Canadian government officials have agreed to share information about UFOs with the U.S.
Those contacts were revealed in a pair of letters posted online this week from Canada’s Natural Resources department and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), a federal regulator.
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“Given the shared priority for nuclear safety and security of nuclear facilities, and the growing interest in UAPs [unidentified aerial phenomena] in both Canada and the United States, the CNSC is committed to raising the issue with its United States counterpart and sharing any related information going forward,” Deputy Minister of Natural Resources John Hannaford said in a letter dated June 6.
“We have reached out to counterparts in the United States Department of Energy regarding the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Preliminary Report on UAPs to learn more about its perspective in order to help inform analysis and action in Canada.”
The letters were a response to questions Manitoba member of Parliament Larry Maguire raised in parliamentary committee meetings earlier this year about Canadian nuclear security and U.S. efforts to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), an official term for what are more commonly known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.
“I asked these questions at the Natural Resources Committee to get the wheels of government turning,” the Conservative lawmaker said in a statement to VICE News. “Congress is taking this issue seriously and so should our government.”
In June 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified report on recent U.S. military sightings, which have included UAP that “appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion.”
The U.S. Department of Energy has long been suspected of playing a role in the government’s UFO-related activities. On May 17, during the first public congressional hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years, the intelligence official who oversees the Pentagon’s current UAP office listed the Department of Energy as a collaborating partner.
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Maguire, who represents Brandon–Souris in southwestern Manitoba, broke a longstanding silence on UFOs in Canadian parliament during a March 2 meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Fellow Conservative politicians Kerry-Lynne Findlay and Raquel Dancho, as well Matthew Green from the left-wing NDP, have since joined Maguire in calling on Ottawa to pay attention to UAP developments in the U.S.
“The Americans have already passed legislation to implement a whole of government approach to collecting UAP data,” Maguire told VICE News. “That includes their Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is the equivalent of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.”
In an additional letter from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Maguire was told federal authorities are unaware of UAP reports from Canada’s nuclear facilities.
“With a regulatory lens regarding nuclear security, we have taken steps to confirm with licensees that no such events have occurred,” a CNSC safety and security official wrote on June 6.
Declassified documents and public records show that professional pilots, military personnel, and police officers have been reporting UFOs over Canada for decades.
While the Pentagon has been looking into UFOs for years, the Canadian military routinely states that it does “not typically investigate sightings of unknown or unexplained phenomena outside the context of investigating credible threats, potential threats, or potential distress in the case of search and rescue.”
In a May 12 op-ed, Maguire suggested the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada could take the lead in studying UFOs in the country.
“It was encouraging to see NASA announce they are launching their own independent study, which will be non-classified and released to the public,” Maguire told VICE News. “Learning what tools and scientific rigour they are applying to their efforts will benefit everyone who wants to determine the origin and intent of UAP.”
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