS and NORAD)

There is a third, parallel system that runs alongside CADORS, one that is entirely hidden from public and scientific view. This is the national security channel.

NAV CANADA’s guidelines also direct pilots to make a CIRVIS report for any “objects or activities that appear to be hostile, suspicious, unidentified, or engaged in possible illegal smuggling activity.”

CIRVIS stands for “Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings.” This is not a new or modern system. It’s a joint U.S.-Canada procedure that originated with a Cold War-era military publication, JANAP 146. It is designed to rapidly escalate potential threats.

When a pilot makes a CIRVIS report, that data does not go into the public CADORS database. It is treated as “vital intelligence.” NAV CANADA immediately relays the report to the military, specifically to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Once a report enters the CIRVIS-NORAD channel, it disappears. The data is “classified.” It is handled as a potential military threat, not a scientific curiosity. It is never made available to the public or to academic researchers.

This “haphazard” three-system structure is perfectly designed to prevent a complete understanding of UAP. As the following table illustrates, Canada has three separate, uncoordinated “systems” for UAP reporting. A report’s fate is determined not by the observation itself, but by who reported it and how they reported it. The result is that scientific data is either “lost” (at the police station), “orphaned” (in the CADORS safety log), or “classified” (by the military).

After diagnosing the “haphazard” and “fragmented” nature of Canada’s non-system, the Sky Canada Project laid out a comprehensive, four-part blueprint for a solution. The recommendations are not a minor tweak; they are a proposal to build a new, modern, and transparent national UAP office from the ground up, designed specifically to solve the problems of data loss, stigma, and public confusion.

Recommendation 1: Reporting and Data Oversight

This is the report’s single most important recommendation, the one upon which all others are built. The OCSA calls for the government to “Identify a lead” federal department or agency. This single entity would be given the clear mandate and resources to be “responsible for managing public UAP data.”

This one move would immediately solve the “three-silo” problem. The police, Transport Canada, and the military would all, in theory, feed their data to this central, scientific clearinghouse.

The OCSA report went further, providing specific criteria for choosing this lead. It must be a “trusted and recognized scientific organization” that has the “capacity to communicate with the public” and an “already established international scientific network.”

The report then made a specific and highly strategic nomination: The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) “could be considered for such a role.”

This suggestion is the core of the OCSA’s entire philosophy. By nominating the CSA, the OCSA is signaling a “science-first, not threat-first” approach. The CSA is a civilian, scientific, and public-facing agency, not a secretive military or intelligence body. This choice would immediately build public trust and align Canada with other nations that have taken a similar scientific-transparent path.

This lead agency would then “Establish a dedicated service.” The mission of this new service would be clear, public, and transparent: it would “collect testimonies, investigate cases and post its analyses publicly.” It would proactively inform Canadians about UAP and convene a network of government partners (like TC and DND) and academic experts to conduct scientific analyses and follow up with observers.

Recommendation 2: Enhancing Aviation Reporting

This recommendation directly targets the “stigma” and “orphaned data” problems identified in the CADORS pipeline. The OCSA recommends that Transport Canada “should encourage pilots, cabin crews and air traffic controllers to report UAP sightings without fear of stigmatization.”

This goes beyond a simple memo. It implies a cultural shift, backed by official policy, to assure Canada’s most trained observers that their reports are valuable, will be taken seriously, and will not harm their careers.

The recommendation also calls for analysis and follow-up. It states that TC and NAV CANADA should “analyze UAP reports to track trends and provide pilots with explanations, helping to reduce distractions during flights.” This would close the “orphaned data” loop. A report would no longer just sit in a log; it would be analyzed, and, where possible, an explanation (e.g., a weather balloon, a satellite, an atmospheric event) would be provided back to the pilot.

Recommendation 3: Communications

This pillar is designed to solve the “disinformation” problem that was a key motivator for the project. The new lead agency, the OCSA states, must “support public dialogue” and have a “proactive strategy to increase transparency.”

This includes a recommendation to “improve media relations” to “mitigate misinformation and disinformation.” The agency would be tasked with “documenting and communicating common misinterpretations of observations.” This is a “pre-bunking” strategy. Instead of letting conspiracy theories flourish in a vacuum, the new agency would proactively educate the public on common phenomena, such as Starlink satellite trains, atmospheric lens effects, and new drone technologies, that are often misidentified as UAP.

