A Winnipeg-based UFO researcher has combed through years of data and determined unidentified flying objects have been spotted more than 2,000 times in the skies over Manitoba in the last 200 years.

Chris Rutkowksi has been researching reports of UFOs across Canada since the 1980s and has prepared the annual Canadian UFO Survey for the last 25 years.

This year he also decided to probe historical records, American and Canadian military and government documents, media reports, and private databases in his home province and published the findings on his Ufology Research blog this week.

“Certainly many of the reports are explainable as stars and planes or satellites, so this by no means tells us that Manitoba is being invaded,” he said. “But what it does say is that Manitobans share in the global phenomenon and have been for a number of years.

“It shows us a different kind of history of Manitoba.”

The reports range from strange lights moving through the skies to claims of abductions and Rutkowksi says 17.5 per cent of them are classified as “unexplained”.

Of the 2,023 reports Rutkowksi uncovered, the majority—767—come from Winnipeg, and he also found right now might be the best time to have a close encounter of the third kind, with UFO reports peaking across the province in July and August.

Rutkowksi, who’s published several books on UFOs, said he hopes his Manitoba-specific data will spur researchers to the same in other areas of Canada.

“It’s quite unique in that there hasn’t been a study comparable to this anywhere else in Canada,” he said. “We hope that we’re setting the pace with this.”