Best Places to Encounter a UFO in Canada
· 17 min. read
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If you’re anything like me, 3I/ATLAS may have left you a tad disappointed. As an intergalactic comet, it was incredibly interesting, but as an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (or UAP; the updated name for UFOs), it was pretty lame. I was really hoping for at least a close encounter of the first kind.
So with everybody’s favourite non-alien spacecraft hurtling away from us at incredible speeds never to be seen again (thanks for all the fish!), where can we look for UAPs next?
Due to the sheer vastness that is Canada, we have a fair number of UAP hot spots to visit. Now, we could make this list about places like Langenburg, which has had several repeat offenders, but is there anywhere else that the extraterrestrial kind are most likely to drawn to? The answer is yes!
1. Niagara Falls, Ontario
Niagara Falls is often considered the "Las Vegas of the North". Between Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara, these casinos offer over 4,500 slot machines and hundreds of gaming tables. Since Ontario launched its regulated iGaming market in 2022, many visitors now continue their play from their hotel rooms, logging into online poker between sightseeing trips and late-night walks along the Falls.
In 2008, Sheraton Fallsview Hotel manager, Shane Sovar, and a security guard, reported that they had seen a UAP from the hotel. This isn’t uncommon. Niagara has many reports of UAPs flying over the city. There have even been some reports of unidentified craft flying into the water of the falls as well. Many ufologists speculate that these alien crafts can transverse both space and water similarity, with some even speculating that they use water as fuel.
Three weeks after the report of a UAP craft near the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel, three men entered the hotel looking for Sovar and the security guard. These three men were pale, wore black suits, black hats, and people who saw them said the air around them “changed”. Some witnesses even felt ill. This is a similar testimony to Steve Michalak when he encountered a UAP near Falcon Lake. Sovar and the guard weren’t at the office that day, and the three men left without discussing the case with them. However, the most interesting thing about these Men in Black appearing, is that Sovar and the security guard never brought the story of their sighting publicly. How did these Men in Black know to come and talk to them?
The city's unique personality is also punctuated by character establishments like The Flying Saucer Restaurant, a retro, UAP-themed landmark that has been a staple of the area since 1972. Although the website claims the restaurant was made just for fun, there were many reports of experimental aircraft being around the area during the 1950s and 1960s as Bell Aerospace was inventing new rockets, jetpacks and aircrafts not that far away.
Additionally, there have been reports both close encounters of the first, second and third kind in the city. For example, in 1973 a woman and two friends witnessed a UAP land and an entity emerge out of it, shapeshifting three times from a dog to a pony to a child. In 1993, a Port Colborne boy reported seeing a UAP while his mother was putting groceries in their car. Later, he dreamed he was abducted by grey aliens and probed by his “dream friends”.
2. Vulcan, Alberta
Although it is known as the "Official Star Trek Capital of Canada", Vulcan wasn’t actually named after Star Trek. That connection came later. Instead, the town was named after the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. The town was named by a surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and all of the main streets originally maintained this Roman God themed naming convention, such as June, Mars and Jupiter.
Since the 1990s however, Vulcan has been known for the naming similarities between the town and the home world of Spock from the Star Trek franchise. The Vulcan Tourism & Trek Station was also created around this time, and it houses a large amount of donated Star Trek related memorabilia.
Nearby the tourism station is a replica of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek V, along with a pedestal which includes writings in both Klingon and Vulcan.
The town has also hosted an annual Star Trek Convention called "VulCON" since 1993, which brings in hundreds of Trekkies and many guest celebrities. A smaller celebration called “Spock Days” is also held in the town, and involves a parade, fireworks and a ball tournament.
But these are all fun and games. What about real UAPs? That’s a bit iffy. Due to the size of Vulcan, which is about 2,000 people, there haven’t been too many reports.While other nearby cities like Calgary or Lethbridge have way more, there have been at least two reported sightings near Vulcan. Two occurred on July 10, 2009 of three lights in the sky, in a chevron shape, and another occurred on October 25, 2007 of glowing green balls seemingly “falling” from the sky, and then zig-zagging away.
3. St. Paul’s, Alberta
Another Alberta town? Really? You might be surprised to learn (or maybe not, honestly) that Alberta currently ranks as the most likely province in Canada to see a UAP and the second most likely province to get abducted by aliens.
So yes, Alberta again.
St. Paul’s might not have a cool Star Trek themed ship, but it does have something else: the world’s first UAP landing pad. It was created in 1967 “as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for all intergalactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul.”
Has the landing pad ever been used? Yes, on opening day Paul Hellyer, Minister of National Defence, flew in by helicopter to officially open the pad. And in 2012, Cineplex Entertainment used it to promote an upcoming film, Earth to Echo, which I have never heard of or seen.
What about alien visitors? Has one ever landed a UAP here? Unfortunately, no. Although it is big enough for a UAP – at least, the UAPs spotted in Langenberg or Falcon Lake – but alas, it has never been used.