Recommendation 4: Research and International Collaboration

The final pillar is the “how-to” guide for the new agency. It includes several key components.

First, “Provide tools for data collection.” This is the literal, practical solution to the problem that 40% of Canadians don’t know where to report. The OCSA suggests the development of “bilingual applications for smart phones” and “interactive platforms.”

This “app” concept is not a gimmick. It is the “public front door” that Canada has been missing. A dedicated app would not only solve the “where to report” problem, but it would also standardize data collection. A vague 911 call to the RCMP provides no useful data. A dedicated app, on the other hand, can prompt the user for structured, scientific data: exact time, GPS location, duration, estimated altitude and speed, shape, color, and a direct, standardized portal to upload photos and videos. It is the OCSA, a science-data body, thinking like a data scientist: fix the user interface to fix the data pipeline.

Second, the agency would “Support citizen science” and “Build on Canada’s strength in astronomy and aerospace research.” It would engage the public and academic community as partners in the data-collection effort.

Finally, the agency would join the world stage. The OCSA recommends that the lead organization “establish partnerships with international entities” and “actively engage” in research collaborations. The report specifically names the groups Canada should partner with:

• AARO (The U.S. Pentagon’s office)
• NASA (The U.S. civilian space agency)
• GEIPAN (France’s space agency UAP office)
• SEFAA (Chile’s civil aviation UAP office)

This four-part blueprint is a turnkey proposal to create a modern, world-class UAP research office. However, it remains just that: a proposal. The OCSA is an advisory body. It cannot force the Canadian Space Agency to take on this new mandate.

When asked for comment, the CSA’s response was a piece of careful, bureaucratic neutrality. A spokesperson stated that the CSA “is pleased to be recognized in the report as a trusted and respected scientific institution” but noted that “the is not currently involved in the management of unidentified anomalous phenomena.” This signals the next great hurdle: a political and bureaucratic decision is required to formally accept the OCSA’s recommendations, assign the mandate to the CSA, and, most importantly, provide the new funding to make it all happen.

Models for Transparency: What Canada Can Learn from Its Allies

The Sky Canada Project’s blueprint for a new UAP office was not created in a vacuum. A key part of the OCSA’s methodology was to review the approaches of other countries, specifically allies in the G7 and Five Eyes. The report’s recommendations are a direct result of this comparative analysis, and they show a clear preference for one international model over all others.

The OCSA is, in effect, proposing that Canada build a system that looks less like the American model and far more like the French one.

The French Model: GEIPAN (The “Science & Transparency” Model)

The OCSA report repeatedly references France’s “Groupe d’Études et d’Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non identifiés” (GEIPAN). This is, by all accounts, the world’s gold standard for a scientific and transparent UAP investigation.

Structure: GEIPAN has existed, in various forms, since 1977. Critically, it is a department within the French Space Agency (CNES), a civilian scientific body. This is the exact model the OCSA has proposed for Canada by nominating the CSA.

Mandate & Process: GEIPAN’s mission is “to collect, investigate and archive UAP reports, and make its findings available to the public.” Its process is a model of transparency. It has a public-facing website where any citizen can submit a report. It also receives data from the Gendarmerie (the national police) and from civil aviation.

Its team of experts and network of institutional partners then investigate the report. When the investigation is complete, the entire case file – including witness statements, data, analysis, and conclusions – is anonymized and published on its public website.

Philosophy: GEIPAN’s approach is strictly scientific and non-speculative. It relies on known physics, psychology, and other disciplines. It does not pursue extraterrestrial theories. Its goal is to identify known phenomena.

Results: GEIPAN categorizes its cases. As of early 2024, of 3,037 cases studied, the vast majority were explained (Category A: Explained; Category B: Probably Explained). Only a tiny fraction, 3.3%, were classified as Category D: “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” that remain unexplained even after a thorough investigation. A further 32.4% remained unidentified simply due to a lack of sufficient data.

The American Model: AARO and NASA (The “Dual-Track” Model)

The U.S. approach, which has received the most media attention, is a “dual-track” system that sharply divides military and civilian efforts.

AARO (Department of Defense): The Pentagon’s “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office” (AARO) is a national security-focused organization. Its reporting channel is not open to the public. By mandate, it is only authorized to receive reports from “current or former U.S. Government employees, service members, or contractor personnel.” Civilian pilots report to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and AARO receives that data, much like the Canadian CIRVIS system. Its findings, like its March 2024 historical report, are published, but its primary data and operations are classified.

