Unidentified Lights in the Sky is a Canadian Phenomena Too: Student Students Shares UFO Research
Trent Ph.D. candidate’s research on Canada’s investigation of UFOs featured on CBC Radio May 11
What’s that in the sky? Trent Ph.D. candidate Matthew Hayes has a few ideas and he’s sharing those thoughts with the world. His dissertation on the history of Canada’s investigation into UFO sightings will be featured May 11 at 9:00 p.m., on CBC Radio’s Ideas program hosted by Paul Kennedy.
The Canadian Studies graduate student says his “a mild interest” in the subject ramped up considerably when he came across an online exhibition called Canada’s UFO which the National Archives presented in 2000.
“I didn’t realize that Canada had its own (UFO) investigation at all…it just kind of snowballed from there,”
says Mr. Hayes, whose study has included a review of some 15,000 pages of documentation compiled from 1950 to 1995.
“Beyond providing a straight history of what happened and what the documents say, I’m looking at it in terms of how science was done by the Canadian government in the early post-war period. I’m interested in how scientific objects, things that scientists study, actually come into being and become things that they can study,” he explains. “On one hand, it’s kind of boring because it’s so bureaucratic and there is a lot of government speak in the documents but on the other hand it’s surprising how consistent the whole thing is over this 45-year period. People are still seeing the same thing over and over again. That makes you question even more acutely why the government didn’t take this seriously when there’s such continuity and such interest.”
Talking about the opportunity to examine UFOs in academia, Mr. Hayes, who also holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Trent, says:
“The Canadian Studies program at Trent seemed really open to a variety of ideas and new things, so I thought I’d give it a shot and it worked out. The program is so appealing because it’s really interdisciplinary, it’s flexible. I felt it was open to new things, unconventional things, which my project is. Nobody has thought it was weird or odd or not worthy of support.”
Learn more about the Canadian Studies program in Trent’s reputable School for the Study of Canada.