Stanton T. Friedman, born in New Jersey, 1934, spent two years at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey then switched to the University of Chicago in 1953. He received BS and MS degrees in Physics from UC in 1955 and 1956, where Carl Sagan was a classmate. He worked for fourteen years as a nuclear physicist for such companies as General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, TRW, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas on such advanced, highly classified, eventually canceled projects as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and nuclear power plants for space. He developped a serious interest in UFOs and gave hundreds of lectures and participated in many documentaries on that topic. He his one of the most well known Roswell case researchers as he was the first civilian investigator of this incident, and co-authored "Crash at Corona" and instigated the "Unsolved Mysteries" TV Roswell program.
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Here is a paper on the UFO situation in Canada by Stanton Friedman:
Canada has had many reports of UFO sightings, several UFO groups, at least two official government sponsored investigative bodies and has also managed to cover up significant UFO information. The Access to Information law has been used to obtain a good deal of data though much more about what government has been doing has apparently been hidden or destroyed. Public interest in a scientific approach appears to be strong. The National Research Council file of a few thousand reports is ripe for detailed investigation by serious researchers able to devote considerable time and effort to the pursuit of more information since the NRC itself has done essentially no investigation of "non-meteor" sightings.
It is not surprising that many aspects of ufology in Canada are quite similar to this in other countries. There have been Canadian sightings, landings, physical trace cases and radar observations. Canadians have been abducted. The Canadian government has kept much information classified and misrepresented the facts of its activities to the public. A number of courageous investigators have dug into Canadian sightings and some cultist and amateur groups have flourished and died off.
As an American (my wife is a Canadian) living in Canada since 1980 and having visited Canada since 1965, I am aware that many Americans think of Canada as being just like the USA but further North. The language of the two countries are (leaving out Quebec) generally the same. But there are some very important differences that have a bearing on the UFO question:
On a personal basis having lectured at dozens of campuses (some 3 times) and to many other groups in 8 of the 10 Canadian provinces and appeared on many radio and TV programs, I can say that there is a great deal of interest in a scientific approach to the UFO problem coupled as would be expected with a general lack of awareness of the mountain of work done by investigators and organizations such as MUFON. I have had many overflow crowds at my lectures and many columns of favorable newspaper coverage. I have also had my troubles with the major newspaper, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and with Phil Klass's noisy negativist associate, Henry Gordon, who did three separate columns on me in the Toronto Star, (Ref. 1) each one loaded with miserpresentation, as one might perhaps expect from a magician member of the self annointed Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
At least the Star published portions of two letters in response to the misinformation in Gordon's columns and has carried a large overview article. The Globe and Mail actually lied to the Ontario Press Council which did give me a hearing in my complaint about false statements in a summary front page G&M article. The OPC found against me, however, with 2 of their three counts being demonstrably false. It reminded me of the strong anti-UFO attitude of the Los Angeles Times for many years, a sort of "Don't bother us with the facts our mind is made up. If there were anything to UFOs, we would know about it. We don't know any such thing, and anybody who says there is something to UFOs is some kind of a nut".
There were sightings in Canada in 1947 as well as much earlier and have been ever since. Of the 853 UFO sightings reported in Ted Bloecher's compilation of reports "Report of the UFO wave of 1947" from June and July 1947, 18 were of Canadian origin as observed by a total of 52 witnesses. Judging by other efforts to expand Bloecher's compilation, there were many more cases reported in local newspapers but not collected by Bloecher. There were at least 2 publicly acknowledged official investigative efforts: Project Magnet and Project Second Story. A key figure in both was Department of Transport Engineer, Wilbert B. Smith. I never met Smith prior to his untimely death of a brain tumor in the early 1960s, but I have communicated with his wife and met his son and talked to many people who knew him. Also, Arthur Bray has has been kind enough to provide copies of a number of items from Smith's files. As with the great majority of Canadian research activities, Smith's work was very much on a shoestring budget. Since an excellent overview of the UFO situation in Canada is presented in the book by Bondarchuk (Ref. 2) I will not duplicate the information he provides.
