Canada’s government used to track and investigate sightings of UFOs, but it seems alien invasion is no longer a priority. Documents obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act reveal that reports of UFO sightings are no longer dealt with at a federal level. While various federal agencies (including the RCMP and the Department of National Defense) used to be responsible for keeping an eye on spaceships — or the like — in the sky, that duty now falls to civilian volunteers, like science writer Chris Rutkowski who has produced the Canadian UFO survey since 1989.

According to Rutkowski, UFO sightings have increased in Canada and thanks to smartphones and YouTube, there is a growing collection of videos on the internet; some can be explained, while others are left with a looming question mark. We speculate that there could be a direct correlation with the facilitated process of documenting UFO sightings due to modern technology and the increase in reports, but that has yet to be confirmed. Regardless of technology’s part in all this, an increase in sightings of UFOs may mean that our government will have to resume responsibility of documenting such cases.

For 2011, 980 UFO sightings were reported across Canada. Reports from 2012 have yet to be fully processed, but based on numbers from early months, it looks like the grand total will be higher than its previous year and should that trend continue, 2013 will have the highest number of sightings yet. So get out your binoculars, grab a camera, and get documenting — let’s get our government back on UFO-duty before this happens to Bay Street.

[via CBC News]

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Hallae Khosravi is an intern at Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @hallaek. 

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