NASA (Civilian Science): Recognizing the public’s interest, NASA commissioned a separate “UAP Independent Study Team.” This team, which published its final report in September 2023, focused only on unclassified data. Its conclusions were remarkably similar to the OCSA’s: it found “no evidence of extra-terrestrial life” and recommended a “rigorous, evidence-based approach” using new data collection methods to “shift the conversation from sensationalism to science.” NASA has since appointed a Director of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Research to continue this work.

This U.S. dual-track system creates a public-relations problem. It fosters a built-in information silo where the public may feel it is only getting the “sanitized” science from NASA, while the “real” data (from military sensors) is perceived to be locked away inside AARO. This can breed, rather than combat, public distrust.

The Chilean Model: SEFAA (The “Air Safety” Model)

The OCSA also highlighted Chile’s “Sección de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos” (SEFAA). This committee operates within Chile’s “General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics,” their equivalent of Transport Canada. Its primary mission is not scientific discovery but “to support the safety of air operations.”

Canada’s Choice: The GEIPAN Blueprint

This international comparison, summarized in the table below, makes the OCSA’s intention clear. The proposed Canadian system is a near-perfect mirror of the French GEIPAN model.

Air Safety, Sovereignty, and Political Pressure

The Sky Canada Project is not just a procedural or academic exercise. Its launch in late 2022 was remarkably prescient. The “why now?” of the project is not just about public curiosity or combating disinformation. It’s about tangible, real-world events in Canadian airspace that have thrust the UAP topic into the realm of aviation safety and hard national security.

The 2024 public opinion survey confirmed that UAPs are a flight safety concern, with 39% of Canadians agreeing they represent an issue. Transport Canada’s entire mandate is built around the “safety and security of the Canadian transportation system.” Journalistic investigations have uncovered harrowing accounts from commercial Canadian airline crews detailing near-misses with unidentified objects, reinforcing the OCSA’s recommendation to destigmatize pilot reporting.

The most significant real-world validation of the project’s premise occurred just months after its launch. In February 2023, a series of “high altitude object incidents” transfixed North America. A high-altitude balloon, reportedly from China, was tracked across the continent and shot down. It was followed by the shootdown of three other unidentified objects in rapid succession.

One of these objects was intercepted and shot down by a U.S. F-22 fighter jet over the Yukon, in Canadian-controlled airspace, on February 11, 2023.

This “Yukon object” was the perfect, real-world proof-of-concept for the Sky Canada Project. It was a literal UAP that “highlight[ed] the importance of government investigation” and the “difficulty… to distinguish between natural occurrences, common technological devices and potential security concerns.” It was a direct, physical threat to Canadian airspace sovereignty. The incident proved, unequivocally, that a better system for detecting and identifying unknown objects in our airspace was a national security necessity, not just a scientific curiosity.

The incident was a shock to the defense establishment. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) later explained that it had been “adjust[ing] radar ‘gates'” to make its filters more sensitive. Its systems were calibrated to find fast-moving Russian bombers and missiles, not slow-moving, high-altitude “clutter” like balloons or other objects.

A secret “Memorandum for the Prime Minister,” later made public through an Access to Information request, revealed just how the government was handling the incident. The memo, dated February 14, 2023, confirmed that NORAD was sequentially tracking unknown objects and that the Yukon object had been labeled “UAP #23” – the 23rd unidentified track of that year that had met the threshold for higher reporting. This confirmed that at the highest, most classified levels, the Canadian government was already using the UAP terminology.

A month later, the UAP file became an explosive political issue. On March 22, 2023, Larry Maguire, a Conservative Member of Parliament from Manitoba, wrote a stunning letter to Canada’s Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand.

The letter, which was quickly leaked, made an extraordinary claim. Citing his “meetings with American officials,” MP Maguire stated that a branch of the Department of National Defence, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), “is in possession of recovered UAP material.”

Maguire’s letter claimed this analysis was part of a secret, decades-old “Five Eyes Foreign Material Program (FMP)” – a collaborative effort between Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand to study recovered “foreign material.”

Most pointedly, Maguire’s letter contained a direct warning related to the OCSA’s work. He urged the Minister to get a classified briefing and, critically, to ensure that the Chief Science Advisor “be given full access to defence programs and be briefed on the collaborative scientific research efforts with our allies.” The clear implication was that Dr. Nemer’s unclassified, public-facing Sky Canada Project was being kept in the dark about a (potential) much deeper, classified file within DND itself.