Smith was clearly a serious professional who was awarded Canada's highest broadcasting engineering award, often visited the USA and knew Donald Keyhoe of NICAP and Frank Edwards as well as having had through the Canadian Embassy an association with Vannevar Bush who apparenlty was the key figure in the top secret US UFO effort after the Roswell Incident (Ref. 4) in July, 1947. Bush also had headed the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War 2 as a kind of Science and Technology Czar having established the Manhattan Project as well as a myriad of other joint military-industry-university technology projects aimde at winning the war. He also organized and was the first head of the postwar Joint Research and Development Board (JRDB) which later became the RDB, served on the War Council, had headed prewar the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA which later became the NASA) had very close ties to James Forrestal first head of the Department of Defense and many meetings with presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. His association with MJ-12 member Donald Menzel goes back to 1934 and Bush was Menzel's staunchest defender at Loyalty Hearings held in May 1950.
I have elsewhere (Ref. 5) quoted the starting statements from Smith's 3 page Top Secret memo "Geomagnetics" discovered by Canadian Researcher Mr. X (legal name for a most unusual researcher, sort of a Canadian Charles Fort) but will repeat the key comments here (November 21, 1950):
"I made discreet enquiries through the Canadian Embassy staff in Washington who were able to obtain for me the following information:"
Some sceptics have tried to pass Smith off as a kook because of his interest in paranormal phenomena apparently not knowing that there is quite a file of supporting material, especially classified correspondence with Arnauld Wright and Gordon Cox and other Canadian Government employees. Also I managed to have released under Access to Information the files of the Defense Research Board, roughly the equivalent (on a much much smaller scale) of the US Research and Development Board which was the evolutionary remnant of the Joint Research and Development Board. The DRB had established a committee on UFOs which met on a number of occasions in classified session, strangely at the same time the public was being told that nothing official was being done and that Wilbert Smith's activities were just a hobby as part of his membership in NICAP!
The 300 page DRB file is not for the most part of very great excitement including newspaper articles and letters in response to public inquiries. It also however, includes a 1.5 page summary of government UFO involvement, dated October 1958. Here are some very provocative items from that history:
U.S. "Project Saucer" was completed about 1950 and it was found desireable to solicit Canadian reports. As the 220th meeting of the JIC (Join Intelligence Committee) on the 12, April 1950, UFOs were discussed and the following decisions were reached.
A tabular record of reports of sightings dating back to 1954... is kept in this office and is classified SECRET. The last entry is a sighting of 8th June 1956. A file is also kept here which contains a multitude of press articles, sightings,etc. DRB file 3800-10-1-1 (3 vols.) contains a large number of sighting reports dating back to 1947. The last report in the DAI files was dated July 1958. DAI did not appear to be aware of the earlier policy as explained in paragraphs 2 and 3 above.
I naturally filed an Access to Information request for the specific items noted. The response, which was prompt, was also very disappointing since it stated that copies of all these items had all been destroyed. From my own background of 14 years work with classified documents I simply do NOT believe that these were the only copies but have no way of establishing where the others are, though I am still working on it.
I located some of the indiciduals listed as attending the meeting. A couple of people responded that so far as they were concerned the information was still covered by the Official Secrets act and refused to say any more. I did manage to locate and meet with Dr. Omand Solandt who was the first Chairman of the DRB and sort of the Vannevar Bush of Canada... though much younger. He recalled Wilbert Smith, but denied knowing that there was really a huge US coverup. He serves still on many committees and keeps very busy in retirement. He was not interested in getting back into the UFO controversy.
