Somewhere in the Skies - Canadian Government Releases 20 Years of UFO Files

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

On episode 255 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we are joined by VICE World News contributor, Daniel Otis. Through the Canadian Access to Information Act, Otis obtained over 20 years (300 pages) of UFO files from the Canadian government. These reports, which were made to federal transportation authorities as recently as 2021, include scores of strange sightings from professional pilots, soldiers and police officers. The releases also include nearly two dozen reports sent by the Canadian military. In this exclusive interview, Chrissy Newton dissects some of the most compelling reports Otis uncovered, along with a discussion on the way in which the Canadian government and media handles the UFO issue. Read Daniel's VICE article at: https://bit.ly/3C7xTq9 Follow Daniel Otis on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/dsotis Follow Chrissy Newton on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/chrissynewton Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Somewhere in the Skies Coffee: CLICK HERE  Order Ryan’s book in paperback, ebook, or audiobook by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at: https://bit.ly/3rJpbd7 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE Copyright © 2021 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Terms apply. Hey guys, Ryan here. The Summer in the Sky's podcast is a labor of love every week. And with that comes many different costs to keep the show running. That's where our Patreon campaign comes in. You give what you think the show is worth. There's different rewards available all the time, including shoutouts on the show, early editions of main episodes, bonus episodes and content, and very soon,

monthly patron hangouts, where we sit back and chat all things UFOs. So I hope you'll consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today. To learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you for your support and keep looking up. Today on the show, contributing writer for Vice World News, an investigative journalist, Daniel Otis. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Hi, Daniel, welcome to Somewhere in the Skies.

I'm super pumped because I actually get to do this show with you. when we're both Canadians. So it will be my first solo show that I'll be able, that I'm doing actually on Ryan's show. So I'm just great that it's a Canadian that's with me to discuss this. So great to have you. Go Canada. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, yes. Go Canada.

So you just released an article with Vice recently, talking about how the government released 20 years of UFO reports. And there's over 300 pages of strange sightings from pilots, soldiers and police officers. So can you tell me a little bit about when and how that was released? And then we'll talk a little bit about the report and what it included in it. Yeah. So these documents came to me via two separate Freedom of Information requests. I received them both in January. And one of the requests, I believe, was first made in April. So it took almost nine months to process. And the two releases together total about two.

290 pages. There's over 500 reports in there, and they all fall under the umbrella of what is called communications instructions for reporting vital intelligence sightings, CIRVIS, which is a Cold War era threat identification mechanism, and that it's been adopted by Canadian air traffic controllers in the Canadian Air Force to document UFOs. So within this release, that also has things like balloons and satellites and drones, there are also, you know, reports that are genuinely weird and unusual from professional pilots, soldiers, police officers. These are reports going back the past 20 years. The majority of the reports from 2009 to 2021, most of them haven't been seen publicly. versions of these have appeared in some of the stories I've written about, but there hasn't been, at least in recent history, such a large volume of UFO reports that have come out of the Canadian government.

Yeah, because we don't really see much about UFOs coming out from the government. They're pretty mum on that. So why now, you know, at any time? Is it because there's some pressure, you know, maybe from the Pentagon or there's, you know, maybe it's because of U.S. media and the pressure that's happening. there and them covering it and what's happening politically. Why do you think the government decided to release this now than maybe, you know, a couple years ago or even just when June 25th happened around the preliminary assessment report? Well, I guess they released it because I asked for it. You know, I filed the, it's called Access Information Request. I filed those here. You know, and I didn't just say, hey, transport Canada, give me all of your UFO files. I asked for the specific, the service procedures.

You know, generally, if you ask for UFO reports, there's only a few within their system that are actually labeled UFO, but most of them, as I said, fall under the umbrella of this communication, instructions for reporting vital intelligence sightings. So I essentially asked specific departments within Transport Canada, which is the Canadian government's transportation department. They oversee aviation and things like that. I asked them specific departments within,

Transport Canada for these reports. And, you know, that's how they came through. Sometimes these requests can take weeks, months, years. I think this one came in, as I said, in almost about nine months, which is pretty par for the course. You know, I do think it's not all of the reports that have come their way. I have found evidence of Transport Canada being notified of other UFO cases involving police officers and pilots and soldiers, but it seems like it's pretty much most of them. So, right. And so you've made a comment in recent tweets where it says that you've stated, sometimes it's worse asking twice for documents. So can you clarify what that means and then kind of give us some examples as well? Yeah. So if you're giving a document through the freedom of

information system and you feel there's too many redactions where they come back and say, we don't have anything, you have the option to appeal. A formal appeal process can take a very, very long time. You know, I filed a few appeals on things that haven't even come through yet. But in my experience, sometimes if you ask for the same thing in two different ways, you're going to get a bit of a different response. So the document that you referred to was a Air Force log from, I believe it was 2018, and it was detailing a case where NORAD radar picked up an unknown radar track quickly approaching the North American continent. So the Canadian Air Force responded by scrambling CF-18 fighter jets, and they went up there and they saw nothing. And it was later blamed

on a problem with one particular radar installation on the coast of Labrador. That may or may not be true, but what was interesting was I asked for that one particular documents in two different ways, and the one that came in, the second version of it that came in just had way more details. There was way less redactions. So I guess that's what I meant. Had I gone through the appeal process to challenge those redactions, I probably would have lost because I think that information can really be withheld on national security grounds. But just by asking for it twice, I was able to get a little fuller picture of what.

