Open data · live endpoints · access to information
Everything AURORA shows is reachable from a public endpoint or a public reading room. Some of
those endpoints will return nothing when you use them, which is a finding rather than a fault and
is why the Sky Canada report's first recommendation exists: Canada never built a dataset. Every
external link on this site — these endpoints included — is re-checked by
09-scripts/check_links.py on every build, and the build fails on a dead one.
This runs in your browser against open.canada.ca's CKAN API. It returns nothing
for UFO, UAP, unidentified aerial or CADORS,
and that is the result. Try aerial phenomenon or aviation occurrence for
what the catalogue does hold. Your term is sent to open.canada.ca in the query string, not to
this site.
The form is pre-filled with a term that returns a result. Press Search to query the Government of Canada's open catalogue.
The working list. Every entry was fetched before it was published here. Most
return a live response to any client; three are worth knowing about in advance — two
canada.ca pages stall automated requests while serving browsers perfectly well, and
NUFORC blocks anything that is not a person clicking a link. Those three are marked on the list,
and all three work in a browser.
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The Office of the Chief Science Advisor proposed these fourteen actions "for consideration by the Government of Canada" in order to improve coordination and analysis of UAP reports in Canada, promote public trust and mitigate disinformation, enhance scientific rigour and science literacy, and position Canada for greater collaboration with other countries. The report groups them under four headings and does not number them continuously, so neither do we.
What the Sky Canada report did not resolve is still available under access to information. it is just slow, and the two best targets are known.
The October 1967 memo that discounted aircraft, flares, floats and other known objects is signed by initials only, and the initials themselves are inconsistent between transcriptions: one reads Col. W. W. Turner, another reads Col. T. T. Turner. The file is identified as RG 24, accession 83-84-167, box 7523, file DRBS 3800-10-1 pt 1. That is exactly the kind of small, specific request that a diligent ATIP officer can actually fill.
No list of Atlantic merchant-vessel MERINT incidents has been published. The Canadian Coast Guard ran the instruction; the reports went to its Western region. Separately, the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick hold the papers of Stanton Friedman, and whether those include sighting reports is an open question worth a letter.
Write to the institution that holds the file, name the record group and box numbers if you have them, describe the records and the date range, and ask for electronic copies. Access to information in Canada is about thirty days plus a possible extension, and fees apply only above a de minimis threshold. Be specific — a vague request about UFOs gets a vague refusal.
There is no Canadian equivalent of the US all-domain anomaly office. Until the first Sky Canada recommendation is implemented, the only federal intake for a pilot or crew sighting is Transport Canada's CADORS occurrence report. The bulk occurrence data is published as open data, and news outlets have pulled UAP-shaped rows out of it, but there is no federal body that reads CADORS looking for unidentified objects, and occurrence type has to be read out of the rows by hand.
If you are building something, start with these. They are small, stable, and documented enough to be worth citing.