The National Research Council has had an important and unusual involvment in UFOs since the mid 1960s after Smith's death. On the one hand it has been the official collection agency for the public reports and had received thousands from the military, the police, and the general public. However, it unlike the US Project Blue Book, has had very low public profile and does practically no investigations on its own. Each report is given a number and filed chronologically on file cards maintained in a small office. One can view the files, usually by appointment, but cannot make copies though notes can be taken. Since about 5 years ago thanks ot the efforts of Mr. X and some effort on my part the early files were transferred to the Public Archives and put on microfilm. Each year the 100-200 cases received the previous year are added to the Archives collection where they can be viewed and hard copies made. These are crying out for investigation. Essentially the only effort made by the NRC is to subdivide into "meteor" and "non-meteor" categories. The NRC is interested in the meteor reports and follows up on them in the interest of science. They do nothing about the non-meteors which are, of course, of far more interest to ufologists. There is no cross filing by geography, type of report, whether radar is involved or a landing occured etc. Two NRC people, Dr. Peter Millman an astronomer and Dr. MacNamara have made public anti-UFO statements. There are no classified sightings in the NRC files though it is clear that the Canadian side of the North American Air Defence Command does make radar observations and does report to HQ NORAD per the terms of JANAP-146 and its successor regualtions. There are still in place regulations for military and civilian pilots to make reports of unknown aerial objects, unknown missiles, unknown aircraft, etc.
My first contact with Canadian ufology was way back in 1968 when William K. Allan a teacher of physics in Calgary had the courage to bring me in to speak at the Jubilee Auditorium. Bill kept me busy with the media and we had a crowd of 1200 paying attendees. The profit went to help Bill's group "UFO Anonymous" put out an excellent LP record which included both sounds of UFOs and interviews with witnesses including commercial pilots. Bill is retired and living in Kelowna, BC. and has done a great deal through the media to make the study of UFOs respectable.
John Musgrave had the courage to apply for and accept a grant from the Canada Council to study UFO abductions and toured all over North America in his quest. I was very disappointed in his final report (Ref. 6) and never could understand why it was so negative and in places inaccurate until April, 1987 when John was involved in the CBC TV "Man Alive" program "The ET Connection". The program which set new standards for careful advance research thanks to Director-Producer David Cherniak, focused on abductions. It turns out John may himself have had an abduction experience when young and seems to be fighting dealing with it at all trying to pass it and other abduction experiences off as dreams. Apparently if he admits that other actual abductions have occured, he would have to face up to his own which apparently is too difficult.. sort of a classic case of denial. John heads a small group in Edmonton, Alberta.
Arthur Bray of Ottawa, has published two books on UFOs, is an ex Navy Officer and has managed to obtain a portion of the files of Wilbert Smith. Because of his input at the Toronto MUFON Conference in 1982, I was put on to Dr. Robert Sarbacher whom I was able to locate in Florida and to visit. Sarbacher was a quite remarkable scientist who served on a number of wartime and post war research committees and was the source of some of Smith's comments about UFOs as quoted above according to Smith's handwritten notes after the meeting. Sarbacher was a boy genius according to a Saturday Evening Post article and made major contributions to the technical side of winning World War 2... I don't know why Arthur hadn't looked for him. His yacht in Palm Beach, Florida, was quite impressive and he was in the phone book as well as in various professional directories.
Still active in Canada are people such a Chris Rutkowski of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and employed by the University of Manitoba. Chris publishes "The Swamp Gas Journal" and has compiled an extensive computerized file of hundreds of Manitoba UFO sightings. He has been involved in various research projects concerned with observations from satellites. Gener Duplantier of Toronto has been a long time distributor of UFO publications. Henry Magor of British Columbia published a Canadian UFO report for several years and has written at least one book. David Haisell of the Toronto area has also written a book and was an active investigator for several years. There are still active UFO groups in Toronto and Waterloo and Stratford all in Ontario. Dr. Don Donderi is a Professor of Psychology at prestigious McGill University in Montreal and was very active in UFO Quebec as well as courageous enough to introduce me at 2 of my overflow McGill lectures.