happened on that strange day. That's awesome. And that's good to know for people that are looking for documents that, you know, sometimes you have to ask twice and see what you might get something and you might be surprised. Out of the 300 pages, what was the most, you know, unusual or case that stood out to you? And can you tell us, break it down with us and tell us a little bit more about it? Yeah. One in particular, I had it sitting in front of me. I was expecting a question like this comes from December 2018 off the coast of Nova Scotia. So this was the night of December 23rd, and there was a fisherman in the Bay of Fundy and a woman at home onshore in Nova Scotia, who both separately contacted a search and rescue center in Halifax to report like a bright light

that was hovering high up way out over the ocean. So this Halifax Search and Rescue Center, ended up contacting Canadian NORAD operations, and they checked NORAD radar, and lo and beholds, they saw something coming up on radar that correlated almost exactly to what was a nearly 45-minute-long sighting. You know, usually the reports in these releases are really brief, you know, just a couple lines of detail. But in this case, there's multiple pages, and it ends with a more fulsome report that explains what they were seeing on radar. And, you know, the PDF is available with the story. Anyone can

download this and have a look for themselves. This is page 18, if anyone does want to look it up. And so what they say is this thing suddenly appears and they have no explanation. I'll quote here for a second. It says this is an area that has good low level radar coverage. So there's no explanation of why there are only three points all at exactly 12,800 feet with no points leading up to or continuing on at any other altitudes. So basically something suddenly appeared and then disappeared. Their best guess, according to this report, was that the radar was picking up weather, which does happen.

But the report also notes that it was just a partly cloudy, very calm night. You know, and this thing's moving at between 38 to 77 knots, which isn't super, super fast, but when the winds are nine kilometers an hour, that doesn't really explain perhaps weather. So I just kind of found that one interesting because usually you don't see reports that are this long and you usually don't see cases where a sighting is being corroborated by military radar. There's a few other ones that really interested me. Particularly, I've been writing about Canadian UFO cases and declassified Canadian UFO documents almost for a year now. And the release contain multiple documents on cases I've written about that I found pretty interesting. For example,

I published a story on a RCMP officer who filmed a bright light with his cruiser's dash cam. His report to air traffic controllers is contained in the release and confirms that it was a dash cam recording, which was pretty neat. There's an air traffic controller report being relayed about a 2018 cargo flight above the Northwest Territories in Northern Canada, they were reporting something that was moving erratically traveling at speeds that they guessed were between Mach 4 and 5. That report's contained in there. And it just like goes on. It's really like every case I've written about so far, there's at least some mention within this release. And particularly the first release, the first 104 pages, most of those reports, as far as I know, haven't seen the

light a day. Wow. And so why do you think that is? Canada has what's called the Transport Canada. This is the, again, the departments that I got these documents from. They run an online aviation incident database, which were versions of these reports appear. But, you know, I was finding these, and what I really wanted to find was the source data. So this is what Transport Canada edits and publishes publicly, you know, the request was meant to capture the source data that's informing those reports. So that's why, you know, I think the reporting procedures and the chain of custody of how reports are handled in Canada hadn't really been broken down before. And sort of by doing that and targeting, you know, what are called AOR, aviation occurrence reports from Nav Canada,

which is the private company that operates all civilian air traffic in Canada. And also by targeting intelligence reports that were sent from the military, it was able to find this source data that hadn't seen the light of day. You know, I've been working as a journalist for over a decade now. And as I mentioned before, I've been involved with UFO, UAP stories for about a year. And what excites me so much about this topic is, you know, I just started out of curiosity filing information requests to see if anything was out there. And I was getting hits, you know.

We have to ask questions. I think that's such an important part of, you know, trying to get more data and get closer to answers and to truth is we really just need to be asking questions. And that involves, you know, asking for data. I think there's some people who had been working on this stuff in Canada for a number of years. But it's, I don't know, perhaps there's a shift within, you know, government agencies themselves that they're being more forthcoming with requests. I don't, so that's a big roundabout way to saying, you know, I'm not sure why all of this is coming right now. But, you know, I guess I'm asking the right questions at the right time. Yeah, I think that's, it's great.

