Fonds 30-003 - Arthur Bray fonds

Arthur Bray, who was born in Ottawa and graduated from Lisgar Collegiate, began his flying career as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, later transferring to the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. He was serving as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1947 when there were frequent reports of Flying Saucers, later to become known as Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. He became curious about these reports, wondering what strange things may be flying about the same sky he was. The more he read, the more interested he became, and the study became his hobby, and, eventually, an avocation. This study inevitably resulted in the accumulation of a large collection of research material over the period to 1993. He completed his first book, Science, the Public and the UFO, (Bray Book Service, Ottawa) in 1967. It was written, after twenty years of research, as a challenge to the U.S. Air Force.
He frequently appeared on radio and TV, was a guest speaker at many meetings of clubs and associations, including, on occasion, sharing the podium with noted scientists. He also presented papers to international UFO conferences and taught a course on Ufology at Algonquin College in Ottawa. Articles about Bray and his work appeared in newspapers across Canada as well as in the U.S.A. In 1967 he was awarded the Centennial Medal in recognition of his service to Canada in the Navy.
In 1968, he began a lengthy correspondence with U. Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and with the UN Outer Space Affairs Division, to get the UN to set up a full-time study of UFOs. Eventually, after supporting a proposal by the Prime Minister of Grenada, the UN asked all member nations to conduct UFO investigations on a national level and report back to the UN. Bray asked Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to support this action, but nothing came of it.
Then in 1969, he presented a detailed outline of the UFO problem, in the form of a brief, to The Senate Committee on Science Policy, titled Science, Society and the UFO (The Queen’s Printer, Ottawa). In addition to numerous articles in UFO research journals and magazines, he contributed four articles to the Encyclopaedia of UFOs, (Doubleday & Co. Inc., Garden City, N.Y. 1980). In 1979, he wrote his second book, The UFO Connection, (Jupiter Publishing, Ottawa, 1979).
Bray, through his published work, gradually became recognized around the world as a thorough researcher. One of the leading UFO investigative organizations, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) based in the U.S.A., described Bray as “... one of the most respected UFO investigator - researchers in the world...”. (The APRO Bulletin, vol. 31, no. 2, January 1983).
To keep current on scientific and technical matters, he held membership in various organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The New York Academy of Sciences, the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and The Society of American Military Engineers. The Society of Technical Writers and Publishers and the academy of Independent Scholars also admitted him in membership based on his writing and research abilities.
Through a thorough and detailed study of the evidence, Bray became convinced of the reality of UFOs in that something which remains unidentified is intruding into our airspace. After thorough investigation, only about ten percent of reported sightings remain unidentified. The remaining ninety percent can be identified as man-made objects, known natural phenomenon or hoaxes. It is the ten percent that are the true UFOs, the others being IFOs (Identified Flying Objects). The answers to the questions of what these objects are and where they come from remain unknown to the world in general. Bray, however, is convinced that many governments have the answers, and these remain under top-secret wraps for whatever reasons. He, as well as other researchers, have discovered and published much proof of this secrecy.
When he retired from the Navy in 1971, Bray embarked on a second career as a manager with the Canada Safety Council, a non-government, non-profit organization. He retired from the Council in 1987 in the position of Director of Corporate Affairs. Since then, he continued researching and writing, but also in a new field, financial planning, and has two books published on that topic by the largest financial publishing house in Canada. He is now engaged on another major project of research and writing unrelated to his previous topic areas.
Bray retired from active UFO research after forty-six years of thorough study because no amount of private research had produced any final answers due to the cover-up, which continues, and he had other interests to pursue which had been set aside for many years due to his active involvement in Ufology.