How to report a UFO sighting in Canada

To report a UFO in Canada, file it with the Canadian UFO Survey. It is run by Ufology Research, a civilian group in Manitoba that publishes a national count every year. NUFORC and MUFON also take reports, and the survey draws on both. The Government of Canada has no office that takes sighting reports.

Two exceptions come first. If anyone is in danger, call 911. If the object is near aircraft or an airport, that is an aviation safety issue for Transport Canada. Everything else is a record, and a record is only as good as the notes you make tonight.

Does the Government of Canada take UFO reports?

No. In 2022 the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada started the Sky Canada Project to study how sightings are handled. Its June 2025 report, Management of Public Reporting of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in Canada, found that there is no official, accessible platform for Canadians to report UAP sightings. In its survey, 40 percent of respondents said they would not know whom to contact, and only 10 percent of people who had seen something reported it.

The report recommends that one federal department or agency take charge of public UAP data. As of September 28, 2026 we found no sign that one has been named. The Sky Canada page itself is a study, not a form. The project says it does not collect first-hand reports, and its question page says it does not suggest a place to report (Sky Canada questions and answers).

Where to report a sighting

1. Canadian UFO SurveyUfology Research has compiled Canadian reports every year since 1989. Its online form is at canadianuforeport.ca/report-a-sighting. This is the Canadian count, so file here first.
2. NUFORCThe National UFO Reporting Center is a US-based group with an online form (nuforc.org/report-a-ufo). Canadians do file there: the 2025 survey drew 162 Canadian reports from NUFORC.
3. MUFONThe Mutual UFO Network is a US membership group with volunteer investigators. Its report form lists Canada as a country (mufon.com). The survey uses a limited amount of its data.

Pick one or two and keep your own copy. Filing the same sighting in five places does not make it stronger. It only makes duplicates harder to spot. Before you send photos, know that civilian groups may publish reports. Leave out your home address and anything that identifies your children.

When to call police, and when to call Transport Canada

Police

Call 911 for an emergency: a fire, a crash, someone hurt, something blocking a road. Use your local police non-emergency line when there is a safety concern that is not urgent, such as a drone repeatedly flown over your property. Do not call police just to log a light in the sky. The Sky Canada report found that the RCMP has no formal policy for collecting or sharing UAP reports, and that local forces have no standard system for them either.

Transport Canada

Transport Canada does take reports from the public when aviation safety is involved. The Sky Canada report states that people can send UAP sighting reports to Transport Canada through its online aviation incident reporting application, and aviation occurrences are logged in the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System, known as CADORS. Use it when an object is near aircraft, near an airport, or at a height where it could meet a plane. For a drone flown dangerously, use the drone incident form. For an imminent threat to aviation, Transport Canada lists a 24-hour line, 1-877-992-6853 (Transport Canada emergencies and incident reporting).

NAV CANADA

NAV CANADA runs civil air traffic control. Pilots who see something report it to the nearest control tower or flight service station, which files an occurrence report that goes to Transport Canada's CADORS team (Sky Canada report). That channel is for pilots. We found no public UAP reporting line at NAV CANADA, so do not call air traffic control.

The 2025 Canadian UFO Survey in numbers

Ufology Research released its 2025 survey on March 9, 2026 (The 2025 Canadian UFO Survey). It counted 1,052 reports from 1,006 witnesses, filed with government agencies, civilian groups and on social media. After review, 3.42 percent were classed as unexplained. Just over half were simple lights in the night sky.

The chart adds up to 1,051, one fewer than the headline total, and the survey's text gives British Columbia 13.5 percent of reports, a little more than the chart's 131. We report the chart as published. Nova Scotia stands out for its size, and the survey puts that down to active local social media groups where people post sightings.

The most useful number is a different one. About 46 percent of 2025 reports had too little information to assess. Another 34 percent had a probable explanation and about 17 percent were explained outright. A report without a time, a direction and a duration usually ends up in the insufficient pile.

The RCMP and Shag Harbour

The RCMP's link to UFOs is mostly historical. On October 4, 1967 witnesses at Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia reported something coming down over the water. Library and Archives Canada calls it Canada's most famous UFO incident, investigated by the RCMP and Canadian Forces (Library and Archives Canada). The same archive holds the National Research Council's non-meteoritic sighting reports from 1965 to 1995. The full case is in the Shag Harbour case file.

Today the RCMP has no formal role. No federal body collects sightings either. That gap is why the civilian survey matters.

What to include in your report

Write these down before you talk to anyone, while the memory is fresh.

1. WhenDate, start time and end time, with your time zone.
2. WhereThe nearest town or road. You do not need to give your street address.
3. DirectionCompass direction and height above the horizon. A fist at arm's length covers about ten degrees.
4. BehaviourSteady, blinking, moving, hovering, splitting. Any sound. How it left.
5. ConditionsWeather, cloud, moon, streetlights, anything else in the sky.
6. WitnessesHow many people saw it. Each person writes their own account before comparing.
7. MediaKeep the original files. Do not crop, filter or screenshot them. Share copies.
8. ChecksWhat you ruled out: aircraft, satellites, the ISS, a Starlink train, a planet.

The report builder turns these notes into a clean report you can paste into any form, and nothing you type leaves your device. If you are not sure what you saw, run it through what did I just see? first. The evidence checklist covers photos and video in more detail.

What happens after you report

Usually nothing you will hear about. The survey reviews each report, gives it a rating for strangeness and for reliability, and sorts it as explained, probable, insufficient or unexplained. The numbers go into the next year's survey. An unexplained label is not a finding of anything alien. The survey says so itself.

Keep your own file with your notes, the originals and a copy of what you sent. If more people come forward about the same night, your dated notes are the part that holds up.

Sources

1. Office of the Chief Science Advisor, Management of Public Reporting of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in Canada, June 2025
2. Sky Canada Project, questions and answers
3. Ufology Research, The 2025 Canadian UFO Survey, March 9, 2026
4. Transport Canada, emergencies and incident reporting
5. Transport Canada, report a drone incident
6. Library and Archives Canada, 1967 Shag Harbour UFO sighting and related research
7. NUFORC report form
8. MUFON

Common questions

See also A fireball has its own reporting route: report a fireball. Canada's most studied encounter with physical injuries is the Falcon Lake incident of 1967.