The government’s response was swift and absolute. The Department of National Defence publicly and completely denied Maguire’s claims. A DND spokesperson issued a blunt statement: “We can confirm that the Canadian Armed Forces/Department of National Defence (as well as previous iterations) have never had any possession of any UAP materials.”

Minister Anand’s office confirmed it had replied to Maguire, reiterating that DRDC was not involved in any “formal analysis of UAP.”

This exchange has created a direct, public, and unresolved contradiction. On one hand, a sitting Member of Parliament, citing high-level “American officials,” has made a specific, falsifiable claim. On the other, the Department of National Defence has issued an absolute and unqualified denial. Both of these statements cannot be true. This conflict suggests a deep and complex divide, reinforcing the classic pattern seen in the U.S. of an unclassified “public” file (the Sky Canada Project) operating in parallel to a potential, and staunchly denied, “classified” file.

In its attempt to manage the Maguire story, DND’s public affairs team made a statement to the press that further complicated the issue and highlighted the very “fragmentation” the OCSA report uncovered. A DND spokesperson told CBC News that “All efforts studying UAP at the federal level stopped in the 1960s.”

This statement is demonstrably false, according to the government’s own records.

The OCSA’s own report clarifies the historical record. The Canadian government did have an official body tasked with collecting UAP reports from the public, RCMP, and DND, well after the 1960s. That body was the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), which officially managed the file until 1995.

This 30-year discrepancy is a stark example of the “fragmented” system, where one hand of government (DND) appears to have no idea what the other (the NRC) was doing for three decades. It’s the kind of institutional confusion and public misdirection that the Sky Canada Project’s recommendations for a single, transparent lead agency are specifically designed to fix.

Ghosts in the Archives: Canada’s Long, Forgotten History with UFOs

The 2025 Sky Canada Project is not the Canadian government’s first “UFO study.” In fact, it’s the culmination of a long, bizarre, and largely forgotten 45-year history (1950-1995) of official government engagement with the topic. This history, detailed in thousands of pages of declassified documents held at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), is essential for understanding why the system broke, why DND’s 1960s claim is false, and whythe 1995 cancellation created the policy vacuum that Dr. Nemer’s office is now trying to fill.

This history is dominated by two official projects and one long, reluctant “janitorial” phase.

Project Magnet (1950–1954): The Enthusiast

Canada’s first official investigation was “Project Magnet,” launched in December 1950. It was the brainchild of Wilbert Brockhouse Smith, a highly respected senior radio engineer for the Department of Transport.

The “Official” Project: On the surface, Project Magnet was a legitimate, if modest, scientific undertaking. Smith had received official sanction from his superiors to study “flying saucers.” His official research was focused on geo-magnetism, as Smith had a theory that the Earth’s magnetic fields could be harnessed for vehicle propulsion. He built a UFO observatory at Shirley’s Bay, near Ottawa, to monitor magnetic and radiation anomalies, hoping to “catch” a UAP in the act.

The “Unofficial” Project: Smith’s official government work was paralleled by a much more “fringe” personal quest. Smith’s research led him to conclude that UFOs were “probably extraterrestrial in origin” and operated by manipulating magnetism. In private, Smith’s beliefs went much further. He believed himself to be in telepathic contact with extraterrestrial beings, whom he called the “Space Brothers.”

The End: In mid-1954, Smith’s project was “unmasked as a personal crusade and embarrassingly cancelled.” This bizarre first chapter – where Canada’s first official UFO investigator was a secret “contactee” – poisoned the well for decades. It associated the topic with fringe beliefs and made any “serious” official who came after him look foolish.

Project Second Storey (1952–1954): The Skeptics

While Smith was running his “magnet” experiments, a second, more objective-minded committee was formed. In 1952, the Defence Research Board (DRB), Canada’s military science agency, established “Project Second Storey.”

This was a high-level committee chaired by Dr. Peter Millman, a respected astronomer at the National Research Council (NRC). It included members from various arms of Canadian military intelligence. Its purpose was to “study” the “flying saucer” phenomenon and determine if it was a threat.

The “Original Sin” of 1954: This committee’s work, which concluded in 1954, is the single most important event in Canadian UAP history. It set government policy for the next 70 years.

