Canada and the world get serious about UFOs

CLIP You are listening to a Frequency Podcast network production.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Look, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I swear, I don’t. I just wanted to get that out of the way before we talk about this

CLIP The aerial images were presented today, UFOs spotted and now documented around the world holding their first ever public meeting. Top scientists at NASA joined by a team from the Department of Defence revealed pictures in video like this one that captured a metallic spherical orb in the Middle East last year.

Jordan Heath Rawlings If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you will know that the past year or so has brought us more UFO revelations than ever before. And from sources of information that are more and more credible, just quickly, I’ll run it down for you. After unidentified objects were cited in the days after a suspected, a Chinese spy balloon was shot down. Canada began a project to improve its responses to unidentified flying objects. Meanwhile, NASA and the Department of Defence held public meetings at the end of last month on the same subject. At the same time, it was revealed that the Five Eyes, an allied group of intelligence agencies that includes, the US and Canada held a private forum on the issue. That’s just the official government business. That doesn’t include countless sightings that are becoming more frequent rumours of other airborne objects that were shot down and then captured. The illusions by former American presidents two things they may have heard during their time in office. And look, I swear I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. Okay? But the most advanced military and intelligence agencies in the world, are taking this seriously. Canada is deciding it needs to be taken seriously too. So what exactly is going on in the sky?

I’m Jordan Heath Rowings. This is The Big Story. Daniel Otis is a freelance journalist who among many other things, covers the UFO beat. Hello, Daniel.

Daniel Otis Hey, thanks for having me back.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Of course we are always pleased to talk about UFOs on this program, and there’s so much news.

Daniel Otis Right? It seems, it seems like it hasn’t been stopping lately. Every month there seems to be some sort of new report, hearing, or revelation.

Jordan Heath Rawlings For the purposes of this conversation though, let’s start back a little earlier this year and maybe you can just start by telling us what is the Sky Canada project?

Daniel Otis Yeah, so the Sky Canada project is basically the first official Canadian UFO study in nearly 30 years. It’s being conducted by the office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, which is Arms length scientific advisory office. And since about the fall of 2022, they’ve been engaged in this project to basically understand how UFO reports are managed in Canada, and then to offer recommendations for improvements if necessary. So as I understand it, they’re deep in this work right now, they’re reaching out to federal stakeholders who may receive UFO reports, such as Transport Canada and the Canadian Space Agency. And they plan to release a public report at some point next year. I was made aware of this, somebody with knowledge of the project sent me a PowerPoint presentation, basically outlining what they’re up to. I had that independently verified by the office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada and published this story talking about this, you know, new UFO study. That story came out in March and just last month in May the science advisor’s office posted on their website an entire outline of the project, so you could go check it out right now for yourself. And it basically, yeah, it outlines the scope of this new UFO project. They’ve been very clear that they don’t intend to analyze reports themselves. They don’t intend to prove or disprove any ET hypothesis. They’re essentially trying to find out, how are reports handled and can they be handled better to improve analysis and scientific understanding of the subject?

Jordan Heath Rawlings And why would we be doing that now? You know, to your point, it seems like there’s news around this every month. Nothing nothing troubling going on. It’s not like we’re seeing more and more of these things or anything. Right?

Daniel Otis Well, I think it has a lot to do with the news that’s been coming out of the United States. Both the Pentagon and NASA are currently investigating what they refer to as unidentified anomalous phenomenon or UAP for short. NASA began its project about a year ago. The Pentagon has been looking into the issue for years from a national security perspective. And I, I think what was happening at the office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, they were seeing all of this activity happening in the United States and then they realized that, you know, no such efforts are occurring in Canada that reports are coming in year after year, after year, from, you know, commercial pilots members of the public, police officers, military personnel. I mean, going back 70 years, we, we see reports regularly being filed. But currently in Canada, unless, you know, there seems to be a clear threat nexus, there really isn’t any official investigation or follow up. So let’s say a commercial pilot spots a, a weird, lighter object, you know, bouncing around in the sky or moving erratically. They call air traffic controllers. Air traffic controllers notify the Canadian Air Force as well as Canadian transportation officials. And a paper trail is created, but really there’s no investigation or follow up.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I see.

Daniel Otis So I really think the motivation here from the science advisor’s office is to sort of have Canada catch up to what’s happening in the United States. So we can, you know, actually communicate with them on this. And then we, so we can collect better data and do some of our own analysis.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Before we talk about what the United States is doing, because that involves Canada as well. There have been a ton of headlines about UFOs in recent months, and what I’m trying to figure out is if the incidents themselves have been increasing or if just the amount of attention the news media is paying to it and by extension we are paying to it, is increasing. While, you know, the actual baseline number of sightings remains the same.