What about UAP sightings nearby? Well, there have been two sightings near Saddle Lake (1979 and 2003), one near Ashmount (2016) and four near Bonnyville (2004, 2012, 2019, 2022) but one of those was probably the Starlink.
However, this doesn’t mean the folks at St. Paul have given up in welcoming their extraterrestrial friends. Around town are places like UFO Pizza, Furniture Galaxy, Galaxy Motel, Bubble Planet, and The Landing Hotel & Conference Centre. And, honestly, I love that.
4. Nahanni National Park Reserve, Northwest Territories
Is it cheating to put Nahanni on here? It’s my list, so no, it’s not.
For those unfamiliar with this park, strap yourself in, this is a crazy one. Nahanni National Park is one of the largest parks in Canada, and is twice as large as Prince Edward Island, and is almost as big as Switzerland. Stories say the park is so large, it hasn’t been fully mapped. Many people have tried over the years, and they all end up decapitated. Yes, really. This is why Nahanni National Park is also known as the “Valley of The Headless Men”.
But there are other stories besides that that make Nahanni so famous. During the Klondike Gold Rush, so many people flooded Northern Canada that various experimental routes were explored to find an easier way to access the Klondike. One of these was through Nahanni National Park. Some of the people who passed through this area reported an Eden-like valley, untouched by man, where there is a warm river, lush grass, thick trees, and animals with so few predators that they have grown fat. Following the Klondike gold rush drying up, many explored Nahanni looking for this garden, but nothing was ever discovered.
The Dene have many legends about the mountains inside Nahanni National Park, with one being about the Nakani, or “wild men”, similar to Sasquatch. They are said to have gargoyle-like faces and red glowing eyes, and will kidnap people who stray into the mountains. This may have been what happened to the Naha tribe, a tribe that disappeared while staying in the mountains. The Dene sent a search party to find the Naha, but instead found an abandoned camp with fires still burning and tents still full of belongings.
But what about aliens? Yes, they have them here too, but the challenge is determining what is an alien spaceship and what is just the Northern Lights. The Dene told legends of “spirit lights” and “moving stars”. Could these be asteroids? Or Northern Lights? Maybe meteor showers? Well, Albert Faille lived in the north for decades, and lived alongside the Dene. He heard these stories of stars “landing” and “taking off again” and was adamant that these were not an illusion caused by the aurora. Another famous voice of the area, Charlie McLeod would also say his brothers were “lucky”, as they “followed the lights” to find the gold in the mountains. I’m not sure how Charlie could say that though, as it was his two brothers that were found decapitated in the mountains in 1908.
5. Brampton, Ontario
Toronto seems like the most logical hot spot, right? With Pearson International Airport being one of the busiest airports in the country, there should be plenty of sightings of strange lights in the sky. While there are many reports out of Toronto, I decided to highlight Brampton as the hot spot instead.
This is because, since 1975, Brampton has recorded unique 55 UAP sightings. This means there are more than one sighting per year on average. Some of these could be attributed to planes coming and going from Pearson International Airport, but others are up for debate. According to NUFORC, or the National UFO Reporting Center, there was one sighting in 1979 that even has them scratching their heads. On November 3, 1979, a man went hunting with his father. He reported a “cross shaped object floating in the sky. It was emitting what looked like a purple colored beam towards a herd of deer that we were stalking.”
“Afterwards, I felt sort of in a trance then 2 beings walked out and zapped my dad with something, then abducted him, this is all I remember from that day.”
The witness reports their father disappeared that day, and he was never seen again.
NUFORC has left the following footnote on this report: “We assume that this report was submitted as a serious-minded account of the event, but we cannot be certain that that is the case.”
I checked both Newspapers.com for articles about this UAP, as well as Library and Archives Canada’s, “Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown” collection, and was not able to find any additional information. I also checked the Canada Missing Persons database and found no male reported missing that disappeared in November of 1979 in Ontario. This witness took 27 years to report this, which is normal as it can be challenging to process the trauma of a UAP abduction, but it does leave one to wonder if this was real at all.
The trouble with UAPs is the challenge to believe the unbelievable. First-hand witness testimony is unreliable at best. What could be a UAP could also be a meteor, a bird, a commercial aircraft, a satellite or even something larger like StarLink or the ISS. The more people in one area, the most likely an UAP will be seen. The best examples are ones that are witnessed by multiple people at once, like the one in 1990 that floated across Montreal where there were thousands of witnesses. These are also more difficult to explain. While any metropolitan city could be a UAP hot spot, sometimes it's the small towns that stand out the most, especially when somebody goes missing because of them.
Whatever these people are seeing, it's widely documented, researched, recorded and surprisingly not redacted – at least, not so much in recent years. What do you think these witnesses saw? Have you ever seen anything? Let me know what you think!
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Categories: Alberta, Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon
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