The committee’s final conclusion was that “UFOs neither posed a security threat, nor were of scientific…” value. They were, in the committee’s view, simply “misidentifications of natural phenomena” (like stars, planets, and meteors) or the products of “delusional” minds.

This conclusion became official dogma. It gave DND, the RCMP, and the entire government apparatus the “official” justification they needed to ignore the topic, dismiss public concern, and devote no serious resources to it.

The Great Irony: The Project Second Storey committee did make one practical recommendation. It recognized that the reports it was receiving were haphazard and unscientific. To fix this, it “developed a standardized form to facilitate the reporting of UFOs across various government departments.”

This was, in effect, a 1950s paper-based version of the exact “smartphone app” the OCSA is recommending in 2025.

But the 1950s form was “never broadly adopted or used.” And why would it be? The committee’s otherconclusion – that UFOs were worthless nonsense – had removed all motivation for any government department to bother using it. The system failed due to institutional apathy. The OCSA’s 2024 report is an attempt to restart this 70-year-old failed project, but this time armed with public opinion data and real-world security threats to force departments to take data collection seriously.

The NRC “Collector” Years (1960s–1995): The “Janitor”

After both Project Magnet and Project Second Storey collapsed in 1954, DND and the Department of Transport wanted to wash their hands of the “flying saucer” problem. They formally transferred all responsibility to the National Research Council (NRC).

This is the phase that directly contradicts DND’s 2023 claim that all efforts “stopped in the 1960s.”

From the 1960s until the mid-1990s, the NRC was the official government body tasked with collecting and responding to UFO reports. Dr. Peter Millman, the same astronomer who had chaired the skeptical Project Second Storey, became the NRC’s reluctant public point-person.

For decades, the NRC acted as the government’s “janitor” for the UAP file. They would collect reports from the public, from municipalities, from the RCMP, and even from DND. Dr. Millman (and his successors) would dutifully answer the queries, often providing mundane explanations (stars, planets, meteors) and referencing the “Project Second Storey” conclusion that there was nothing of scientific value to study.

The 1995 Shutdown: This phase, and Canada’s entire 45-year history of official UAP investigation, came to a quiet end in 1995. Citing budget cuts and a lack of scientific value, the National Research Council stopped collecting UFO reports altogether.

All of the government’s historical files – an estimated 15,000 pages of reports from DND, the RCMP, and the NRC – were transferred to what is now Library and Archives Canada (LAC). There, they became “a valuable resource for understanding the historical context,” publicly available but no longer part of any active government program.

This 1995 decision created the exact “policy vacuum” that the 2024 survey quantified. It created the “haphazard” system that the Sky Canada Project is now, 30 years later, finally trying to fix.

Canada’s Classic Cases: The Physical Evidence Files

The 2025 Sky Canada Project report is a dry, procedural, science-policy document. This makes it all the more remarkable that its authors chose to specifically name-drop two famous, 50-year-old “UFO” cases in its historical overview: the 1967 Falcon Lake incident and the 1967 Shag Harbour incident.

This was not an accidental inclusion. These two cases are Canada’s most compelling and well-documented “classic” sightings. They are the definitive counter-argument to the 1954 “Project Second Storey” conclusion that all sightings are “misidentifications.”

These cases endure because they are not just “lights in the sky.” They are physical-evidence cases that involved multiple, high-level government agency investigations, including the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Royal Canadian Navy. By referencing them, the OCSA is subtly validating that there is a legitimate, historical precedent for serious investigation.

The Falcon Lake Incident (1967): The Man Who Got Burned

On May 20, 1967, an industrial mechanic and amateur geologist named Stefan Michalak was prospecting in the wilderness near Falcon Lake, Manitoba. His account, supported by physical evidence and documented in voluminous RCMP and RCAF files, is one of the most detailed and bizarre in Canadian history.

According to Michalak, he was chipping at a quartz vein when he was startled by a cackle of geese. He looked up to see two glowing, saucer-shaped objects descending. One object flew off, but the other landed on a flat rock outcrop nearby.

Michalak, a pragmatic and curious man, spent time sketching the 30-foot-wide craft. He noted it was silent and had no markings. Believing it to be a secret American experimental aircraft, he approached it, trying to speak to its occupants in multiple languages (English, Polish, Russian, German) but heard only a whirring sound.

