Overview
On World UFO Day, a claim that Sherbrooke leads Canada in UFO sightings per capita drew immediate pushback from one of the country’s longest-running UFO researchers. The assertion, circulated July 2 by odds analytics firm Canada Sports Betting in its Alien Abduction Odds Index 2026, said Sherbrooke logged 52 UFO sightings between 2020 and 2024, placing it first among Canadian cities and roughly 3.5 times higher than Toronto on a per-person basis.
But Chris Rutkowski, research coordinator of the Canadian UFO Survey, said the ranking is “probably not true.” Rutkowski, who has tracked sightings across Canada since 1989, told The Pulse that his database paints a very different picture of where and how often Canadians report unexplained objects in the sky. “We actually keep track of UFO reports in Canada quite well,” he said, adding that he did not know where the Sherbrooke figure came from.
Why the ranking is being challenged
Rutkowski said the claim appears inconsistent with the broader reporting patterns he has observed over more than three decades. In Canada, sightings generally follow population: larger urban regions tend to generate more reports overall simply because more people are watching the sky. That means the Montreal area typically produces more cases than Sherbrooke in raw numbers.
Even when adjusted for population, Rutkowski said other regions still appear to outperform Sherbrooke. He pointed to Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton in particular, as places where smaller populations can yield a higher per-capita rate of sightings. He also questioned similar claims that British Columbia leads the country in UFO reports, saying that conclusion does not align with the survey’s data.
A live check of his database during the interview found 92 Sherbrooke cases over the past 35 years, compared with 11 in Thetford Mines over the same period. That translates to fewer than three Sherbrooke reports per year on average, a figure that stands in sharp contrast to the 52 sightings in five years cited by CSB. The firm’s methodology notes, Rutkowski said, indicate its Canadian figures were derived from Canadian UFO Survey publications rather than independently collected.
A debate over dates, data and definitions
The dispute also comes as observers continue to disagree over what date should mark World UFO Day. Rutkowski said most researchers consider June 24 the more meaningful date, because it corresponds to the first official flying-saucer report in 1947. By contrast, July 2 is commonly tied to the Roswell, New Mexico incident, though he noted there is no definitive proof of that date. “They just sort of say, let’s call it July 2nd,” he said.
Beyond the ranking debate, Rutkowski said the character of UFO reports has changed dramatically. The familiar flying saucer of mid-century lore has largely disappeared from modern case files. Today, he said, most reports involve simple spheres or balls of light that could just as easily be explained as aircraft, satellites or other conventional objects. Reports of structured craft, he added, are now “very, very few and far between.”
For Quebec, however, the province remains a significant source of reports nationally. Rutkowski said Quebec accounts for nearly 19 per cent of the roughly 5,000 cases on file in the Canadian UFO Survey over the past 35 years. But while that makes the province a major contributor to the national tally, he said it does not support the specific claim that Sherbrooke is Canada’s per-capita UFO capital.
