OTTAWA, Can. – A final report on unidentified flying objects should be released by June, the office of the federal government’s chief science advisor has confirmed.

The Sky Canada Project, led by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, was launched in the fall of 2022 to review current practices surrounding public reporting of unidentified aerial phenomena or UAPs in Canada, the Ottawa Citizen reports.

Some public sources estimate that Canadians report somewhere between 600 and 1,000 UAP sightings annually, according to a preview report from the Sky Canada Project released earlier this year. That initial report found that one in four Canadians surveyed say they have personally witnessed a UAP in their lifetime. But only 10 per cent reported what they saw.

“The full report will come out later this spring, most probably in May or early June,” confirmed Luc Gauthier, the chief of staff at the Office of the Chief Science Advisor in Ottawa.

He told the Ottawa Citizen that the production of the report and preparation to put it online is in the final stages.

The Sky Canada Project was spurred on by increased public interest and recent developments in other countries, particularly the United States, where formal procedures for addressing UAP sightings are in development.

The study explores the current reporting methods, identifies gaps, and provides recommendations to enhance transparency and scientific inquiry on UAP issues in Canada, according to the Office of the Chief Science Advisor.

The Sky Canada Project team gathered information from federal departments and agencies, stakeholders, experts, and other organizations, on how UAP observations reported by the public are handled in Canada.

A Sky Canada Project briefing for the Department of National Defence pointed out that among the reasons behind the initiative were support for national security through surveillance activities, as well as to promote more transparency.

“It is not meant to prove or deny the existence of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial visitors,” said the February 2023 briefing, which was obtained by the Ottawa Citizen through an access-to-information request.

Providing public access to “collected information (would) prevent conspiracy theories,” the briefing added.

The preview report, released in January, recommended identifying a lead agency for managing public UAP data. It noted that the Canadian Space Agency should be considered for such a role.

The UFO debate has been rekindled over the last several years after the release of a series of videos shot by U.S. military pilots of unidentified flying objects.

In July 2023, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer Maj. David Grusch testified at a Congressional hearing that the Pentagon had been involved in a decades-long coverup about UFOs. Grusch said the U.S. defence department had tried to retrieve and reverse engineer an alien spacecraft.

The Pentagon denied the claims.

In 2023, a U.S. defense scientist revealed that allied militaries, including Canada, had met at the Pentagon to discuss sharing data on UAPs. Scientist Sean Kirkpatrick, who was then leading an office in the U.S. military that examined UFO-related activities, said the meeting involved the Five Eyes nations. That is an intelligence alliance of the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.