I'm like, because we see that Canadians are pretty quiet around this topic. And even Canadian media is you're one of the only Canadian journalists that actually speaks about this topic and what's going on in like Canadian air spaces. There, you also kind of mentioned a little bit from what, what I think is a little bit of a Shag Harbor connection. And if I'm right, Shag Harbor was, if I have my notes here, October 4th, 1967. So are there any comparisons that we're seeing that's happening in the Atlantic that happened then in Shag Harbor. And if anyone doesn't know, Shag Harbor was kind of like a Canadian Roswell where a UFO ended up crashing into the water. And it ended up having like green and yellow foam to it and multiple people saw it. An American and Canadian armies were

involved in this and also documenting it as well from what we know. So are any of the cases similar? And have we had any civilian groups that have been doing comparisons of the documents that have come out now that you might know of. Yeah, well, the interesting thing was I mentioned the case that really interested me this one where the civilian sighting was corroborated with NORAD radar. I mean, that was in the vicinity of Shag Harbor. Interesting. If you, the coordinates are there in the documents. If you plug it in, it's like just off the coast from Shag Harbor. So there does seem to be, you know, I've read through them all.

you know, I haven't, let's say, crunch the data to the extent where, you know, I've analyzed it and put every case side by side. But there are some sort of patterns. You know, there's interestingly some years where there's more reports than others. For example, there seems to be a particular amount of reports from 2016, 2018. As well, there's some geographical areas where you find more. there's a lot from the Canadian prairies, you know, above Saskatchewa and Manitoba. But at the same time, you know, there's reports being filed on from by pilots on the west coast, the east coast, the north, you know, across the country.

Yeah. So that particular one, though, that case where, you know, they track that thing on NORAD radar. I mean, when I would punch in the coordinates and I saw how close that was. was to Shag Harbor, you know. Oh, that's, you know, it's certainly interesting. Who knows, they could have seen something completely different. Obviously, obviously we don't know, but it's fun to think about stuff like that. And, uh, yeah. Yeah, I know. I agree too. I'm like seeing in the comparisons of it's a massive story and it's one of our most, you know, notable Canadian UFO stories. And it's pretty impactful. So I want to ask it. And maybe you might know and maybe not. Do you know if any political parties are having,

any conversations around UFOs? Like, are the liberals or the conservatives? And if so, what might it be? I do know that members of both parties have had conversations about the topic. As to the specifics of those conversations, what I have been privy to, I can't really get into details.

You know, I personally have spoken to a member of parliament about the subject. I was invited to present some of my findings based on the stories I've done. There's definitely curious individuals, I think, in both the conservative and the Liberal Party in Canada. I don't know anyone in our NDP party. But yes, there's curious individuals, but there's no sort of institutional curiosity. You know what I mean? Like there's people in positions of authority and power who have a genuine interest in this topic and want to learn more.

but we haven't seen really any institutional level acknowledgement. I mean, Transport Canada, for example, when I get statements from them, they're very dismissive. They say all of this is whether, you know, they completely disregard the fact that there perhaps are genuine unknowns out there. The Canadian military is actually pretty forthcoming in accepting the validity of reports. They just say it's not really our business. It's not really our mandate to deal with UFOs, which I actually think is a good thing. You know, if the Canadian military adopted the stance that all UFO, UAP reports represent national security threats, then all of this material could be withheld through, could be withheld on national security grounds, right?

So as soon as the Canadian military and the Canadian government, you know, were they to adopt the popular, American threat narrative that, you know, this is something we have to, you know, study from a military perspective. If Canada did that, I probably wouldn't be able to access the amount of data that I do, right? Because they, in the access to information laws, they allow exceptions for material that has a national security value. So there are curious individuals. And I guess when I speak to people in positions of power in Canada, that's sort of the The point I like to reinforce is that our country can be more open and transparent with data without necessarily following the military route that the United States has.

I personally would like to see the government be much more transparent with the data that comes in. I shouldn't have to, I mean, in an ideal world, to me, I shouldn't have to be filing access to information request to get this stuff. It should be available for researchers who are interested. And I would like to see it advance as an academic subject, not as a defense subject in Canada. Yeah, I actually, I agree with you. And it's great that there is no threat narrative yet moving forward. Do we know of any like institutions or anything else that's, you know, even scientists within Canada that are looking at it academically?

Because we hear tons of American scientists and we know that even from NASA and all these other organizations that are working together, you know, but not say with the UFO. well, a little bit with the UFO community, maybe the Galileo Project and other organizations, but do you know if Canada in our science community is even acknowledging it? Again, individuals. Like I do know that, for example, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, the SCU, they have a few Canadian academics who are members.

I believe there is at least one Canadian academic on the advisory board for the Galileo project. you know, I'm not aware of any institutional academic efforts to, you know, publish peer-reviewed journal articles on stuff like this. But there's growing interest. It's early days. I think Canada overall is a little bit behind the United States when it comes to accepting the veracity and validity of the subject. I think our media is a little more conservative than American media has been. I think our academic world, for example, is as well. You know, when I'm working on these stories, I often want to consult with academics in the defense and national security sphere in Canada.

