UFOs ring in the New Year across Canada

As noted in a previous post, I had received a few UFO reports for 2012 early on New Year's Day, suggesting things were getting off to a quick start. Most people who responded to me were of the opinion that fireworks were the likely cause. Unfortunately, the reports don't bear that out. In fact, most witnesses said they had seen the UFOs after the New Year's fireworks displays were over and that the unknown objects were quite different. That's not to say the reports were of alien spaceships. Just that fireworks were likely not the causes.

One thing to note, however, is that the large number of sightings that occurred on January 1 is very unusual. I've looked back in the files, and no other year had more than a handful of reports on January 1.

Here's the list of reports, geographically across Canada by province westward, in the order they may have occurred throughout each time zone as New Year's Day progressed.

12:10 am     St. John's, NF
After the fireworks were over, the witness saw several bright red and yellow lights following one another across the sky in a ragged grouping.

12:25 am    Montreal, PQ
A bright orange/yellow ball of fire headed S across the sky.


12:00 midnight   Barrie, ON
After fireworks, two witnesses saw 3 red lights followed by 2 or 3 more. No strobing or flashing lights were seen.

12:01 am    London, ON
Two people watched a steady red/orange light move swiftly towards the NNE.

12:05 am    Barrie, ON
A triangular formation of 3 orange lights were seen in the sky; they disappeared one by one.

12:05 am    Barrie, ON
After fireworks, as many as 40 people may have seen 6 orange/yellow lights passing over the city from the S.

12:15 am    Guelph, ON
A steady red light moved slowly under thick clouds for 3 minutes before it disappeared.

12:23 am    Cambridge, ON
Glowing ball or orange light moved across sky. As it disappeared near the horizon, 2 or 3 more identical objects flew in the same manner.

12:23 am     Cambridge, ON
A second independent report of an orange ball over the city.


12:25 am    Skootamatta lake, ON
A bright orange light climbed rapidly into the NW sky, then hovered and seemed to be "dangling on a string." It seemed to move closer, then shot away quickly out of sight.


After midnight     ?, ON
A stationary, V-shaped object was seen motionless in the sky. Within a minute, it vanished.

12:05 am    Grande Prairie, AB
3 orange lights in a triangular formation were led by a 4th light towards 3 witnesses, then vanished.

12:25 am    Camrose, AB
2 bright orange objects passed overhead quickly, moving NW-SE. Then another single light passed in the same direction.

12:30 am    Camrose, AB
An orange/red light flew E-W overhead during about 4 minutes.

12:04 am   Surrey, BC
About 30 people outside for a fireworks display watched several orange lights "zoom" across the sky E-W in the S, about five seconds apart.

12:10 am    Duncan, BC
4 orange lights moved slowly W, in 2 pairs.


And finally, an outlier:

9:00 pm    Peribonka, PQ
A witness driving west along Lac Saint-Jean saw "2 white lights moving around with many red steady lights" for a total of about 30 minutes.

Sixteen sightings all in one night from coast to coast is rather unusual. (We've had localized flaps that saw many more, this geographical distribution is remarkable.)

Sources: PSICAN, Brian Vike, MUFON, UFOROM

Certainly, some of the cases were likely sightings of Chinese lanterns, especially the ones in Barrie and Cambridge. Setting some of these aloft at New Years was reportedly common this season. The faster-moving ones may have been bolides. Indeed, on New Year's Eve, a bright fireball was widely seen across the southern USA. And some of the slower-moving lights may have been satellites.

Still, it's odd to have so many cases on January 1 in this manner.