The truth is out there.

For at least 78 people in Toronto, the truth was also flying right in front of their eyes during 2015, according to the annual Canadian UFO survey.

Conducted by Winnipeg-based Ufology Research, the survey compiles reported UFO sightings across Canada each year appearing in various sources, most of them online. Each year, the group publishes those reports, assigning ratings to each based on strangeness, believability and number of witnesses.

In 2015, Toronto and the surrounding area saw 78 UFOs, ranking below only Montreal, with 97 reports. Toronto’s numbers declined this year, even though total sightings in Canada have gone up. In 2013, the city had 111 sightings, while in 2012 it had 107.

Cataloguing UFO sightings might sound like the work of true believers, but Chris Rutkowski, a science writer and one of the researchers at Ufology research, said the group is only probing for the truth.

“There’s a lot of speculation and sensational information that’s all over the Internet regarding UFOs, but we were concerned that there’s not enough good data in the sense of what is really being seen by people,” Rutkowski said.

What people see, it turns out, can vary wildly. The group takes in all reports, even those of people claiming to be alien hybrids — one reporter in Hamilton claimed to be one of them stranded on Earth, using electromagnetic waves to keep hidden.

The reports are ranked on believability, taking together the number of witnesses, photographic evidence and sometimes interviews with the witnesses.

Rutkowski acknowledged that only about 10 to 12 per cent of sightings are unexplained, and an even smaller percentage — between one and three per cent — are really high-quality unexplained UFOs. Still, with a total of 17,000 sightings since the group started tracking data in 1989, those one to three per cent add up, he said.

“Those are, for example, by pilots, where there is documentation, and we’ve had the chance to speak with the individuals and look at flight plans,” he said.

One such UFO appeared in Toronto in October, when an early-morning observer saw a golden-hued diamond floating above the city. The incident made it into the report’s list of most interesting unexplained UFO sightings.

Skeptics might be surprised to learn that Rutkowski has never seen a UFO, despite an astronomy background and a lifetime of interest in the phenomenon.

“I’ve been out several times looking … for quite a number of years, but nothing has gone by that really made me shake my head and wonder,” he said.

Rutkowski considers himself an agnostic as to whether alien life is out there, visiting us in fast-moving, but shy, saucers, but he thinks people should take UFOs seriously, even if purely as a social phenomenon.

“Whether … there’s aliens visiting us, or there’s a natural phenomenon that needs studying, or perhaps there’s military exercises that are increasing in frequency, this is a real phenomenon and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand,” he said.

Weird sights over Canadian skies

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Here is a sample of the potentially extraterrestrial sightings Canadians had in 2015:

Jan. 21, 2015 — Fort McMurray, Alta.

Spotted at 10:22 p.m. and classified as a nocturnal light, it was described by the person who reported it as “multicoloured lights flying around changing directions.” The report received a four on the believability scale, which ranges from one to nine, one having the lowest reliability. (The highest rating on any report received in 2015 was seven.)

Jan. 21, 2015 — Fredericton, NB.

Seen for about two hours, this UFO was described as a “stationary light in the sky that appears to change colours,” though it’s hard to make out in the photo. Like the sighting in Fort McMurray, it received a four on the reliability scale.

June 14, 2015 — Summerside, PEI.

The description in the survey calls this UFO only an “object in the sky,” but the photo appears to show a saucer-shaped object hovering or flying over a field. It also received a four on the believability scale.

Oct. 3, 2015 — Vernon, B.C.

This photo scores even lower on the believability scale — a three — and the entry in the database include the question “photoshopped?” It appears to show three white lights close to the ground in Vernon, B.C. The photo also appears to be second-hand, showing a computer monitor showing the photo, instead of the photo directly.

Oct. 11, 2015 — Toronto

This is one of the more believable UFO accounts, meriting a seven on the believability scale. The person who submitted the report described the UFO as a golden-hued, diamond-shaped object that changed colour, “from white to pink to green to near metallic to blue.” The event was also given an “unknown” in the survey explanation field, which means researchers couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation for the object.