UFO sightings in Canada neared a record high last year, while Manitoba reported its third-highest number of cases ever in the province.

According to a report released Tuesday by Ufology Research, which has studied unidentified flying objects in this country since 1989, there were 986 sightings across the country in 2011 — or almost three per day. The national record for a single year is 1,004 sightings, set in 2008.

Ontario led the country in sightings, with 406. B.C. and Alberta placed a distant second and third.

"Ontario is getting more of the share of the UFO reports every year. There used to be an emphasis on the west, in some of our earlier reports," Chris Rutkowski, the national Ufology group’s research director, said in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

"But now it seems to be distributed a little better."

Manitoba reported 81 UFO sightings, 18 of which occurred in Winnipeg.

In Manitoba, said Rutkowski, "we didn’t have any that made us scratch our heads," though he cited at least one interesting report from last Dec. 12 about 3:30 p.m., south of Winnipeg.

"Somebody had seen a grey, shiny, disk-shaped object flying below the clouds, in a hanging motion, near Morris," he said.

"There was no estimate of the size. It was hanging below the clouds and was seen for about a minute and a half, before it just disappeared."

More compelling sightings last year came in Eastern Canada. In St. Catharines, Ont., in early February, a man reported seeing a beige object — the size and shape of a grapefruit — circling high around a hydro pole before it stopped and then flew toward him, missing him by about two metres, before he lost sight of it.

And in late March, Quebec’s Eastern Townships saw a report of a more bizarre experience.

"A couple seems to have seen some sort of glowing, luminous creatures," Rutkowski said.

"They don’t want their names to go public, and don’t want to talk to investigators right now.

"The trouble is that they’re completely anonymous. I haven’t spoken with them. So we have to call it insufficient or pending right now."

Manitoba’s 81 reports is a drop from 88 in 2010.

More than half of all the UFO sightings in Canada last year were of simple lights in the sky, the study notes. Witnesses also reported point sources of light, spheres and boomerangs. But about 11% of all the reports couldn’t be explained.

“Results of this study show many people continue to report unusual objects in the sky, and some of these objects do not have obvious explanations. Many witnesses are pilots, police and other individuals with reasonably good observing capabilities and good judgement,” the study notes.

“Popular opinion to the contrary, there is no incontrovertible evidence that some UFO cases involve extraterrestrial contact.”

The study suggests further examination of the UFO phenomenon should be studies by social, medical and/or physical scientists.