Ross Coulthart

Ross Coulthart is an Australian investigative journalist and author who has devoted extensive attention to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). He is an award-winning reporter who previously worked as an investigative journalist on 60 Minutes for the Nine Network and as chief investigations reporter on the Sunday Night programme, accumulating five Walkley journalism awards, including the Gold Walkley — Australia’s most prestigious journalism honour.¹ Over a career spanning decades, Coulthart has argued that official stigma has long suppressed serious reporting of the UAP subject,² and he has described significant recent shifts in official posture, including the US Department of Defense’s 2020-04 acknowledgement that videos filmed by its fighter pilots of unidentified objects are genuine,³ and the 2017-12 revelation by The New York Times of a secret Pentagon unit investigating UAPs.⁴ He has also reported that a UAP task force operated covertly inside the Pentagon for a number of years.⁵

Coulthart rose to wider public prominence through a year-long investigation documented both on camera and in print.⁶ A central focus of this work was the Harold Holt Naval Communications Station at Northwest Cape near Exmouth, which he described as one of the most remote and secret military facilities in Australia, tasked with communicating with US nuclear submarines during the Cold War.⁷ He noted the station sits approximately five kilometres from the town of Exmouth.⁸ During preliminary research visits to Exmouth, Coulthart reported that local residents approached him spontaneously at dinner to describe UAP sightings in the surrounding area.¹² When Channel 7 Australia attempted to film in the vicinity of the base, the crew was expelled by the Defence Department and obliged to withdraw to a position approximately ten kilometres distant.¹³

A significant portion of Coulthart’s Australian investigation concerned the Exmouth Annie Farinaccio Sighting and its aftermath. He reported that two Australian Federal Police officers who had witnessed the event alongside Annie Farinaccio were subsequently cross-examined by American personnel at the base.⁹ Coulthart stated he had access to multiple witnesses and expressed no doubt that a secret American investigation into the sighting had taken place.¹⁰ He characterised the UAP observed by Farinaccio as hovering and then exhibiting instantaneous velocity consistent with hypersonic flight, without a sonic boom or any audible noise.¹⁴ He also reported having examined Australian Defence Department UAP sighting reports held in the National Archives relating to the Northwest Cape area,¹¹ and stated that the Australian government holds thousands of UAP sighting reports spanning decades, many formerly classified as secret or top secret.¹⁵ He further claimed knowledge of a highly classified UAP report not present in the National Archives, which he described as perhaps Australia’s greatest UAP mystery.¹⁶

Coulthart also investigated the Westall UFO Sighting of April 1966, expressing the opinion that no official investigation had ever been conducted in Australia into the event and that a Westall Government Cover-Up had occurred.¹⁷ He stated his belief that a report on the incident prepared by the Department of Supply Australia exists but has been deliberately suppressed.¹⁸ He interviewed witnesses including Joy Clarke on site at Westall High School on 2019-11-16,²⁷ and worked with Andrew Greenwood, confirming that a US representative — identified as Professor James MacDonald — had been sent to interview Greenwood following the sighting.²⁶ In his broader research into Australian archives, Coulthart found no government documents relating to the Westall incident despite strenuous efforts by multiple researchers.

Beyond Australia, Coulthart reported that multiple senior US defence and intelligence sources — including former and serving officials — had told him that America had recovered what they described as extraterrestrial technology, including spacecraft, from locations in New Mexico, Nevada, or Utah.¹⁹ These sources also mentioned the recovery of non-human biological remains.¹⁹ He and his team visited the site of the alleged Aztec New Mexico UAP Crash, conducting drone photography at a mesa near Aztec, New Mexico, where Christa Caldwell’s family folklore identified a point of impact.²⁴ Coulthart additionally reported that the FBI informed him during research for his book that there are approximately 10,000 unsolved US Cattle Mutilation Cases across the United States.²⁰ In 2023, Coulthart conducted an exclusive interview with whistleblower David Grusch for NewsNation, following Grusch’s testimony to Congress regarding alleged Non-Human Craft Recovery Programs.²⁸ Coulthart announced the publication of his book In Plain Sight during the course of this investigative period,²¹ and has been described by former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo as a phenomenal investigative journalist and author.