Daniel Otis It, it’s hard to see exactly if sightings are up or down, but I, I think, you know, military and aviation officials are certainly paying a lot more attention since the suspected Chinese spy balloon incident of earlier this year. You know, this, this balloon traverse North America and did so with impunity for a number of days following that three, still unidentified objects were shot down in North American air space at a time of heightened vigilance and concern. I, I think that incident, made people realize that, you know, unidentified flying objects doesn’t necessarily have to, you know, equal ET and that it could represent, you know, clear national security threats, like Chinese attempts to spy on the continent. I think that event, really opens people’s eyes to the necessity of trying to document and understand what’s in our airspace no matter what it is. Because, you know, if there are balloons up there, it could be a flight safety issue. It could be a national security issue what have you.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Let’s talk about the recent stuff now with regards to not only the United States, but the network known as the Five Eyes. Can you explain what we are doing around UFOs or, or I guess UAPs, since it’s the US leading this?

Daniel Otis Yeah, so, so just back up for a second on May 31st NASA held its first public forum on the subject of UFOs and UAP. NASA launched its own study into unclassified UFO data about a year ago, and they planned to make a report public at some point this summer. The NASA conference lasted about four hours, and it also featured the current director of the Pentagons UFO Research Program. He’s an intelligence officer and a physicist named Sean Kirkpatrick, and he directs what’s known as the all domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or ARROW for short. I gotta warn you, there’s so many acronyms in this field. It can get a little convoluted.

Jordan Heath Rawlings No worries.

Daniel Otis Kirkpatrick was invited to speak at this Nassau event and during a Q&A session, he mentions that he had just held his first Five Eyes forum on the subject of UAP. For those who don’t know, the Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance that was formed during the Second World War between the UK, Australia, and New Zealand the US and Canada. So he just mentioned this very much in passing and I followed it up with Canada’s Department of National Defense, and they confirmed that at some point in May, there was a Five Eyes UAP forum at the Pentagon and that Canada sent a representative from the Royal Canadian Air Force. Kirkpatrick in the NASA meeting, basically said that the point of the forum was to, you know, bring allies up to speed on their research and also to talk about ways to share data going forward to have allied countries, you know, submitting UFO UAP data to the Pentagons program.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So how big a deal is this in these circles that are focused on what we’re continuing to learn about UFOs? Because, you know, the Five Eyes network is, I think probably not even arguably, you know, the most well-resourced team of intelligence agencies operating in the world. And if they are coming together to discuss this, that suggests a level of at least some concern.

Daniel Otis Yeah. And it shows how seriously it seems the United States is taking the matter if they’re willing to bring in their biggest intelligence partners and allies to, you know, discuss what they’re doing on the UAP subject and to propose a way to share data. Because the, the Pentagon Program wants to be getting data from its Five Eyes partners. I, I think it’s, it’s sort of a mixed blessing though in the sense that while it shows that the subject is being taken seriously by the United States, we’re still not so sure how it’s perceived by those other partners from the Five Eyes, you know, currently in Canada, usually the UFO sightings and UAP sightings are not really interpreted as being a national security issue, where in the United States, it very much is. And there’s one pitfall there. You know, if Canada starts really feeding data into the Pentagons program and starts to conceive of this as a national security issue, it has really, really severe implications when it comes to open data and open science. Through our access to information system, Canadian Freedom of information laws, data can be withheld if there’s a national security concern. You know, I’ve filed so far over 200 Access to Information requests in Canada on this subject, yielding thousands of pages of data. And, and personally I’m worried that if our military starts perceiving this in the same way that the US has been right, then suddenly our ability, as you know, journalists and scientists to collect this data in Canada is gonna disappear.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Now that we have a level of concern established, and now that we know what the United States and its allies, including us, are doing about it, let’s talk about what we know. What have we been seeing in the skies recently? There have been a lot of reports. You mentioned the unidentified objects that came right after the, the spy balloon. And I understand that at that May 31st meeting, there was a discussion of metallic orbs, which sounds pretty alieney, not to put too fine a point on it.

