Larry Maguire: UAPs are real, and Canada should take them seriously

We don't know what they are or where they come from, but they're here, and we haven't been paying enough attention.

Photo by Albert Antony on Unsplash

By: Larry Maguire

With the news that Canada’s Minister of Defence was briefed about the issue of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), it’s time for parliamentarians and the government of Canada to take this issue seriously.

For decades, the public has been told claims about UAP (what were once called UFOs) are either banal or altogether nonsense. It is now apparent there is something very real going on — something that warrants high-level briefings from military leaders. This deserves legitimate inquiries, and it is time to demand action from our government departments. Moreover, it’s time for them to engage with the scientific community in an open and transparent manner.

The greatest barrier to better understanding the phenomena is the stigma surrounding it. It is encouraging to see this begin to subside and allow the topic to be both publicly acknowledged and studied. 

American senators and members of Congress have shown greater willingness to seek information, ask questions and engage the public in recent years. However, unlike its counterparts in the United States, the government of Canada has yet to show even the slightest curiosity or concern.

The evidence of UAP is overwhelming and has been affirmed by presidents, former heads of the CIA, the current NASA administrator, intelligence officials, and trained military observers. Now that there is an ability to have serious discussions on this matter, more individuals with impeccable backgrounds feel comfortable speaking publicly about what they know.

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In December of 2017, the New York Times broke the story that the Pentagon, through the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, had been secretly investigating UAP incidents with United States military personnel. The program had been headed by Luis Elizondo, an American military intelligence official. He decided to resign and go public due to the excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the program.

Last year I met with Elizondo to learn more about UAP and to better understand the issue. While I did not get access to classified information, it was a good opportunity to ask some in-depth questions.

As I learned more about UAP, what struck me most was how these objects aren't “flying” in the traditional sense of the word. When travelling through the air, they do not effect the atmosphere like a jet or other combustion engine would. They simply do not leave the associated signatures an aircraft does.

UAP have been tracked going incredibly fast, with an estimate of at least 700 to 900 g-forces on the object. Radar has picked them up going thousands of miles per hour and documenting them doing a 90-degree turn on a dime without losing any speed. There is nothing in any country’s inventory which could withstand those g-forces.

And here’s the kicker: these objects have been tracked going from low-Earth orbit into the upper atmosphere and then under the ocean.

In a meeting with the Scientific Coalition for UAP studies, I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Hal Puthoff, one of the most preeminent scientists to ever research the topic. This group of PhDs and scientists analyzed the now famous 2004 USS Nimitz encounter off the coast of California and issued a public report of their findings.

In their report, they noted how radar systems detected UAP in low-Earth orbit before they dropped down to 80,000 feet. Periodically, UAP would drop from 28,000 feet to sea level (estimated to be 50 feet), or under the surface, in 0.78 seconds. 

Let that sink in for a moment. Either some nation state has developed technology that is beyond next-generation, or we are dealing with something that is completely unknown. Regardless of the answer, this sort of information should be front-page news in the pursuit of determining origin and intent.

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To give credit where it is due, the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee requested a current assessment on UAP be conducted by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). 

A preliminary report, tabled in June of 2021, contained an unclassified report provided to the public and a classified version shown only to senators and congresspeople. It confirmed some UAP demonstrate advanced technology beyond anything within the Pentagon’s inventory or any equipment operated by foreign adversaries. 

Recently the United States Congress passed legislation which outlined some specific instructions to various agencies and the military empowering them to get to the bottom of this. This legislation requires the Secretary of Defense and the DNI to conduct field investigations of UAP, and to ensure available personnel with requisite expertise, equipment and other resources can respond rapidly to incidents or patterns of observations of UAP.

These efforts were spearheaded by New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who introduced an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, co-sponsored by Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

It should be noted all efforts in Congress have been done in a bipartisan manner and both political parties have collaborated fully on their efforts to better understand and investigate UAP.

This new office is tasked with investigating adverse “physiological effects” of UAP and makes special note of testing “materials” to gain as much knowledge as possible on the “origin” and “intent” of UAP. This is of particular interest considering Elizondo has stated that the United States government is in possession of exotic material.

