Sky Canada Project report (PDF)

REPORT OF THE SKY CANADA PROJECT# 13
In early 2023, several high-profile incidents in Canada caught
the public’s attention. Over a two-week period, four unidenti-
fied objects flew over North American airspace. The first, and
most widely reported in the media, was a high-altitude balloon
which flew across Alaska, western Canada, and easterly across
the United States from January 28 to February 4. The U.S. Air
Force eventually shot it down over U.S. territorial waters off
the coast of South Carolina. From the recovered debris, it was
identified as originating from a foreign country and carried
sophisticated equipment.
One week later, on February 11, 2023, the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) ordered the down-
ing of a smaller balloon over Yukon Territory. Two other small
high-altitude balloons were shot down over U.S. airspace—one
in northern Alaska on February 10, and the second over Lake
Huron on February 12. According to a brief statement by an
RCMP spokesperson to CTVNews.ca2 the recovered debris from
the shores of Lake Huron were deemed not to be of national
security concern.
These recent incidents highlighted the importance of govern-
ment investigation of what appears in the sky and how complex
it is to distinguish between natural occurrences, common
technological devices and potential security concerns. This
report aims to set a milestone in Canada’s pursuit of a better
approach to the management and study of UAPs.
3D render of a high-altitude instrumented balloon in the
sky, seen from below. Similar objects in the North American
sky were the source of the 2023 incidents.
B. Objectives
In early 2023, the OCSA announced the creation
of the Sky Canada Project. At the outset, its main
objectives were:
• to review current UAP reporting methods in Canada
and propose improvements as needed,
• to enable Canada’s federal government to optimize
the collection and analysis of UAP observations in a
transparent manner,
• to provide insight for better tools to combat misinformation
and disinformation,
• to encourage participatory science and public understanding
of aerial phenomena,
• to support monitoring of Canada’s airspace.
Furthermore, in order to assess Canada’s readiness to collab-
orate with its allies with respect to UAP reporting, an important
secondary objective was to compare Canada’s practices with
those in other countries, in particular G7 nations.
The OCSA established clear boundaries on what the Sky Cana-
da Project did not intend to address. The project was not meant
to prove or disprove the existence of extraterrestrial life or
extraterrestrial visitors. The collection or analysis of first-hand
data such as photos, videos or individual UAP sighting reports
was not part of the project. Lastly, the project should not be
seen as an endeavour to make the Office of the Chief Scientific
Advisor the primary point of contact for reporting UAP sightings
in Canada. Additionally, it is not meant to position the OCSA
as the lead organization for initiating or managing international
collaborations related to UAP research or investigations.
This report presents the Sky Canada Project’s
findings, including:
• the challenges associated with collecting and analyzing
reliable data on UAP sightings,
• a review of Canada’s historical federal government practices
for UAP reporting,
• a description of how Canadian government departments
and agencies currently receive and manage UAP-related
information from their partners and the public, as well as a
brief overview of non-government groups that also receive
UAP sighting reports from the public,
• a summary of the approaches taken by a few other countries.
The report offers fourteen recommendations for improving
reporting and data collection on UAP sightings in Canada.