Nat Kobitz

Nat Kobitz was the former Director of Science and Technology Development for the US Navy Science and Technology Development, a position he held for nearly 30 years before departing in 1994.³ Described by journalist Ross Coulthart as one of the most senior Department of Defense (DoD) insiders ever to make public claims about retrieved alien technology,² Kobitz had a distinguished career that included work on the launch vehicle air frame for the Gemini space programme and numerous Navy surface ship and submarine projects.⁴ He was also involved in developing the Sea Scout UAV Program, an unmanned aerial vehicle project whose prototype was lost after straying into a White House security jamming zone near a presidential family wedding in Texas.⁵

In early 2020, Kobitz contacted Coulthart by telephone from his home in Maryland Baltimore, following receipt of a letter from the journalist.⁷ During subsequent conversations, Kobitz confirmed that he had attended a meeting at the Pentagon in July 1993 with CIA-linked private investigator Gordon Novel and his son Sur Novel.⁶ Gordon Novel had written an account of that meeting claiming that Kobitz — referred to under the pseudonym “Wally Katz” — admitted knowledge of alien reproduction vehicles reverse-engineered from recovered extraterrestrial craft.⁷ Sur Novel separately confirmed to Coulthart that he had witnessed the meeting and seen his father present Kobitz with a detailed drawing of the ARV Fluxliner, a craft design attributed to artist Mark McCandlish.⁸ Sur Novel recalled Kobitz’s immediate reaction as “what are you doing with this” — a response he characterised as neither dismissive nor alarmed.¹⁰ Kobitz himself told Coulthart that upon being shown the ARV Fluxliner graphic he said: “Okay, I’ve seen that before… And my conclusion is that it’s a hoax."⁹

When Coulthart asked Kobitz directly whether he had ever been read into any programmes involving crashed UFOs or UAPs, Kobitz replied: “Yes, I was. I was never read out of it. So, I really don’t think it would help but I really can’t speak about it."¹¹ On the question of recovered alien spacecraft, Kobitz said “I only have hearsay information” and declined to confirm or deny the matter directly.¹² He nonetheless stated that what he had heard was “That we had recovered, several times, alien spacecraft. Or what was thought to be,"¹³ and when pressed on whether the United States had been attempting to develop recovered alien technology, he responded: “Yes, I can say that’s so."¹⁴ Kobitz also reacted dismissively to the official Project MOGUL explanation for the 1947 Roswell UAP Crash, remarking that “More than one person reported that it was not soft material. It was hard metal pieces."¹⁵

Kobitz acknowledged that the US Navy had conducted research into anti-gravity propulsion, though he characterised his own involvement as relatively unremarkable, describing it as “a propulsion system, very low energy ion propulsion."¹⁶ He stated his view that the United States had not succeeded in replicating the principle of anti-gravity despite years of classified research.¹⁷ He also made separate inquiries regarding Navy scientist Salvatore Pais and reported that neither he nor his colleagues were aware of any working prototypes of Pais’s patents within the Navy.²²

After leaving the Navy in 1994, Kobitz established NKA Science, a private consultancy specialising in advanced manufacturing technology with a particular focus on electron beam welding.¹⁸ During this period he was invited to Wright Patterson Air Force Base to examine metal fragments held under high security as part of what became known as the Kobitz Wright-Patterson Metal Examination.¹⁹ He described examining a piece of material approximately 0.9 by 1.2 metres, reported to him as a titanium alloy unknown to the US Air Force, which displayed a bulkhead-to-skin bond with no visible join — appearing as if the surfaces had been cast as a single integral unit.²⁰ In his expert opinion, no known industrial process could account for the bond he observed on what has been termed the Wright Patterson Foreign Technology Metal Fragment.²¹ Nat Kobitz died on 2020-04-05, shortly after his conversations with Coulthart were recorded.²³