Vice: Government Documents Reveal Canada Took UFOs Seriously
A collection of documents from 1967 found in the national archives give us a hint into just how seriously the government used to take UFO sightings….
The documents were found in the national archive by Chris Rutkowski—a man that could probably be best described as Canada’s Fox Mulder—and recently posted to his Ufology blog.Rutowski routinely goes through Canada’s national archives looking for things like this and described the find as “a gem.”
“What we do have in here is rather interesting reports from qualified personnel and qualified sources and investigated by qualified investigators and still there is no explanation,” Rutkowski told VICE. “What that tells me is that the UFO phenomena was taking quite seriously by them indeed….”
The investigations varied and could be as simple as an interview or as a complicated as getting several other agencies including the RCMP, NRC, Defence Research Board (DRB) or (weirdly) the Department of National Health and Welfare on board. In many of the cases, you can see that post-secondary institutions like the University of Toronto and the University of Manitoba would help out with analysis. The government would also send professionals to investigate the sites in-depth and if the case was intense enough, partner with the United States.
The document was written during an interesting time for UFOs in Canada. As Rutkowski puts it, 1967 was a high water mark for this type of activity in the Great White North. The briefing indicates there was a jump in reports from 1966 to 1967—from about 40 to 167. The case files showcase A) just how strange these occurrences were and B) just how seriously the government was taking the investigations.
I sent a written report on my two 1951 sightings to the Department of National Defense in the 1980s. After several months I received a letter from them stating that my observations were of a meteor. Either they did not bother to read my reports or they covered it up.