And it's very, very hard to get taken seriously. They get a statement from someone. You know, I've had people who do reply, you know, sometimes have been very, very dismissive. Even when I'm presenting them with, you know, reams of, you know, reports and logbook entries and data that comes from the Canadian Air Force, which they're supposed to be the expert in. They don't want to look at the data. But there are individuals, and I think that curiosity is growing. You know, it's work like mine and work like yours, you know, that's just helping get, you know, data and stories and, you know,

getting the message out there that, hey, this is probably something that we need to look into as a society, but it's early days in Canada. You know, it's very advanced in the United States. You look at, you know, the New York Times bombshell in 2017, there hasn't been really an equivalent in Canadian newspapers in the major Canadian newspapers. You know, my work for Vice is a small contribution, but we see most of the mainstream Canadian outlets focusing on American developments when they make CNN, but not really giving any space to discussing what's going on in Canada, where there are sightings, where there are procedures, where there is a history of reports going back 70 years, yet, you know, we seem to be so silent on it.

Yeah, we are. And in media, outside of yourself and specific journalists that follow this beat, they're really quiet about it. Like I remember, you know, when I think it was around June 25th, or even when the transmedium, one of the transmedium articles broken in the, the debrief actually confirmed that with the Pentagon that the footage was real. It took about a week or two for Canadian media to even pick it up and cover it and talk to other experts in the fields. And I was kind of saddened by it because I'm like, wow, it's like it's literally our sister in country. So it's, I wish that we were a little bit more, you know, quick when it comes to those conversations. Do you think that we're going to have some form of like Canadian, and maybe not in maybe in a couple years,

but like a preliminary assessment report too, like the states that will come out talking about what Canada might be doing moving forward with technology and just research around UFOs? Or do you think they're just going to keep being mom about the whole conversation? It's so hard to say. I don't think we're going to ever see a situation where Canada is investing millions of dollars into research for this, the way the United States is. I think the United States government has treats defense spending like it's candy money, you know. Canada is not like that. You know, there's tight budgets, especially with the military.

You know, they don't have unlimited resources. And as long as there's, you know, kids sleeping under bridges and people in Canada without clean drinking water, I don't think we're going to see any of our governments go out and say they're going to put public funds into this. You know, my dream is a situation where we can achieve perhaps more transparency with data. You know, the outside of access to information requests, there is one individual in Canada who was receiving data for the past 20 years, which is, you know, he's a very respected Winnipeg-based UFOologist, Chris Rikowsky. You know, he had worked out a special relationship with Transport Canada and our Air Force to basically receive these reports very soon after they happen for. study, you know, to study them. Most of those reports he didn't release publicly, but he did use the

data in his annual Canadian UFO survey, which is documented something like over 20,000 UFO cases over the past 30 years. It's like an omnibus annual survey that tries to capture, you know, every UFO setting in the country. And he used those as data points. You know, what I would love to see is a situation where, you know, instead of sending this stuff to one individual, that perhaps, you know, the information can go through a light redaction process to take out personal information, and then it could be, you know, available to anyone. Unfortunately, Chris says over the past year, the tap has run dry. They, without notice, they have stopped sending him reports, which is very unfortunate, because, you know, if he's not getting it, it means that nobody's going to

getting it unless they're actively asking for it through the freedom of information system. I impress that upon, you know, people in Canadian office that I speak to that I think there just needs to be more transparency. Like I said, we're not going to invest money like the U.S., but just allowing, you know, the data to be there. I mean, Canada has had some proactive disclosures. A lot of UFO material from the Cold War, for example, is all available online. You know, There's great reports in there, too. There's reports from Canadian military bases, Canadian pilots. But, yeah, to sort of get back to where your question started, I don't know where it's going

in Canada. All I know is that I'm advocating for more openness. There's a lot of folks like you who are doing the same. And I think that's all we can do is just keep pushing forward. There are people who are in power who are listening. my gut tells me if our government changed in Canada, perhaps we might see some change on this topic. But I don't know.

I don't know. I don't have the crystal ball. I wish I did too because I, you know, I think I'm always, I'm always waiting. I'm like, come on. Let's go, you know, at larger Canadian mainstream media. Let's go, you know, government. Let's just talk more about it.

Let's have more open discussions. I want to go back to Chris, Rikowsky. I always say Chris's name wrong. Go back to Chris. Why do you think they just stopped? Like, did he tell you why they just stopped sending him information? And now where does it go? Like, we have to request for it and FOIA request, but I would imagine that's it. But was there a reason why they were just like, hey, this relationship is done? You know, he's done such a fabulous job over the years. Why would they just instantly stop sending him information? I don't have an answer to that question. you know, I actually, I asked the Air Force this recently.

They said that their procedures have not changed and that, you know, through the freedom of information system, I was able to obtain Canadian Air Force and NORAD UFO reporting procedures that lists Chris as a contact. He's still there, according to the Air Force. According to Transport Canada, they do not send him anything. They didn't give me a specific reason. I think they told me something like the reports were sent to him. as a courtesy for his fiction writing.

They sent me something really just mean and dismissive like that. I asked Chris what his thoughts were. You know, he thinks that there's a lot more scrutiny on the subject over the past year, which is contributing to it. I think news about the, you know, news about the intelligence report that came out in June 2021. That started brewing at the beginning of 2020. I think that plays into it.

