Ep 30 – The truth is out there – Media Watch

ROSS COULTHART: You are saying to the human race for the first time ‘we are not alone’? 

DAVID GRUSCH: We’re definitely not alone…

ROSS COULTHART: We have spacecraft from another species? 

DAVID GRUSCH: We do, yeah.

ROSS COULTHART: We’re talking about the biggest secret in human history. 

– We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaks, NewsNation, 11 June, 2023

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

And that was Seven’s Ross Coulthart in a 40-minute special on America’s NewsNation cable channel back in June.

Coulthart was presenting a world exclusive TV interview with David Grusch, the US military whistleblower who told Congress in July that a top-secret US government program had recovered alien spacecraft and bodies. 

And here is Coulthart again in a 7News special recorded before Grusch gave his evidence: 

ROSS COULTHART: … there has been a massive, long cover-up, lasting 80 plus years, inside the American government. There has been a concealment of retrieval of non-human spacecraft. There’s been a concealment of the existence of multiple species of non-human intelligence to this planet. Incredible as it may seem, the United States government are in possession not only of non-human technology, craft and other technology, they’re also in possession of alien bodies. 

– David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells: Ross Coulthart reveals the inside story, 7News Australia/YouTube, 26 July, 2023

Coulthart is a one-time Gold Walkley winner with a distinguished career on Four Corners and 60 Minutes. 

So how could a journalist with his credentials be convinced by Grusch’s extraordinary claims, and by his assertion that others have been murdered to stop the secret getting out? 

ROSS COULTHART: Yes, it’s confronting. It’s an extraordinary allegation. I, too, have had a lot of trouble believing it. When I heard the things that Dave Grusch told me I was shocked. And, yes, in some cases I was scared. I still am.  

– David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells: Ross Coulthart reveals the inside story, 7News Australia/YouTube, 26 July, 2023

Coulthart’s 7News report on YouTube has racked up 1.8 million views and thousands of comments, like this:

This is the best piece of news reporting that I’ve ever seen.

Ross Coulthart is a hero to me.

Ross is the greatest journalist of all time!

– David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells: Ross Coulthart reveals the inside story, 7News Australia/YouTube, 26 July, 2023

So, how has David Grusch got the world’s best reporter to believe? 

Grusch is a former US intelligence officer who was on a Pentagon UFO task force, and did have high security clearance. 

But he has produced no documents, no photos, no spacecraft and no bodies to prove his claims. 

And when asked for detail Grusch says the UFO program is so secret that even Congress can’t be told:

ERIC BURLISON: Have you seen the spacecraft?  

DAVID GRUSCH: I have to be careful to describe what I’ve seen, first hand and not, in this environment, but I could answer that question behind closed doors, yeah.

ERIC BURLISON: Have you seen any of the bodies?

DAVID GRUSCH: That’s something I’ve not witnessed myself. 

– House Oversight Committee, C-SPAN, 26 July, 2023

David Grusch did not produce evidence to Ross Coulthart in his TV interview either. 

And as science writer Mick West — and others — have pointed out, none of the whistleblower’s claims are first hand:

MICK WEST: … other people have told him things and he’s trusting these other people. We need to get to those other people. Who are the people who are telling him things, what did they tell him, where are the alien bodies, where are the alien craft? 

– Cuomo, NewsNation. 21 July, 2023

So if no hard evidence has been provided, what is fuelling the believers? 

First is that, while NASA and the Department of Defense have issued clear denials about secret UFO retrievals and alien contact, the White House has been reluctant to do so:

JEREMY: Does such a program exist and do you believe that the American people deserve to know if it does?

JOHN KIRBY: I have no information on that to provide for you today one way or the other. 

– Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, The White House/YouTube, 26 July, 2023

Second, is that the US government recently admitted that some UFOs or UAPs — Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena — as seen in these videos from US navy pilots, are sightings that can’t be explained and the Pentagon is taking them seriously.  

But can we therefore conclude that the objects are alien spaceships?

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says the answer is no:

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: … If we’ve been visited by aliens, why did they only visit government agencies? Why, why, really, really!? Do you realise a million people are airborne at any given moment, because, on jetliners. And there’s six billion smartphones in the world. If there was an alien invasion I think it would be nicely crowdsourced, with high definition, high resolution images and video of that happening.

– This World, WION, 2 July, 2023

And some in Congress, on the committee that interviewed Grusch, are equally sceptical: 

ERIC BURLISON: The concept that an alien species that’s technologically advanced enough to travel billions of light years gets here and somehow is incompetent enough to not survive Earth, or crashes, is something that I find a little bit, far-fetched. 

– House Oversight Committee, C-SPAN, 26 July, 2023

Even more far-fetched is David Grusch’s response that aliens may not need to cross the galaxy — and the Milky Way is a mere 100,000 light years across — because they may be in another dimension and have been here all the time.

And stretching credulity further is Grusch’s claim to Coulthart that a UFO which crashed in Italy in 1933 was shipped in secret to the US after the war, with help from Pope Pius 12th:

ROSS COULTHART: So, the Vatican was involved? 

DAVID GRUSCH: Yeah, and told the Americans what the Italians had and we ended up scooping it. 

ROSS COULTHART: Let’s be very clear about this. You’re saying that the Catholic Church, the Vatican, they know about the existence of non-human intelligence on this planet.

DAVID GRUSCH: Certainly. 

– We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaks, NewsNation, 11 June, 2023

And Grusch’s evidence for that? As usual, nothing that he can show.  

But once again, Coulthart has indicated that he believes the story, telling NewsNation: 

ROSS COULTHART: If Mr Grusch is telling the truth and I’m told he is, it’s a difficult thing for the Vatican to admit without the US concurring.

– Banfield, NewsNation, 2 August, 2023

Coulthart is now the media’s go-to man on UFOs. 

He has written a book called In Plain Sight and he also hosts a popular podcast called Need to Know, with an American UFO truther called Bryce Zabel.

Both have brought him worldwide fame. And earlier this year he told his podcast listeners:

ROSS COULTHART: I’ve never, ever in my career in journalism have had a response such as what we’re having at the moment. Every morning for the last week, I’ve been waking up to hundreds of new emails, literally in some cases thousands of new messages.

– 99 Chinese Balloons?, Need to Know/YouTube, 15 February, 2023

Coulthart says he started out a sceptic about alien visitors, as any journalist should. 

But it’s clear he’s now a passionate convert. And he says he doesn’t care if we don’t share his faith:

ROSS COULTHART: I don’t care if people say this is crazy. I don’t care if people laugh or ridicule it, because I know from the sources that I’ve spoken to, this story will eventually come out. 

– David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells: Ross Coulthart reveals the inside story, 7News Australia/YouTube, 26 July, 2023

We asked Ross Coulthart why he believes that aliens have visited Earth, and that spacecraft and bodies have been recovered. We also asked him if he has lost his journalistic objectivity.  

In a detailed response he said it was ‘totally false’ to say there is no evidence to support Grusch’s claims:

What I am doing as a journalist is investigating those allegations and I have verified them …

… there is first-hand evidence, and it has been presented under oath to the Intelligence Community Inspector General in private hearings.

… my belief is irrelevant.

– Email, Ross Coulthart, journalist, 26 August, 2023

So what is that first-hand evidence ?

Well, it seems it’s on a need to know basis. In other words, it can’t be revealed because it’s all classified.

He also said the mainstream media have failed us on this story. 

So, has Coulthart gone crazy? Or is he a visionary? You be the judge.