Daniel Otis Well yeah. Sean Kirkpatrick, again, the director of the Pentagon’s UFO program. In that presentation, that NASA presentation, he mentioned that nearly half of the 800 plus reports his office has received have been of a spherical metallic orbs. He says that these have been detected around the world some of them have been performing what he’s called apparently interesting maneuvers. And they, they’re still trying to figure out what they are. Kirkpatrick also said that, you know, of the reports his office has been receiving. About two to 5% remain what he said were possibly really anomalous. My research shows, you know, the, the vast majority of the reports that occur in Canada seem to be of lights behaving erratically. Transport Canada or Federal Transportation Department maintains an aviation incident database that catalogs everything from bird strikes to drunken unruly passengers to mechanical failures. And within this system, you know, every so often you see reports of unidentified objects and lights from, as recently as this year going back into the 1990s. I have a list in front of me, for example, like, here’s one from Toronto Air Traffic Controllers in 2005 reported receiving, reports from four different aircrafts of a shiny silver object over Toronto at roughly 30,000 feet, which turned sharply and moved rapidly to the southeast over Lake Ontario. 2009, Fort McMurray Alberta Air Traffic Controllers in the tower see a bright object moving faster than any known commercial aircraft. That was one solid, bright light. December, 2022 a KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Edmonton, as well as an Air Canada flight from the UK to Vancouver. Both reported unknown lights ahead at a very high altitude quote. They were described as pinpoints and were observed at least 20 times over a one hour period. Reports like these really could be anything. I mean, they could be atmospheric phenomena, they could be advanced drone technology, they could be reflections being interpreted or they could be something else entirely altogether. But if anything, you know, the data shows that credible observers who want to have some idea of what ought to be in the sky, like commercial pilots military pilots, et cetera. Are reporting things year after year, after year after year. And I guess the concern from the United States is if you have things in your airspace that you cannot explain, it’s an obvious national security issue. To me, it, you know, it seems like Canada and the United States have invested UFOs in the past, going back to the dawn of the Cold War, and what those investigations usually determined was, you know, that it wasn’t a military issue, and then things quieted down until the next cycle of of UFO interest came up like we’re in right now. And you know, to me, I think it, it shows that there’s some sort of mystery that’s alive and well on our planet. And that more and better data and scientific analysis is what we need to uncover that mystery. I don’t think military organizations inherently have open data and public facing science as part of their core mandate. And that that’s why, you know, going back to the Sky Canada project, I was very pleased to see that, you know, Canada’s first steps in into this subject in a long time are being done from that scientific perspective.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You mentioned we’re in one of the cycles of increased interest, and it certainly does seem like the reports at the very least, get more news coverage now, but just in terms of, of citing the objects themselves, you mentioned high-tech drones. How much of this interest and, and these sightings are because our skies are just more crowded and more surveilled now? You know, there’s a ton of drones flying in them. We have more satellites than ever before. Airlines are everywhere. Like the more things we put up there, the more reports we’re gonna get back. Right?

Daniel Otis Yeah, absolutely. And especially after the Chinese balloon incident, I, you see a lot more reports being made cuz people are paying closer attention. You know, you, you mentioned satellites and drones. You see a lot of UAP reports from a few years ago of strings of bright lights in the sky, like a line of bright moving lights. Eerily traversing the sky. Well, it turns out those were starlink satellite launches, you know, the satellite-based internet system, and they operate as constellations of satellites. So of course the, the more things we’re throwing up in the sky, the more UAP reports they’re gonna be, but I don’t think, you know, that necessarily explains all of them. If you look back in the historical records in Canada, for example, I was able to find reports from Canadian military personnel dating back to the early 1950s at one particular base CFB North Bay in Ontario, I found reports from 1952 made by military personnel as well as reports from 2007. And the reports from a pair of officers 55 years earlier was legitimately the weirder one. So, yes, we’re seeing more reports because of drones and satellites and things like that, but, you know, reports of this nature have been happening for, for 70 years.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So you mentioned that Kirkpatrick said that, you know, two to five per cent of these things are really anomalous and we can’t explain them. How far of a chasm is there between, these are unidentified objects we can’t explain, and it’s not of this world?

Daniel Otis I think there’s a bit of a chasm there. I think there are people who have a firm belief that other worldly objects come and visit us. I think there are also people who have a firm belief that that’s impossible. I’m not an engineer or a physicist. You know, my strength is in using journalistic techniques to gather data through freedom of information requests, et cetera. But there is a bit of a chasm, you know, the, the officials from NASA and the Pentagon program routinely repeat that they have not encountered evidence of, you know, other worldly intelligence being involved with the UAP phenomenon. Yet, you know, there’s, there’s rumours and stories dating back years about, you know, so-called aliens and visits of that nature. If that’s true, I haven’t seen the evidence of it yet. I’d like to that I’d be interested in it, but I, I think we can admit that, you know, we live on a planet circling a star in a galaxy that contains over a billion stars, and there’s over a billion known galaxies in the universe, each with, you know, potentially over a billion stars. The, the possibility of life existing in one form or another in the cosmos is probably very high. The possibility of life evolving to a state that they can traverse space and time and come hang out with us and look at us. Well, that, that becomes a little more difficult to establish. But you know, for me, that’s not what’s guiding me. If at the end of the day, all of my research, for example, points to the fact that I don’t know some military organization in some country has created an advanced propulsion system that uses a new form of energy. I mean, that, that’s a big story. If it turns out it’s aliens, well, obviously that’s a big story too. If it turns out that as a society we’ve been subjecting ourselves to some sort of mass delusion or mass hysteria for decades. I mean, that’s kind of interesting too for me really all the data points to the fact that there’s a mystery alive and well here, and if anybody can help solve that, I mean that’s journalistically speaking, that’s a big story.