Chris also thinks it's possible that there's just fewer UFO reports happening over the past year. But what it signals to me is that it's that, you know, this topic and this relationship were sort of brought to light. And they decided to just completely clamp down instead of, you know, owning up to the fact that at Transport Canada, that they've been the recipients of pilot UFO reports for decades. I mean, weird lights, weird metallic objects, moving in strange ways, pilots with major airlines like WestJet or Canada, etc. I've been filing these things for years, and Transport Canada seems to be willfully ignorant

of that fact. And I think they couldn't maintain that position of being disinterested in UFOs while publicly acknowledging that they were sending UFOs, reports to a researcher who was looking at them. I think those two things were mutually exclusive. So they opted on the side of shutting everything down instead of embracing openness, unfortunately. Yeah, it's unfortunate. And I can see that them doing it and people asking, well, why are you sending all this confidential information just to one person in Canada that's documenting everything? Like, I remember when I first came across Chris, I was like, wow, like what information and, you know,

you have, like there is some power in that in its own by knowing what's going on within the UFO community across an entire nation and it's one person. So when I found out, I was really shocked. So I could see that maybe they would stop that because, yeah, they feel that giving that information just to Chris should maybe they should be collecting it and storing it somewhere else. But, you know, he's done a fabulous job and he should be consistently keep doing it or involve him into a larger organization. You know, they have the UFO office now. Are we even? going to maybe even see something like that maybe one day, you know, in our own Canadian office, that since Chris isn't that person, maybe we're going to have, you know, a section within the

Canadian government that will be, you know, speaking to UFOs. Have you heard anything of that as well? I hope so, but I'm not optimistic. I've heard nothing of the sort. And unfortunately, you know, I think the sad reality too is that, you know, with an organization like Transport Canada, you know, they don't have to retain this data either, right? Like they can keep reports on files. They can have a policy for five years and then delete. Actually, they told me their policy is 10 years, but we were able to find some reports that were a bit older in this request that I most recently wrote about.

But, you know, so the reality is if you want the original reports, particularly those from about 2000 to 2008, 2009, you have to go to Chris because Transport Canada hasn't retained that. And he would have been the recipient of data in that period. Luckily, this access to information request was able to capture data, you know, up until 2021. So over the past 10 years that they retained as well as some other ones going back to 2000. But yeah, it's Fortunately for UFO researchers, Chris is in the process of donating all of his files to the University of Manitoba. So that will become, you know, available. But what their timelines are, you know, are they going to digitize it?

I don't know. I don't think we're going to have the official Canadian UFO office. You know, we're going to have hopefully Chris's, you know, Chris's manuscripts when they're available at the university will be an important archive. but, you know, something needs to be done to capture this more, you know, all the recent data that's coming through because he's been cut off. Yeah, it's wild. Do you like stories of the strange, the weird, and the unexplained, then we want you to check out Jim Harold's Campfire. The concept is pretty simple. Jim talks to regular people about strange stuff that happens to them.

And yes, that includes UFOs, along with cryptids, ghosts, and. and head scratchers. He doesn't exaggerate or play a lot of spooky music, kinda like I'm doing right now. The stories speak for themselves. One's like a ghost story involving serial killer, Ted Bundy, or the young man who encountered an eight-legged demon. Then there's the story of an alien abduction

by what could be considered a reptilian. Now not all the stories are horrifying. Some are actually pretty heartwarming, a visit from a past loved one or a peaceful near-death experience. Regardless, these are true and fascinating stories told by ordinary people who've had extraordinary experiences. Tune in to Jim Harold's Campfire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to somewhere in the skies. And remember, stay spooky. Do you have the average person, you know, because, and I get this too, where, you know, you know, you know,

you become the UFO person in your community or your friends where they're asking you questions. Now do you get that? Do you just have, you have a large voice in the Canadian journalistic side of things with UFOs. Do you have a lot of Canadians coming up to you and asking questions and going, hey, you know, why don't we have a UFO office or what's going on? You know, like, is there more curiosity that you're seeing? Oh, absolutely. You know, with my friends, my family, my colleagues, I think when I first got interested in this, it's funny, you mentioned, when the Pentagon confirmed that the, you know, the New York Times videos were the real deal. I think that was what? April 2020?

Yeah, you had 2017 was the, was the New York Times release. But when the Pentagon came through and said, yeah, yeah, that's the real deal. It was sort of like early in the pandemic. And I remember when that news came through, that's what actually set me off on my journey to find, you know, material. That's really what inspired me. I spent a year, you know, reading everything I could, watching everything I could. And when I first got into it, I think a lot of friends and family members thought I'd gone off the deep end from being locked up at home, you know, the early days of the pandemic.

