Updated 8/18/21

According to a report published to Canada's Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS), two separate aircraft, one military and one civilian, "reported seeing a bright green flying object" at 1:55 a.m. UTC on July 30th, 2021.

The sighting occurred over the Atlantic, somewhere between Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

At that time, the Gander Area Control Center in Newfoundland reported that a Canadian Department of National Defence flight (CFC4003), headed from Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario to the Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany, and a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Airbus A330-300 (KLM618), flying from Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands, "reported seeing a bright green flying object" that "flew into a cloud, then disappeared."

In the CADORS report, the object seen was classified as a "weather balloon, meteor, rocket, [or] CIRVIS/UFO."

CIRVIS stands for Communications Instructions Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings and, according to the United States Air Force, is generally used to refer to "all unidentifiable, suspicious, or hostile land, air, or seaborne traffic which—because of its nature, course, or actions—must be considered a threat to the security of the US or Canada."

Aerospace researcher Steffan Watkins took an interest in the case, noting on Twitter that the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) flight, CFC4003, “had just made a change in course and had climbed 1000ft when they reported seeing the UFO,” while the commercial flight, KLM618, “made no change in course.”

While the CADORS report lists the event as happening at 1:55 a.m. UTC on July 30th, the flight data provided by Watkins is dated July 31st. That discrepancy is currently unexplained, although simple human error is a possibility. Regardless, it seems likelier that the event took place on the 31st, since flight path data for the 30th doesn't show KLM618 in the area on that date.

⚠️ 2021-07-31 01:55Z ⚠️

🇨🇦 RCAF CC-177 177705 #CFC4003 (49.059, -60.787) @ 28k ft, had just made a change in course and had climbed 1000ft when they reported seeing the UFO.

PH-AKD #KL618 #KLM618 (48.023, -59.422) 39,000ft made no change in course.https://t.co/Uy55wagM3L pic.twitter.com/Mn6mOGFMgz
— Steffan Watkins 📡✈️ (@steffanwatkins) August 12, 2021

Watkins wondered if the RCAF pilot had "changed course to avoid [the UFO], changed course to see what it was, or if the swerve-like course correction was completely routine and just a coincidence."

Also noted by Watkins, and several commenters on the thread, was the presence of the Perseid meteor shower, which peaked around August 11th but began in late June.

This led to speculation that perhaps a bolide meteor was to blame for the sighting.

Bolide meteors are extremely bright bits of exploding space debris that burn up in Earth's atmosphere, and are often held responsible for sightings of fireballs and various UFOs.

Few other details are available for the sighting, and while CADORS has recorded many UFO sightings reported by aircraft personnel, the Canadian Department of National Defence does not officially track reports or collect information on UFOs.

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