Jordan Heath Rawlings It’s really hard for me to do these interviews sometime so, and not sound like a conspiracy theorist, which I am not. How is it that we could see so many of these things? And the most powerful military in the history of the world has not caught a single one of them and been able to examine it or have they, and we haven’t been told about it because we wouldn’t be told about that kind of thing?

Daniel Otis Well there are certainly allegations and rumours dating back years of that kind of thing happening.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I know. That’s why I sound like a conspiracy theorist.

Daniel Otis I haven’t encountered the data that confirms any of that. And, you know, I remain both skeptical and open-minded. Really, who knows? You know, one theory is that the current cycle of UFO news and madness is just a way to distract from, you know, something else that’s happening. Perhaps an advanced propulsion system. Really, who knows? The, the, the verdict is out. One would think that if programs like that existed and a government was in possession of this technology, that some of that information would’ve gotten out already.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Yeah. Donald Trump would’ve had it on some documents lying around. He can’t keep a secret.

Daniel Otis Well, it’s interesting you mentioned Trump. You know Trump, Obama, Bill Clinton, they’ve all in interviews mentioned looking into the matter and they’ve all sort of said they can’t really discuss it too much.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Now you’re talking my language.

Daniel Otis Right? Which just fuels the conspiracy theories and I, I think I. If anything, we need more openness, more open science, more open data, because the sort of denials and dismissal and secrecy that the subject has been, you know, subjected to all over these years, only fuels that kind of conspiracy stuff. I hope Donald Trump or Obama, or Clinton or, or Biden will come clean about what they know. But the problem is the militarization of the issue in the United States means that whatever data they do have is gonna be of such a highly classified nature that it’s gonna be impossible to discuss. There is some promising signs in the, in US Senate and the US Congress, you know, there have been hearings and meetings in Washington DC on the subject. I’m hopeful that if we get any clarity, it might be through that avenue, you know, because senators and Congress people will have the ability to access data and perhaps make it public. But, I don’t think we should make conclusions one way or another. We just have to follow the data wherever it leads us.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I do now, have you on tape though, saying you hope the president will come clean about what he knows, which, certainly could lead some people down the rabbit hole.

Daniel Otis Well, they, they know something. I mean, Obama and Trump have insinuated that they looked into the subject in interviews. Bill Clinton’s former Chief of Staff John Podesta is notoriously interested in this subject and tried to do some digging. He wrote a forward to a, a very popular book on the subject. I mean, there, there’s interest in Washington. There’s even interest in Ottawa. You know, I’ve. I’ve spoken to a member of Parliament, for example, about my findings and what I’ve learned. The interest is growing in the halls of government, and I, I’m hopeful, you know, people in positions of power, can use their offices to help shed some light on this and help dispel some of these conspiracy theories once and for all.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Last question and, and this is serious. I know it’s a fascinating subject to think about and sometimes joke about, but this is a really exciting time for people like yourself who cover this beat or people who are just fascinated by these phenomena. So, What do you hope or expect to find out next, and what are you working on?

Daniel Otis Well, I, I’m constantly digging. I’m constantly filing information requests. I’m constantly chasing leads and pulling threads. You know, like that brief mention of the Five Eyes meeting in the recent NASA forum. As I said before, I think what really drives me is just trying to find as much data and information is possible to shed light on this enduring mystery that’s been, you know, affecting our society for decades. Where it leads is, is anyone’s guess, but you know, if I find out anything really good, I’ll be happy to come back and talk to you.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I really hope you do and I can’t wait. Daniel, thanks for this. Thanks for all the work you do in this area because the more people digging, the better the chance we find something.

Daniel Otis Absolutely.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Daniel Otis writing for CTV and Vice about UFOs. That was The Big Story. For more, including previous appearances by Daniel when we had less information than we do now, and probably future appearances by Daniel when we will have more information than we do now, you can always head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca and type his name into the search bar. You can find The Big Story on Twitter @TheBigStoryfpn, and you can email us hello@TheBigStorypodcast.ca to call me a conspiracy theorist. The Big Story is available wherever you get your podcast. I haven’t asked you this in a while, so I will. If you are in a podcast app that lets you rate and review or share it with a friend, please rate and review or share it with a friend. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

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