But when the new data started coming in, when I started being able to, you know, hold reports in my hands and say, hey, this was faxed by the Canadian Air Force to transportation authorities, after a pilot said they were followed by a bright light, you know, people's eyes, I think, sort of opening up. And now a lot of friends and family, I think they're just, they might be a little sick of hearing me talk about it. So it's good. I can do a podcast and talk to you and yeah, yeah, the curiosity is there. I think individuals that I meet, everyone is, I feel like we're on the cusp, you know, it feels like we're on a cusp of a kind of paradigm shift where the question is shifting from, are UFOs real? Which I still get asked sometimes to what are they, you know, and what are they is the real question? Because it's undeniable fact that, you know, people who have a

pretty good idea of what should be in the sky see things that they can't identify. So, you know, just by the nature of the term, UFO, UAP, it exists, right? So what are they? And I feel like we're moving in that direction, at least in the conversations I'm having with people, especially over the past year. You know, you can tell on somebody's face when they think you're weird or, you know, spend too much time alone or something, right? But I'm seeing in people a growing openness and a growing acceptance of the fact that,

you know, there's something to it. You know, what it is, I mean, that's, that's the great question we'd all like the answer for, right? But I think what it is is probably a lot of different things, you know, and, but at least, at least we're seeing society become more receptive and open to that. Yeah, I agree. And I think that it's really great that we're able to have these open conversations now with less stigma, you know, even in Canada. And I should ask you that too. or, you know, what kind of, like, are you, you said that some people are still rolling their eyes? You know, who generally are those people? Are they the ones that just don't know anything about UFOs or just still think that this is just like some massively fringe topic that doesn't

actually exist and it's not real? Are you seeing that more in Canada, like the ignorance around it? Or is that kind of subsiding? Well, I think anyone who's has a real interest in this topic is going to encounter that level of ignorance. Ignorance isn't maybe the right word. I think it's just people are unformed. You know, you can't have a proper opinion on something if you're not informed about it. And then, you know, and if people are inherently skeptical and they say, well, you know, these reports, it's all probably secret U.S. military tech. I mean, for me, as a journalist, that's a significant story in and of itself. If the U.S. military has made some sort of major advancement in propulsion,

and they've harnessed some kind of new energy source that could make that happen, that has implications for all of humanity, right? So even if it is all, you know, secret tech from, you know, China or America or whatever, I think it's still significant and there's still huge implications for humanity, you know, because it stands to the evidence points to the fact that people are seeing things that are behaving in ways that don't operate within, you know, physics as we understand it. So if it's human-made, it means that, you know, some government or agency or company is hiding something that could change humanity for the better. So, I mean, that's how I counter those kinds of arguments.

I think no matter what, if, you know, the data shows that things are behaving in weird ways on the skies of Earth, well, no matter what it is human or something in time, entirely different, the implications are always still profound. Yeah, they are extremely profound. Now, I just want to ask personally, what do you think is going on? Like, what theory or what narrative do you kind of follow the most? You know, is it the ET narrative? Is it the interdimensional narrative? Is it the foreign adversary narrative, which the states have said that it isn't from what they know of? But what do you personally think it is? I think a million people are seeing a million different things. I'm so wary of anyone that has an absolute truth to share. I don't know.

You know, I think a lot of those theories are interesting. I like, I read material that goes into the theoretical realm, but it's not something that I really engage in, precisely because I think if I, you know, as soon as I start writing about or discussing, you know, the, types of theories, so many of those theories are so divorced from the data that's in front of us. And it's just, it's wonderful speculation. And, you know, I will lose my journalistic voice and my ability to appear in, you know, mainstream outlets, you know, if I delve into that realm. And I don't mean that to sound like a cop-out. I think there's some really compelling evidence that something genuinely unusual has been happening.

you know, in one of my earlier stories, I wrote about basically the seven decades of UFO reports that have been registered by the Canadian military. At one particular base, CFB North Bay in Ontario, which is an important Air Force NORAD base, I was able to find reports from 2007, as well as from 1952, so 55 years apart. And the earlier, both of them had multiple witnesses, But the earlier one was genuinely the more unusual one because the thing it was observed by, I believe if I could recall correctly, it was a pair of Air Force officers. And they saw something making turns and going faster than any aircraft, you know, making sharp turns going faster than any aircraft they'd known. And this is in the 1950s, you know.

For me, when I see reports of that nature of, you know, exotic movements going back to the dawn of the core. Cold War, it makes me feel like something a little more unusual has been happening, you know, something that's a little outside of the realm of the ordinary. Whether, you know, you brought up the ET hypothesis, interdimensional, time travel, I don't know, I don't have that answer. I wish I did. I wish, you know, I would love to have a conversation with a future human or an ET. You know, I probably wouldn't go in the ship because you should.

go into strangers cars. But I, but, you know, I don't know. I wish I did. I love entertaining those theories, but my work just, you know, sticks to the data. Here is a WestJet Air Canada Delta pilot. Here is their report. Here's what NORAD had to say about it, you know, and that's that. That's, hey, that's fair. And I agree too. I'm like, we do have to stick with facts, you know, we can't speculate on, you know, everything and say it's a fact. it's not. Speculation is fun, though. Yeah.

