Is Canada the New Home for Alien Life? UFO Sightings Double in 2012

Canadians claim to have sighted nearly 2,000 Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in 2012 alone, according to the annual report from Ufology Research - an inacrease of over 100% on the previous year.

The survey documented 1,981 sightings last year, compared to 986 in 2011. It states 40% of the sightings were reported from Ontario and every province, except Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, reported seeing some form of mysterious light or object in the sky.

"It's something across the board," Chris Rutkowski, a civilian science writer and the author of the UFO survey since 1989, said, "People in Canada were actually looking up into the sky more than in previous years."

Among the many UFOs sighted, people have seen objects in various shapes and forms, including triangles, as balls of fire and disc-shaped flying saucers; the latter, predictably, was the most common form of UFO sighted.

Adam Canning, of Lake Charlotte in Nova Scotia, is one of several claiming to have seen UFOs. The 10-year-old boy, who reported a sighting with his friend, described the event as: "I could see it in the distance for about a minute and then like boom, it went really fast. I heard this, beep, beep, beep. I knew something was in the sky. I looked up and there was a big thing. Big, round, like a big hotel or something."

A majority of the sightings last year were reported to civilian organisations. Earlier this year, the Canadian government confirmed it would no longer be using federal resources to monitor or investigate UFO sightings. And Rutkowski believes this is an important reason for the inflated count for last year.

"It is very easy to report online, anonymously, without any worry about judgment or retribution, so I think it is very likely people will be reporting things more often to civilian organizations," he explained.

"Only about 7.5% of the cases last year ended up being unexplained. Oddly enough, only about 15% were completely explained, so it's really a matter of intense investigation. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before we can put reports like this into bed," he added.

UFO sightings continue to draw significant attention and debate, with a photograph, released last week by NASA, one of several in the spotlight. In NASA's image, a disc-shaped object can be seen hovering above the Earth's surface, emitting rainbow-like lights.