Canada attends first-of-its-kind UFO briefing at the Pentagon

The Canadian government has confirmed its participation in a first-of-its kind international meeting on unidentified flying objects hosted at United States military headquarters.

The gathering at the Pentagon late last month comes amid a burst of activity in Washington and eye-popping news reports related to so-called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

It featured a U.S.-led briefing to visitors from nations of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The Canadian Department of National Defence told CBC News in an email that Canada attended the meeting, led by a Royal Canadian Air Force representative.

"The details of the meeting remain classified," DND said in an email. "It can be characterized as the sharing of information on the subject of UAP and no further details can be shared at this time."

The meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick — the veteran scientist in the U.S. national-defence establishment who leads the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a new entity created in 2022 to lead UAP-related activities for the U.S. military.

Kirkpatrick publicly revealed the Five Eyes gathering last week while speaking at a public conference hosted by NASA.

"I have just held our first Five Eyes forum on this subject," Kirkpatrick said.

He explained the goal of meeting allies: to co-ordinate more closely with friendly nations in pooling information on UAP sightings.

The creation of his office is part of a surge in activity following a 2017 report in The New York Times on bizarre sightings kept secret by the U.S. military.

In the wake of that report, Kirkpatrick's office was created, the U.S. government now produces an annual report on UAP sightings and Congress created a system for government whistleblowers to report sightings.

Now two of the journalists who wrote that watershed 2017 report have taken one giant leap forward — and reported extraordinary new allegations.

This week they described jaw-dropping new claims from a decorated former combat officer who served as the U.S. Department of Defense's representative to a UAP task force from 2019 to 2021.

David Grusch was quoted in their print report, and in a later televised interview, saying the United States has in its possession aircraft of non-human origin.