But opinions aren't facts, though, too, though. That's the, you know, it's the thing. We totally agree we can speculate. But, you know, when people start saying fully their opinions and then they're like, that's definitely what it is. And they're like, no, it's, you know, we need more evidence to prove that. And thankfully, the science community is going down that direction and that road. And then when you hear about things that happen, like Shag Harbor, you know,

in rural Zimbabwe, you know, like, there, there, there's some. There are some cases that are just so mind-bending. You know, you have to allow yourself to have openness. The same way, I guess I'm wary of anyone says everything is ET. I'm also wary of anybody who says none of it's ET. You know what I mean? That's neither, for me, neither of those perspectives are good because they're both relatively closed.

I think we're dealing with something that's a little unusual and the answer is probably going to surprise us all. Who knows? And I hope we get there. I hope so too. And I hope on the Canadian side, we pick it up a little, a little. And I appreciate all the work that you're doing in the reporting side. I want to go back just a little bit to the article where you said that, and I would like

you to, if you can, break down the Cold War era threat reporting mechanism, that there's still using? So are they still using that? And then, and, and will it change over time? And what is a cold, you know, the cold, sorry, the, the Cold War era threat mechanism? What is that? Okay. I'm about to nerd out on some go for it. Go for it. I think I mentioned the name of it earlier. It's called, they're called service reports, communications, instructions for reporting vital intelligence sightings, CIRVIS. This was initially, this was a reporting mechanism that was developed in the dawn of the Cold War to detect threats approaching North America. It was initially developed by the U.S. Air Force.

And if my memory serves me correct, it was adopted by Canada as well in the early 1950s. And in those procedures, you know, they've changed over the years. But at least on the Canadian side, the documents maintain the same sort of descriptions. It says what they're for. And it always says, you know, these reports are for unidentified flying objects, you know, foreign warships, submarines, military parties in remote Arctic locations. And it has a list. And like in the current Canadian procedures, unidentified flying objects is at the top of that list. So the current procedures are written. by the company Nav Canada. Nav Canada is a private aviation company that oversees and operates

all civilian air traffic control in Canada. In the most other countries, there's usually a government agency that does this work. For example, in the U.S., the FAA has this responsibility. But for some reason, in Canada, we have a private company that does it. So they have a huge manual that they produce that basically says all the different things you should do in any kind of situation that comes up. And they included in that manual, which is on their website today, there is these service procedures. So based on that, you know, they run air traffic control. So if a pilot sees something unusual in Canadian skies, their first point of contact is going to be one of these Nav Canada air traffic controllers.

And by their manual, they have to fill out a report and notify the Air Force and notify Transport Canada. The Canadian Air Force, meanwhile, has its own procedures of this kind. And their procedures show that they need to notify Transport Canada as well. There's notifications that do go to the air traffic controllers. They provide data about cases to NORAD headquarters in Colorado. And these sorts of reporting mechanisms, I believe, were also used by the U.S. Air Force up until about would have been 15, 20 years ago. I remember John Greenwald from the Black Vault had found similar American procedures. And then he had asked them some questions about it and then found

out that they ended up right after he'd asked questions. They had scrubbed this chapter out of their procedural manual. So it seems like they don't exist any longer in the United States, which is where they were initially created, but they are in use in Canada. And when they were first created, it was because it was the Cold War. You know, they had, they wanted to be able to have a mechanism so civilians could report potential threats. You know, if Air Canada pilot saw a Soviet warship in the Arctic while, you know, flying out to Europe or something, they wanted to have a specific procedure so those reports would get to the right authorities. And it just so happens at the dawn of the Cold War also coincided with a explosion of UFO sightings. And, you know,

this reporting mechanism to capture threats also very clearly captures unidentified flying objects. I mean, I think I have it right in front of me. Here's the current. Let's see. Yeah. So this is a CL213, checklist 213. This is the current service, the CIRVIS. This is the current procedures for the Canada's NORAD headquarters in Winnipeg. And it very clearly says examples of events requiring service reports are, I don't know if you can see what number one is on identified flying objects. Yeah.

Number two is submarines or warships, which are not, are Canadian American, etc., etc. And it says the report, you need to notify air traffic controllers. and you need to notify Mr. Christ Rikowski. I'm going to hide his email address, but his name's right there in the Air Force Procedure. So, yes, these procedures still exist. They were, you know, created 70 years ago. The wording of them has changed a little bit, but Canada still has active procedures for documenting credible UFO reports, even though they don't really do anything with them.

They do have procedures for documenting them. And Canada is relatively transparent about documenting them and then doing nothing with them. They tell you we have these procedures and then we don't do anything. And my research says that's more or less true. But some of the interesting cases, there's been evidence of them, you know, looked into a little further, ones that have, you know, perhaps the Air Force themselves admit this, ones that have any threat potential, for example, the time they detected something moving quickly by radar into North America and they launched jets. But there's just, there's no, yeah,

there's no UFO office. You know, they're just, not yet. Not yet. Do we want that, though? Like, do we want that? Do we want it to be hidden, you know, behind the academic gatekeepers or, or have the military and government get their fingers in it. I don't know. I'm just not the kind of person who trusts federal institutions to do things correctly. My dream is a situation where data gets made publicly available for those who are interested. I don't necessarily think this is something the Canadian government needs to get into. I don't think our goal should be a Canadian UFO office.