The other attention-grabbing development coming out of Congress is that elected officials are no longer willing to let officials get away with non-answers and there will be a congressional hearing next week. Politico is reporting senators and their staff are growing impatient with the slowness of the new office in getting access to hard data. As reported, these senators want more analysts and surveillance systems dedicated to determining the origin and intent of whatever is encroaching on U.S. airspace. 

Knowing all this, the two most logical questions we should be asking in Canada are: What information does the government of Canada possess, and what are they doing with it?

You don’t have to look far to see how many official government reports have been filed over the years. The Department of National Defence (DND) has their own reporting guidelines and have a giant stack of reports they’ve collected over the decades.

There is documented evidence outlining where DND reports their own internal UAP information, including to NORAD through the 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba or the 21 Aerospace Control and Warning Squadron in North Bay, Ontario. This has never been brought to the attention of either Parliament or the Standing Committee on National Defence. 

Additionally, there are numerous well-documented reports of UAP from Canadian Armed Forces members, yet there is no indication if investigations took place to either identify or study their capabilities.

Transport Canada has their own pile of reports submitted by pilots. But once again, none of that information has been handed over to Parliament nor is there any evidence of meaningful attempts to investigate these reports. When my office tried to get more information from NAV Canada, which owns and operates Canada’s civil air navigation system, it was like talking to a brick wall.

I took the initiative at a recent Natural Resources Committee meeting to ask the Deputy Minister about UAP civilian reports around Canada’s civilian nuclear facilities. From Pickering and Port Elgin, Ontario to St. John, New Brunswick, there are plenty of open source reports of individuals witnessing and documenting UAP near these facilities.

At the committee, I asked the deputy minister point-blank if he was aware of any official reports of either drones or UAP and to table with the committee any information the department had. I even sent him the preliminary analysis conducted by the DNI and the U.S. legislation that just passed Congress.

Not long afterwards, I was dutifully informed that Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission had no information whatsoever. While I originally took this assertion at face value, it has come to my attention there are official reports of drones at one nuclear facility, and another is refusing to release information through an access to information request. 

I will be meeting with departmental officials to find out why our committee was not given accurate information and I have a lengthy list of other questions. I suspect they, like almost every other government department, have no standardized process to collect and investigate instances UAP. This issue is a hot potato. No one wants to touch it.

But that won’t hold. Canadian media stories on this subject have already started to appear. Notably, one recent story even quoted retired Canadian Armed Forces personnel on the lack of effort by DND to investigate UAP reports. There are dozens of highly documented UAP incidents that have been collected over the years, but little is known about the extent and intent of UAP in Canadian airspace.

There is evidence to suggest some UAP incidents are sent to NORAD for further investigation, but no one has been able to confirm for me what happens with that information. There has been zero transparency from DND or from the government at large.

As a first step, the government should standardize the collection of UAP, which would include multiple departments and agencies. I would even go as far as recommending Canada’s Chief Science Advisor take the lead. Much like our counterparts in the United States, this issue must be approached in a serious and non-political manner.

Due to information residing in numerous departments, such as National Defence, Transport Canada, the RCMP, the Canadian Coast Guard, the National Research Council, and contractors such as NAV Canada, it will take a whole-of-government approach to standardize the collection of reports and analyze the data. In our Canadian system, this could be achieved through ministerial directives rather than through legislation.

Additionally, this month, for the first time in Canadian history, a political party has publicly and specifically requested the government take steps to identify the origin and intent of UAP. This was done by our Conservative Shadow Minister for National Defence in this CTV News story. To some this may seem trivial, but it is a giant step in the right direction. 

Without meaningful government action, no progress can be made to analyze the extent of UAP in our airspace. Any attempts from government of Canada officials to downplay either the data or the reports would be completely unacceptable.

And to my fellow members of Parliament reading this, I have never received a single complaint from a constituent about me asking questions about this. In fact, I’ve had people emailing my office thanking me for bringing this up at committee. 

In a serious and thoughtful manner, members of Parliament should ask questions and engage on this topic. We should be pushing officials to get the wheels of government turning to better understand UAP, with the end goal of determining origin and intent.

We must strive to declassify information in a responsible way to co-ordinate and collaborate with our allies when appropriate. All efforts should be done in an open and transparent manner.

Politics is often better known for its division and disagreement. If there was ever an issue that Parliament could work on in a non-partisan manner, this is it. 

Larry Maguire is the member of Parliament for Brandon-Souris and a vice chair of the Natural Resource Committee.

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