I’ve always liked a good story, but in ufology, stories are often accepted as fact without critical analysis. Many claims are made on UFO podcasts and tabloid TV by “insiders” who seem to know many secrets that can’t be shared because—well, they’re secret. (“I wish I could tell you where the intact alien craft is hidden, but . . .”) Even so-called whistleblowers can’t offer any proof of their claims—although their stories are certainly entertaining.
My academic background is in astronomy education, so I could certainly talk about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation with some authority, but I won’t. There’s no incontrovertible proof that aliens are visiting Earth, but there’s a lot of proof that the Canadian government has been taking the subject of UFOs very seriously for many years. Furthermore, the Canadian government has long been doing all the things that private organizations and governments in other countries are getting kudos for doing today, like scientific studies and monitoring the sky for anomalous objects.
I know this because I have been asked by official agencies, police, politicians, and scientists to help understand what UFOs really are, and what to do about them. Few have known my true involvement until now.
December 16, 2017, was the day ufology was thrust, kicking and screaming, into the public spotlight. That day, a feature in the New York Times by journalists Ralph Blumenthal, Helene Cooper, and Leslie Kean revealed that the United States government had funded and operated a program that looked seriously into reports of UFOs observed by military personnel.
The story came out because someone described as a whistleblower, Luis Elizondo, said that he was in charge of an office called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program from 2007 to 2012. What the Times story neglected to mention was that the program was originally called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program. Given a budget of $22 million (US), it was created by US Senate majority leader Harry Reid to study UFOs over five years.
Following that revelation, mainstream media interviewed UFO proponents and politicians, who all had “inside information” on what the American government really knew about UFOs. The next few years were essentially a media-feeding frenzy, fuelled and encouraged by UFO experts who all claimed to have insight into what was going on but couldn’t offer definitive proof of their claims because of non-disclosure agreements and—well, it was all very secret.
In 2020, during a US Senate hearing, it was discovered that there was a follow-up program along the same lines, called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). Its activities had included classified briefings to committees in Congress about UFOs and associated issues, including the claim that the government had in its possession intact extraterrestrial craft or fragments thereof.
While previously viewed as a taboo subject for politicians to discuss publicly, the favourable response from the media and the public about the American situation seemed to grant permission for Canadian politicians to weigh in on the matter.
On March 2, 2022, Larry Maguire, who was, at the time, the Progressive Conservative member of Parliament for Brandon–Souris in Manitoba and vice chair of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, raised concerns about UFOs flying over Canadian nuclear sites. He asked the minister of natural resources, John Hannaford, if he had received reports of UFOs over nuclear research or storage sites. (He had not.)
A few months later, after kicking the hornet’s nest with his questions to Hannaford, on May 12, 2022, Maguire published a statement about his view that Canadian citizens should know more about what their government was doing about UFOs.
He wrote, “With the news that Canada’s Minister of Defence was briefed about the issue of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), it’s time for parliamentarians and the government of Canada to take this issue seriously.” Maguire was referring to a May 6, 2022, CTV story by Daniel Otis, who had discovered that the minister of national defence, Harjit Sajjan, had been briefed about UFOs a year earlier, on May 27, 2021.
The CTV story went on to say, “A lieutenant-colonel co-ordinated the effort. An accompanying five-page slide presentation included an overview of cases and procedures, which currently link the Canadian Armed Forces with air traffic controllers, federal aviation authorities and a civilian researcher in Manitoba.”
The “civilian researcher” was me. In fact, I was specifically named in the slide presentation, which included my photograph.
Otis found that while the revelations about UFO studies in the US showed that the subject was being taken seriously by officials, little was being done in Canada. This was of concern to at least one Canadian politician. Opposition defence critic Kerry-Lynne Findlay believed Ottawa should be paying more attention to American developments, which included a bipartisan US Senate initiative to establish a new UFO research office.
I had been contacted by Otis before the release of the CTV story, and I explained my involvement with officials regarding UFO reports over the past several decades. He quoted me in his story: “‘I have been called both a sceptic and a believer, which probably demonstrates that my position is appropriate,’ Rutkowski said in an email. ‘We are long past the era of UFOs being a subject of ridicule. Well-trained observers have reported sightings of UFOs and UAP and there seems to be a renewed interest by both scientists and the military establishment in taking a closer look at this persistent phenomenon.’”
In another CTV news story, on November 15, 2022, Otis reported that Pentagon officials had met with their Canadian counterparts to discuss UFOs on February 22, 2022.
After making his original statement, Maguire urged his colleagues to consider action on the matter. He revealed that he had a long-standing interest in UFOs and that his information on the subject came largely from discussions and meetings with UFO experts. In addition, Maguire had another meeting with American UFO experts.
Otis’s report said, “Earlier this year, Maguire’s office arranged another briefing with members of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), an international think tank dedicated to applying scientific methods to UAP research. Engineer and founding SCU board member Robert Powell was part of that Jan. 28 meeting and says he also participated in an Oct. 20, 2021 briefing for a Liberal member of Parliament. According to Powell, the Oct. 2021 UAP briefing with the Liberal MP included former Pentagon intelligence official Christopher Mellon.”
