ZNN PRESS ROOM: The Toronto Star Resurrects UFOs After Thirteen Years

Career Journalists are alive and still writing

Media Alert

August 16, 2026

Toronto [ZNN] — The last time the UFO/UAP subject matter made the front page of the Toronto Star’s print edition was in April 2013, in an article by Mitch Potter, then the newspaper’s Washington Bureau Chief.

Potter’s 2013 front-page article was headlined:

“UFO believers invade Washington”

Potter was covering the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. when he called ZNN News Director for an interview.

The five-day hearing featured dozens of international researchers and military witnesses who presented testimony and accounts over more than 30 hours.

THE FRONT PAGE AGAIN — 2026

In the wake of years of controversy and sporadic coverage, it took the Toronto Star another thirteen years to replicate its earlier front-page attention to the UFO/UAP phenomenon.

This time, Star staff reporter Mark Colley took charge.

It began on Friday, July 24, with a featured keynote address by Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Mellon delivered dramatic remarks during the opening dinner at the Windsor Arms Hotel.

Following Mellon’s Friday address and Saturday’s conference sessions, Toronto Star editors determined that the UFO phenomenon warranted front-page coverage in the newspaper’s Sunday, July 26 print edition.

The renewed UAP scrutiny presented at the Toronto conference, sponsored by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) and held at Toronto’s downtown Marriott, added further fuel to the flames of recent UAP disclosures and releases from the U.S. Pentagon.

The passionate global interest in UAP is clearly spreading. According to conference organizers, the gathering drew its largest crowd since the organization’s first conference in 2019. Attendees heard a barrage of facts, findings and perspectives concerning one of the most perplexing phenomena confronting humanity.

The Toronto Star headline asked:

“Are we alone? These Toronto scientists are studying UFOs — and fighting to be taken seriously.”

JOURNALISTS CONTINUE TO WRITE

Many UFO/UAP researchers, scientists, political activists and even some journalists have long maintained that the best way for a journalist to end his or her career is to write about UFOs.

Well, not so much.

Some basic research tells a very different story.

A core group of journalists — perhaps 20 to 50 worldwide — have repeatedly written seriously about UFO/UAP subjects.

A much larger group of mainstream journalists — perhaps 100 to 300 since approximately 2017 — have published at least one article treating UFOs/UAP as a legitimate subject worthy of investigation rather than as an object of ridicule or derision.

Those explicitly endorsing the extraterrestrial hypothesis in mainstream media outlets remain a much smaller group, likely fewer than 20.

Mark Colley of the Toronto Star now appears to have joined an increasingly visible group of mainstream journalists who have taken the subject seriously. That group includes Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal, Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes and Bryan Bender.

Among Canadian journalists, CBC’s Bryce Hoye and Bill Kaufman of the Calgary Herald along with CTV’s Daniel Otis, have also put pen to paper on UFO/UAP matters.

Their willingness to investigate the subject demonstrates that writing about UFOs does not necessarily end a journalist’s career.

Sometimes it begins another chapter.

UAP ENTER THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

As the UFO/UAP issue continues to broaden its reach into the public domain — politically, socially and commercially — the phenomenon has also entered popular culture.

Fast-food chains, snack brands and candy makers routinely portray aliens discovering Earth’s food or craving particular products. Even the Ontario Lottery Corporation has employed alien imagery to promote its games.

__________________________

Taking a bite of UAP sensationalism does not necessarily mean one has to swallow it.

Yet the contrast between extraterrestrials, familiar foods and lottery promotions raises a more intriguing question:

Is there a deeper sociological and psychological metaphor at work?

One need only look back into history to see how public perceptions of UFOs were addressed in the early 1950s.

FIRST THE CIA, THEN DISNEY — AND NOW LOTTERY ALIENS

The 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, officially known as the Report of the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, recommended a public-education approach intended to reduce what officials regarded as excessive public interest and sensationalism surrounding flying saucers.

In the panel’s unofficial supplement, often referred to as the Durant Report, members discussed the use of mass media and influential organizations, including the Walt Disney Corporation, as possible means of reducing the “aura of mystery” surrounding UFOs.

The stated objective was to educate the public about possible misidentifications and reduce sensationalism — not to portray extraterrestrials as real.

Nevertheless, the historical connection raises an enduring question:

First the CIA. Then Disney. And now lottery aliens.

Has the contemporary injection of the “alien” meme into corporate culture become yet another element of systemic messaging — one designed to inoculate the public consciousness in a folksy, entertaining and seemingly harmless manner?

Or is it simply commercial entertainment?

Both questions deserve examination.

WHO IS SHAPING PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS TODAY?

Three more consequential questions arise:

Who is at the helm of shaping — or twisting — public consciousness today, using methods far more sophisticated than those employed by the CIA in the 1950s or by the creators of the Walt Disney television programs that ran for decades?

Will journalists stand ready with their quills to challenge manipulation, mythology and misinformation surrounding the UAP phenomenon?

And:

When might Canadian Parliamentarians read and take seriously the Toronto Star and other Canadian journalists' account of the UAP issue?

As long as UFO writers and investigative journalists continue their efforts to expose the UAP phenomenon for what it is — and for what it may become as a political, scientific and cultural phenomenon — their quills will remain very busy.