Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown

Between 1947 and the early 1980s, four Canadian federal departments and agencies, the Department of National Defence, Department of Transport, National Research Council, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police received thousands of reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomenon. These were released in the form of over 9,500 digitized documents in a variety of formats, including correspondence, reports, memos and procedures at Library and Archives Canada.

Canada claims that the reports were not edited before release, but interestingly approximately half of the documents refer to a specific UFO sighting location, while the others fail to mention a particular location.

They offer a mostly useless search tool that allows search by document title, date, and location, since the reports themselves are in image form and the text of the report is no searchable.

I poked around the archive a little and was impressed to find a fairly open minded approach to what ever was floating around the Canadian skies. Record 3800-10-1 from the Department of National Defence from 9/15/1969 openly states that “we are forced to the conclusion that the vehicles are probably extra-terrestrial, in spite of our prejudices to the contrary”.

They also offer a ‘virtual exhibition‘. This interface is much easier to surf around finding odd reports.

Prince George, British Columbia
January 1, 1969

Just as the sun was about to set on the first day of the New Year in 1969, the residents of Prince George, British Columbia looked to the sky and saw something they could not explain. Many were prompted to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Three unrelated witnesses reported a strange, round object in the late afternoon sky. The sphere radiated a yellow-orange light and appeared to ascend from 2,000 to 10,000 feet. Further reports by other residents were made to the RCMP on January 3, 4 and 5.

Mrs. William Dow may not have been aware of these reports when she called the RCMP to investigate an object that landed in her back yard on January 9, 1969.

An official RCMP investigation report made on January 30, 1969, includes a photograph to explain the object that was recovered.