A leading UFO conference is landing in Canada this summer. Featuring a keynote presentation from a former Pentagon insider, the conference aims to promote government transparency and the scientific study of what’s also known as “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or “UAP” for short. The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies’ conference comes as the Trump administration continues its rolling release of decades of official UFO videos, images and reports.
“There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve seen in the past that was not included,” former Pentagon official Christopher Mellon told CTVNews.ca. “I hope it will be. Some of it was kind of dramatic.”
Mellon spent nearly 20 years in the U.S. intelligence community. Inspired by testimonies and video evidence from U.S. military personnel, he has become a leading advocate for UFO transparency and disclosure since leaving government.
“One of my favourite videos they might not ever release because of the source – I’m hoping that’s not the case,” Mellon said from Washington, D.C. “I’ve always believed that there’s a great deal more we can do and share with the scientific community and the public to help people understand what’s going on and to facilitate analysis of these objects and what they are.”
Promoting scientific study
Held in Canada for the first time, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies’ (SCU) seventh annual conference will take place in Toronto between July 24 and 26, with Mellon delivering a keynote address on the first night. Founded in 2017, the SCU is a non-profit group dedicated to applying an academic lens to this seemingly strange subject.
SCU members include an international assortment of scientists who have worked for prominent universities, technology and defence firms, as well as NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. At the conference, the UFO phenomena will be dissected from the perspective of physics, aerospace engineering and even philosophy and anthropology. Mellon shares top billing with former U.S. air force scientist Randy Bostick, who previously advised the Pentagon’s UFO research office.
According to SCU founding board member Robert Powell, the group has also briefed two curious Canadian members of Parliament.
“Credible, trained observers operating sophisticated instruments have repeatedly recorded phenomena that don’t match known aircraft, natural phenomena, or sensor artifacts,” Powell, a Texas-based engineer, told CTVNews.ca.
“Ignoring data and information is not science, nor is drawing conclusions about data before careful evaluation,” he added.
U.S. begins releasing UFO documents
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration says people can draw their own conclusions about the UFO files it began making public just over a month ago.
In February, Trump directed federal departments and agencies to release government documents on extraterrestrial life and UFOs. The first three batches of records came on May 8, May 22 and June 12. They include photos, videos and redacted reports of mysterious lights, orbs, discs and other objects from witnesses like NASA astronauts, federal law enforcement agents and U.S. military personnel.
“This is an unprecedented, historic undertaking that requires co-ordination between dozens of agencies and the review of tens of millions of records, many existing only on paper, spanning many decades,” the U.S. Department of War said in an online statement. “Given the scope of this task, the Department of War will be releasing new materials on a rolling basis as they are discovered and declassified, with tranches posted every few weeks.”
You can peruse the files yourself at www.war.gov/UFO.
A ‘good start,’ but…
Mellon calls the releases “a good start” but says the most compelling official evidence he has encountered remains unreleased. As an example, he describes an “emotional video” featuring an “upset” military pilot who had a “very close call” with an unidentified object.
“He had a near-collision with it, it went right between two F-18s at high speed, and so you hear the pilot cursing and saying ‘What the hell is that?’ as it whips by his window – and if you slow it down and you can see this thing a little bit as it’s going by,” Mellon recalled.
“There’s another one that I hope might be declassified at some point, which I think is quite clear and more difficult for skeptics and debunkers to find an explanation for, but that one is quite highly classified.”
Mellon was previously a U.S. Senate intelligence committee staff director before serving as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He often cites security clearance rules as a barrier for sharing more detailed information.
While the SCU advocates for transparency and the serious study of UFOs, Mellon acknowledges that important government and military data often remain concealed from the public and science community due to national security considerations such as classified sensor systems.
“National security organizations typically want to share as little as possible with the public, because obviously whatever they share with the public is also shared with our adversaries,” Mellon explained. “They have some valid concerns, but there’s a great deal more that can be released than has been.”
Officials in U.S., France and Canada take notice
In recent years, the UFO topic has moved from the realm of science fiction to an officially acknowledged mystery. In the U.S., UFOs have been the subject of congressional hearings, government reports, a NASA study and even the creation of Pentagon research efforts like the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Formal UFO research offices also exist in countries France, which has investigating cases since 1977 under the umbrella of its national space agency.
While similar efforts are not known to currently exist in Canada, the federal government’s top scientific adviser has called for the creation of a new federal body to standardize, collect and study UAP reports, which have been filed by Canadian witnesses such as professional aviators, police officers, soldiers and civilians.
At the SCU conference in Toronto, Canada’s role in UAP research will be discussed by Winnipeg-based ufologist and science writer Chris Rutkowski, who has helped catalogue more than 26,000 Canadian UFO sightings since 1989.
“The SCU conference is very different from other UFO and UAP conferences as it is focused more on applied science rather than experiences and the belief of witnesses,” Rutkowski told CTVNews.ca. “The UFO topic is worthy of scientific study because if there is no physical explanation for sightings and reports, there is at least a psychological or sociological component, and in any of those cases, scientific methodology is needed to understand the phenomenon.”
With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
More on this topic from Daniel Otis:
- More than 1,000 UFOs reported over Canada in 2025
- Canada’s top scientist releases new UFO report, here’s what you need to know
- Pilots describe ‘bizarre’ lights and ‘triangles’ over Canada in air traffic control audio
CTVNews.ca journalist Daniel Otis has been investigating Canadian UFO cases and files since 2021. You can share your interesting documents or observation with him at Daniel.Otis@bellmedia.ca.
