Eyes Like Saucers

In 1950, Wilbert Smith, an electrical engineer with the Canadian Department of Transport, began work on a study called Project Magnet. His research examined the potential for the earth’s magnetic fields to be used for vehicle propulsion. On the surface, it was a legitimate undertaking that fit into the department’s mandate. But what Smith didn’t communicate explicitly to his superiors was that his prime motivation was to determine how flying saucers travelled. By virtue of its sponsors, Project Magnet was Canada’s first official investigation of the UFO phenomenon.

This obscure episode is the main launch point for Matthew Hayes’s Search for the Unknown: Canada’s UFO Files and the Rise of Conspiracy Theory, an erudite and well-researched account of government inquiries into unidentified flying objects from the 1950s to the 1990s. In diving into a little-known history, Hayes...