Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown (Overview of Federal Records)

This archival collection compiles documents from the Department of National Defence, National Research Council, Department of Transport, and RCMP. It includes policy memos, reporting forms, summaries of investigations, and correspondence. Official efforts such as Project Second Storey (1950s interdepartmental committee) reviewed UFO reports and recommended against large-scale scientific investigation, concluding the phenomenon did not lend itself to fruitful study and posed no evident defence or security threat. Later, responsibility shifted to NRC for passive logging of public reports with minimal follow-up. The records show consistent findings that most sightings had mundane explanations (astronomical, meteorological, or man-made) and that no extraordinary evidence warranted dedicated ongoing military or scientific programs. The archive serves as the official Canadian repository, demonstrating a deliberate wind-down of active investigation by the early 1980s while preserving the historical record of assessments that found nothing requiring extraordinary response.