Coverage by media of Canadian government interest in UFOs

 

There’s been an uptick in the amount of coverage given to UFOs by Canadian media over the past few years, much of it involving the public comments by some Canadian politicians about the subject. In addition, recent results of ATI requests (the Canadian equivalent of American FOIA requests) of government records regarding UFOs have produced some very curious documents.

The most significant of these media stories were written by one journalist in particular, Daniel Otis, who started his series of articles in the online news source Vice and has continued his work now as reporter with CTV News, a major mainstream Canadian media company.

Otis sold a handful of stories to Vice starting in 2014 about various cool things, but then in 2021 he began a series of excellent news stories about Canadian government interest in UFOs.

His first one for Vice described how “Canada’s military is being notified when pilots spot UFOs in Canadian airspace,” citing CIRVIS (Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings) reports filed with Canada’s Department of National Defence and obtained by Otis through ATI requests.

That article seemed to start the ball rolling, and Otis’ timing was impeccable as American interest in UAP was surging in 2021 with the flurry of activity over the UAP Task Force and AATIP and other programs.

Otis interviewed me for his first Vice story because he knew I was involved in studying Canadian UFO reports and government documents. He also acknowledged me in his later stories, and it was good to get some recognition for my work. As many know, I have been including Canadian government documents of UFO sightings throughout the past 32 years of producing the Canadian UFO Survey (and also much, much earlier). While I haven’t made a big deal of that, Otis’ articles are among the first to note my extensive involvement in UFO research using official Canadian documents.

Otis has done a remarkable job of digging out official Canadian documents about UFOs, including cases where pilots reported UFOs and a video taken by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer of a UFO over a Canadian city.

He continued to produce some very interesting stories for Vice, and then in September 2021, he had a piece published that focused on my work. He had filed an ATI and found that: “Canada’s government and military have forwarded UFO reports to a civilian researcher for over two decades,” noting I was “Canada’s ‘point man.’”

Otis obtained copies of the PowerPoint slides accompanying a briefing for Canada’s Minister of Defence in May 2021. The briefing described the history and current status of official Canadian government interest in UFOs, and included a note about how I had been conducting civilian research on UFOs for decades. A later document showed that my photograph was even included on one slide!

What I had not revealed to anyone is that I was asked by DND in May 2021 for the information they used to brief the Minister.

Needless to say, this caused a bit of a stir. I did not know I was personally going to be included in the briefing, but I figured my info would be useful in informing the Minister of Defence. I did not know when the briefing was going to be made.

(Curiously, Otis’ persistence in tracking the story found that in 2022, another briefing had occurred, this time for the current Minister of Transport. And sure enough, the same basic information was presented, including a reference to me.)

Otis had been a writer for CTV from 2016 to 2019 and then again in 2021 as a journalist for CTV News. He’s done some stories for them about UFOs, all focusing on government involvement and politicians’ interest in the subject. In fact, Otis broke the news that Member of Parliament Larry Maguire went public with his interest in UAP and his questions in a Parliamentary Committee about UAP over Canadian nuclear sites.

Maguire stated publicly that on January 28, 2021, he had been briefed by Robert Powell and others from SCU and then on February 16, 2021, by Lue Elizondo and his associates. Then on October 20, 2021, Powell and Christopher Mellon met with another unnamed Canadian Member of Parliament. Oddly enough, without any knowledge of these meetings with others, and completely apart from my being noted in a briefing to the Minister of Defence, in June 2021 I was asked by Maguire’s office to discuss Canada’s government UFO involvement. I met with Maguire on June 3, 2021, although this was not mentioned in media.

Since then, a few more Canadian politicians have spoken publicly about UFOs and UAP, and Otis is hot on their trail.

And more recently, Maguire kindly provided a statement for release during the launch of my most recent book, Canada’s UFOs: Declassified.

Definitely more to come!

Good work, Daniel!