This was most interesting, as with this one exception, no member of the Liberal majority government had previously been identified as being involved in UFO discussions. (To date, the name of this politician has not been made public.)
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It’s not well known that on June 1, 2021, I also briefed Maguire on my research into UFOs and how the Canadian government had been involved.
Upon his request, I provided Maguire with details of UFO reports near Canadian nuclear facilities, as he was particularly concerned with that aspect of UFOs and security. While it was a simple matter to search the Canadian UFO Survey database for a geographical location—from Pickering and Port Elgin, Ontario, to Saint John, New Brunswick, there are plenty of open-source reports of individuals witnessing and documenting UAP near these facilities—the interpretation of results was far from straightforward.
I chose the Pickering nuclear facility in Ontario as my first search term. This was one that Maguire had mentioned specifically in his public statement. I quickly discovered there had been fifty-nine UFO reports filed between 1989 and 2024 with the location label “Pickering.” That might seem to prove that UFOs were definitely targeting that one nuclear facility for inspection.
The problem is that citing a particular location does not mean that a UFO was seen over that spot specifically. Witnesses often give a location when stating that a UFO was in the sky. Given that most UFOs are simply lights in the sky, a witness who was facing the direction of Pickering from some distance away would be under the impression the light was over the facility. Add to this the fact that Pickering is directly underneath the major airline flight path between Toronto and Montreal, and it is not surprising that UFOs are reported in the sky, as many UFOs turn out to be aircraft after investigation. None of this is definitive evidence that Pickering was visited or monitored by a UFO. Looking at actual UFO reports makes me doubt that there is any reason to be concerned about this issue.
UFO reports associated with other nuclear sites are not particularly interesting either. On March 11, 2022, John Hannaford replied to Maguire, noting, “The CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] can report that there have been no reported drone intrusions or attempted intrusions at Canadian high-security nuclear facilities.” This was reiterated in a letter on June 6, 2022, to Maguire from Kathleen Heppell-Masys, a director general of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Despite the denial that UFOs had been flying around nuclear facilities in Canada, the belief that UFOs have been taking an interest in nuclear sites around the world has persisted for decades, even until today. It is very significant that there have been scientific studies of UFO sightings reported near nuclear facilities around the world. One such study released in 2023 concluded that “overall, the pattern analysis indicated an elevated and anomalous level of UAP activity at the atomic study sites.”
Based on 590 cases selected from sources of UFO reports, many from the US Air Force Project Blue Book itself, UFOs seemed to favour nuclear facilities. Despite that, “all sites showed the same overall diminishment and virtual cessation of activity following a national surge of UAP reports in 1952.”
In other words, during the rapid development and construction of military nuclear facilities following the Second World War, UFOs were observed and detected relatively often. But after 1952, this was less pronounced, and reports of activity over nuclear sites “almost completely ceased.”
Why would this be? One reasonable suggestion is that during the development of nuclear facilities, security would have been extremely high at the sites, and any kind of incursions would have been noticed and reported. No actual threats had been detected during construction, and once the sites were operational, the number of UFO sightings decreased to levels expected in the general population and across the country.
And yet, there have been instances of UFOs infringing on protected airspace near nuclear sites, and we even have reports of such cases. On February 14, 2002, Transport Canada listed CADORS—Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System—report 2002A0096, about an incident in New Brunswick:
At 1450z Authorities at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station reported a small single engine aircraft white with a green stripe flying over the coastline East of the Generating Station. Altitude was estimated at 150 feet. At 1452z the aircraft flew towards the Reactor Building then made a steep banking turn away from the Reactor. The aircraft then flew over the Water Pump area (200-300 Yards from the Reactor).
This serious breach of security was immediately investigated. The conclusion: “The flight of interest was operated for the purposes of a bird survey. The aircraft had advised FSS [flight service station] they were doing survey work and would be flying the coast line and Saint John river area.”
Similarly, on June 6, 2011: “NAV Canada staff at Toronto ACC [Area Control Centre] were advised by the Shift Manager of a low-flying, Twin engine aircraft operating in the vicinity of the Darlington Nuclear Hydro Generating Station. There were reports that the aircraft had been in the area for approximately two (2) hours. NAV Canada staff at Oshawa control tower were advised.” This one turned out to be a privately operated aircraft on a local flight from Toronto Municipal Airport.
We can see, then, that UFOs have been detected near nuclear facilities in Canada, the incidents have been investigated, and action has been taken. Further, the reports are made public.
Why would UFOs be interested in nuclear facilities? If, as most people believe, UFOs are devices or vehicles operated by non-human intelligences (let’s call a spade a spade here: aliens), then why do they need to hover near the reactors or fuel dumps? To monitor human development? Surely that can easily be determined without flying near the buildings. The levels of radioactivity can be detected from space, so such close examination is hardly needed.
And if the UFOs are operated by foreign governments, using drones to examine infrastructure is not particularly efficient. Wouldn’t it have been easier to get a spy on the inside?
Chris A. Rutkowski is a science writer who has devoted much time to investigating and studying reports of UFOs, writing about case investigations, and offering his insights into the broad UFO phenomenon. He lives just outside Winnipeg.
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