He reached out and touched the craft’s seamless, metallic surface, which was so hot it melted the fingertips of his glove. He then noticed a “grid-like” vent on the side of the craft. As the craft began to lift off, a “blast of hot gas or air” shot from this vent, hitting him squarely in the chest and setting his shirt and work cap on fire.

Michalak ripped the burning clothes from his body as the craft silently ascended and flew away. Disoriented, nauseous, and smelling of “sulphur and burnt motor,” he stumbled through the forest, vomited, and eventually made his way back to his motel in Falcon Lake before catching a bus back to Winnipeg.

He was treated at a hospital for first-degree burns on his chest and stomach. Days later, these burns “turned into raised, grid-like sores on a grid-like pattern,” a “checkerboard” that perfectly matched the vent he claimed to have seen. For weeks, he suffered from severe headaches, blackouts, rapid weight loss, and the “foul smell” that his son, Stan, vividly recalled.

This was not ignored. The case was investigated extensively by the RCMP, the RCAF, and even U.S. officials from the Condon Committee (the U.S.’s own official UFO study). Investigators did find a 30-foot “circular indentation” where Michalak claimed the craft had landed. Soil samples from the landing spot were tested and found to be radioactive.

The official investigation was, like the incident itself, baffling. A U.S. psychiatrist from the Mayo Clinic who examined Michalak wrote a famously contradictory report. He observed that Michalak’s lesions were “obviously factitial” (a medical term suggesting they were self-inflicted), but in the same report, he found “no overt evidence of significant mental or emotional illness.” The case remains one of the world’s most-studied examples of alleged physical evidence.

The Shag Harbour Incident (1967): The Thing in the Water

Just five months after the Falcon Lake incident, on the other side of the country, another “physical evidence” case unfolded, this time in the small fishing village of Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia.

On the night of October 4, 1967, at least five local residents, including Laurie Wickens and his friends, were driving when they saw a large object, estimated to be 60 feet long, with a row of four bright, flashing lights. They watched as the object descended rapidly and appeared to crash into the waters of the harbour.

They were not the only witnesses. Coincidentally, RCMP Constable Ron Pound also witnessed the strange lights descending as he drove toward the harbour.

Everyone involved had the same, rational thought: they were witnessing a “tragic airplane crash.” They immediately reported it to the RCMP detachment. A rescue effort was launched. The Canadian Coast Guard, along with RCMP officers and local fishing boats, all raced to the impact site.

They found no wreckage. No survivors. No bodies. No oil slick.

What they did find, according to witness reports from the boats, was a patch of strange, bubbling, yellowish foam on the water’s surface, as if something had just submerged. Baffled, the Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax filed an official “UFO Report” with Canadian Forces Headquarters in Ottawa.

This escalated the situation from a local rescue to a national military matter. The military’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic, a team of Royal Canadian Navy divers, was tasked with conducting an underwater search.

For three days, Navy divers “combed the seafloor” of the harbour, looking for the object that multiple witnesses, including a police officer, had seen go into the water. The final, official report from the Navy was blunt: “Not a trace… not a clue… not a bit of anything.” The search was called off, and the Shag Harbour incident became another one of Canada’s great, unsolved UAP cases.

These two cases, both from 1967, are the historical pillars of Canadian UAP research. The Shag Harbour incident, in particular, serves as a perfect historical blueprint for the exact inter-agency coordination the 2025 OCSA report is now trying to formalize.

In 1967, a UAP report came in from civilians and police (RCMP). It was escalated to a Rescue Centre, which escalated it to Canadian Forces HQ. This triggered a coordinated response from the Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy. This is exactly what the OCSA’s proposed “network of government and academic partners” is supposed to look like. The only difference? In 1967, it happened by accident, because everyone assumed it was a “plane crash.” The Sky Canada Project’s goal is to create a system that does this on purpose.

The Civilian Vanguard: Canada’s Non-Governmental UAP Watchers

The government’s decision to “get out of the game” in 1995 created a 30-year policy vacuum. But the sightings didn’t stop. So, who filled the void?

The OCSA’s report, in its methodology section, provides the answer. To understand the Canadian UAP landscape, the government had to “consult… non-government organizations, experts, and journalists.”

In effect, the government’s 1995 abdication outsourced Canada’s national UAP database to a small, dedicated group of “citizen scientists” and volunteers. The Sky Canada Project is a formal, if implicit, admission that these civilian groups have been doing the work the government abandoned.