I think our goal should be pushing our elected officials to be more. more transparent about the data they have. I think that's the best we can ask for. It doesn't cost them that much money. It doesn't take that much effort. And then those who were interested can look into the matters. But I don't, I'm just, I don't trust our government and military to do this in the transparent way that I would like it to be done. Yeah. And that's, that's fair. I exactly. I hear what you're saying. You know, I would like it to be open to open access so we can learn more and ask more questions and read the information and come to our own ideas and be able to research a little bit more civilians. But the only thing I would say that when we're having a

UFO office, what if that information comes forward and there are threats, you know, and there are things that, you know, the Canadian, the average maybe Canadian shouldn't know because it go, you know, we have to be protected. You know, there might be something that we run into a situation where there are threats that we can't put that information forward. Do you think that that might happen? Or is that just something that we would instantly that would go classified in Canada? Well, I think that has happened. You know, my research, I've pulled emails and reports that will just say like unknown,

detected. And then it's the whole thing is redacted. Like, you know, like you just see like the from to and then, you know, maybe a date. And then all the materials redacted. So there seems to be cases that do perhaps border that military nexus where, you know, our Air Force does see it as a concern. I think those cases do pop up. Do we have any threat cases? Because I don't actually know of any myself.

Like, you know, maybe they would say that Shag Harbor and some of them in the past were, you know, certain things have. happened in the past that were pretty, pretty intense that have been UFO cases. But is there anything recent that we know of that we would consider as a threat to like, you know, to Canadians? It depends on your, I mean, depends on your definition of threat. I mean, there was like, for example, in a story I did in November, you know, it detailed Air Force documents that outlined a case where F-18 fighter jets were, you know, scrambled to intercept something that was being detected on radar. You know, there's other cases in the archives where NORAD's detecting things on radar and, you know, telling radioing to civilian air traffic controllers, telling them to

make sure pilots to keep their eyes open. But I think the most compelling threat narrative or threat angle I've heard is, you know, at least from the American side, I've heard people say, well, the reason we need to investigate this from a defense perspective is because if one of our, you know, an enemy a so-called enemy nation, we're able to crack this advanced propulsion code. It would be detrimental to American interests. But, like, Canada doesn't invest in military research and development like that. You know what I mean? We buy our weapons from America.

So, right, do we, you know, there's some, obviously there is a domestic military hardware, you know, that people make military vehicles and weapons in Canada. but like we're, you know, we're not like trying to be geopolitical rivals with China. It's just, it's a different game, you know. So I feel like perhaps that that could hold true in the U.S., but not as much here. No, I hear what you're saying too. I just find it interesting that the states, because we are sister in countries, if the states has a threat, then I would automatically that threat I would think is opposed.

on us as well. But I could be wrong. So the Canadian military, you know, I mentioned this Cold War era procedure. They collected cases. There was an actual active, you know, there was active UFO research happening at an official level in Canada from the Cold War. And they stopped collecting. It was through the national, the Federal National Research Council of Canada. They receive reports from the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They received reports from the Department of Defense, and it was an official thing that ended in 1995. And in all of those years throughout the Cold War, there was never, you know, at least in my research, I never encountered a case where they said, hey, this is a clear threat.

Yes, in the records there are cases of pilots, seeing things, pilots disappearing, I guess those could be considered threat cases. but it just, I see it as being a really politically expedient argument to get attention on the subject, to get government interest, to get money. And I see how it works in the American context. But I just, it's hard for me. I don't see how it applies to Canada. It's just we're such a different country. And, you know, our military interests are different than the U.S.

The U.S. has a vested military interest in maintaining superiority over its geopolitical rivals. you know, were China to crack some sort of exotic propulsion system before America, it would be a really, you know, big, bad deal for the U.S. military. But, you know, with Canada, it's, I mean, that's not us. We're not trying to, you know, be on the cutting edge of developing weapons. It's not what our country, you know, invests in. It's true. I think that that's really well said. It's true. And for people that don't, because to be honest, like, we don't talk about it a lot and there's not tons of Canadians in the, you know, UFO subject. There's, there are, and they're all over, they're nationally all over Canada, but there's

not a lot of them. So I think a lot of people have questions that are like, hey, what is Canada doing over there? You know, especially currently. So I think that was, that was really well said. So before we wrap, where can we find you? Social media, Instagram, Twitter. Yeah, I'm most active on Twitter. You can find me there at D.S. Otis. I post all my stories. I have a personal website, www.danylottis.ca. If you look at my vice contributor page,

just Google Daniel Otis Vice, it'll come up, and all of my UFO-related work is there. You can also find me on Facebook and the other things, but Twitter is the place where I'm always posting stuff. So, for example, let's say I write a story and I get some extra documents after it's published. Twitter is the place where I'm usually like posting that stuff. for, you know, those who are interested because I'm not going to write a whole new story if I got,

you know, two extra cool pages, but throw it out in the world. So that's where you can find me. And yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. Thank you. Awesome, Daniel. And thank you. And hopefully we'll see again soon.