UFOs: These are the 'very strange' lights and objects pilots reported over Canada in 2023

From 'very strange' to 'intense' lights, pilots with airlines like WestJet, Air France and British Airways filed more than a dozen UFO reports over Canada in 2023.

Early on Feb. 12, 2023, at least three different flights over Quebec reported "seeing very strange lights in the sky, high above the flight paths" that were "moving in a rapid and irregular way."

"It looks like it's more than one and sort of circling," a crew member aboard a cargo flight from Chicago to Luxembourg told air traffic controllers in Canada, according to audio obtained by CTVNews.ca. "It's a bit weird."

CTVNews.ca has identified at least 17 reports like these from 2023 in an online aviation incident database maintained by Transport Canada, the federal transportation department. Those reports come from across the country and involve pilots and crew with WestJet, Air France, British Airways and more. You can read all of the reports in an exclusive interactive map.

"Just to let you know there was a flight from the south… they saw the same thing roughly a half-an-hour ago," an air traffic controller told the Luxembourg-bound cargo flight on Feb. 12.

"So I guess we're not just dreaming then, huh?" the aviator said.

"No, you're not the first one tonight."

Roughly 24 hours later, air traffic controllers received another report, this time from an Edmonton to Yellowknife flight operated by Air Tindi that "reported observing a rotating light" at 30,000 feet over northern Alberta.