Up to 1,000 UFO sightings are reported in Canada every year. Most are explainable, like stars or planes, but two to five per cent of these sightings defy categorization. But the problem with talking about UFOs is that everybody giggles. People picture flying saucers and Star Trek spaceships. Chris Rutkowski, a Canadian scientist and researcher, has faced this problem his whole life. He’s obsessed with UFOs or, as many people call them, UAPs—unidentified anomalous phenomena—for as long as he can remember. Since the ’80s, he’s produced the Canadian UFO Survey, an annual collection of sightings from all across the country.
He argues that ufology, the study of UFOs, should be taken more seriously. And it’s starting to happen: a few high-profile incidents inched UFOs into mainstream conversation. In February, an American military jet shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina, then three more benign objects over Lake Huron, Yukon and Alaska within a week.
In Rutkowski’s Big Idea essay for Maclean’s, he argues that Canada should establish a central repository where new UFO reports can be collected and made public for analysis and scrutiny. He also thinks Canadian universities should include more UFO-focused coursework. “The possibility that aliens are visiting Canadians is remote,” he explains. “But it’s not zero. Like any science buff, I believe the truth is out there.”
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