Ufology Research (Chris Rutkowski)

The OCSA report itself identifies “Ufology Research,” a Manitoba-based volunteer group directed by science writer Chris Rutkowski, as the provider of the “longest and most recognized collection of UAP sightings” in Canada.

Rutkowski has been collecting reports since his university days in the 1980s. His group produces the “Canadian UFO Survey,” an annual statistical analysis of sightings. As of 2023, this survey had cataloged over 24,000 Canadian UFO reports since 1989.

The OCSA report quotes Rutkowski’s data to establish its baseline estimate of “600 to 1,000 UAP sightings… reported each year.” This is a stunning admission. The “Canadian UFO Survey” – a project run by volunteers – is, functionally, Canada’s only longitudinal UAP database. Rutkowski’s sources include direct reports from the public, data from other organizations, and, significantly, data he has pried from government agencies (like Transport Canada) using Access to Information requests.

In recognition of this, the OCSA’s final report lists Chris Rutkowski by name as one of the individual experts it consulted.

MUFON Canada

The OCSA report also notes that other “civil society organizations” like MUFON Canada “compile and analyze data from citizens.” MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) is a U.S.-based organization with a Canadian chapter. The OCSA’s list of consulted organizations also lists MUFON Canada by name.

The OCSA’s reliance on these groups is a formal acknowledgment that the government has no data of its own. For 30 years, Canada’s entire institutional knowledge on this subject – the trends, the sighting numbers, the geographic hotspots – has been gathered and curated by volunteers.

The Sky Canada Project’s goal is to re-centralize this data, to bring it back under an official, scientific, and government-funded umbrella. But the report contains a small, cautionary note that reveals this will be a challenge. In its 2023 data, the report notes that “data from another organization, MUFON Canada, was not available to Ufology Research in 2023.”

This small note is a major red flag. It shows that even the civilian groups are fragmented and not sharing data. This proves that the OCSA’s proposed new lead agency (like the CSA) can’t just exist and expect the data to flow in. It will have to actively build bridges and create incentives for these disparate, established civilian groups to share their data. If it doesn’t, the new “official” government database will just become another silo, competing with (and likely having less data than) the civilian ones that have a 30-year head start.

Summary

The Sky Canada Project, published by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor, is the first formal Canadian government UAP research effort in nearly 30 years. It is not a quest to find “little green men.” It is a objective, evidence-based, science-policy proposal designed to solve a 70-year-old data management problem and fill a 30-year-old policy vacuum.

The report concludes that a “more structured approach” is needed to “enhance transparency and combat disinformation,” improve public trust, and “position Canada alongside some of its allies.”

The Problem It Identified:

Canada’s current “system” for UAP reporting is a “fragmented” and “haphazard” patchwork of uncoordinated silos. A public report to the police is “lost.” A pilot’s report to Transport Canada is “orphaned” in a safety log, unanalyzed. A pilot’s report to the military is “classified.” This makes “rigorous, science-based analysis” impossible. This failed system has led to a massive data-loss problem – 90% of sightings go unreported – and has confused the public, with 40% of Canadians not knowing where to turn.

The Solution It Proposed:

The report provides a clear blueprint to fix this. It calls for the government to identify a single, public-facing, lead agency – nominating the Canadian Space Agency as the ideal candidate. This agency would be scientific, civilian, and transparent. It would “collect testimonies, investigate cases and post its analyses publicly,” effectively creating a “GEIPAN-Canada” modeled on France’s successful and transparent UAP office. It would deploy modern tools, like a “bilingual smartphone app,” to finally create the “public front door” that Canadians are looking for.

The Sky Canada Project is, in itself, a perfect example of the OCSA’s mandate in action. Dr. Nemer’s office identified a major problem at the intersection of science, government policy, and public trust. It gathered extensive data – from a new public survey, from historical archives, from international partners, and from the civilian experts who have stewarded the file for decades. And it has delivered “independent, actionable, evidence-based advice” to the government.

The project’s success won’t be measured by whether it finds extraterrestrials. Its success will be measured by whether the Government of Canada listens to its top scientist. The recommendations provide a clear path to demystify a complex topic, combat disinformation with transparency, address legitimate public curiosity, and, most importantly, close real, tangible gaps in Canadian aviation safety and airspace sovereignty.