Ross Coulthart Q&A: Skywatcher didn't disappear, it went government (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026)

0:00 G'day and welcome to Reality Check Q&A, that time of the week where you get to ask me the hard questions. And there are some very interesting questions today. Here to help me through it, Megan Medic. G'day, Megan. How are you? Just fantastic, Ross. How about you? Very well. Thank you very much. Well, let's get started. I am very excited, even though I know what you're going to say. Our most asked question by far for the Q&A, you are going to answer it today. Let's get going. Okay. So one of the questions we get asked the most on Reality Check is, what happened to Skywatcher, the UAP investigation group founded, co-founded by Jake Barber, James Fowler and financier Alex Clocus. The last time Skywatcher posted on

1:01 Twitter X was Christmas Day last year, where it reaffirmed its commitment to applying disciplined science, advanced sensing and rigorous analysis to the UAP subject. But there's been nothing posted on the skywatcher.ai website since James Fowler left in mid-August last year to follow what he described as a new opportunity in aerial intelligence. What Alex Clocus described in the two videos they posted on their website suggested huge promise for their UAP research. Skywatcher promised that it would seek to validate the existence of UAPs by using what it calls electro-mechanical signaling, aka the dog whistle, and neuro-meditative interaction, better known as psionic summoning or inviting, of UAPs.

2:04 Most dramatically, based on observations from a base here in Sierra Blanca, southeast of El Paso, Texas, the Skywatcher team reported they'd identified nine separate classes of UAP with their sensors and video cameras. The Tetra, the Tic Tac, the Blob, the Beam, the Manta Ray, the Bright Star, the Jellyfish, the Hornet, and the Egg. Skywatcher pledged to keep the public updated about its activities, but it's a year on and there's been nothing new posted about what they've been up to. So what's really going on? This is quite a story. I understand there's been no skywatcher field operations since July last year and I've been trying to

3:07 find out why, because more were meant to be happening. Multiple insiders have told me by the time of that last July field operation, Skywatcher was actually working with and reporting to a number of government agencies, including NASA, NASA, the Department of Defense and several intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. There is no doubt that what Skywatcher has discovered and recorded was and is of huge interest to the intelligence community and the Defense Department. The inevitable suspicion is that at the very moment Skywatcher announced that it had made a momentous scientific breakthrough, was it gagged by the very group of government insiders and private

4:09 aerospace insiders alleged to be guarding UAP secrets from public knowledge? The truth as best as I've been able to determine it in my research over the last few weeks is quite shockingly different. And it puts a whole different context to the spin we're getting from the Department of War's so-called Pursue releases, the UAP Disclosure Initiative launched by President Trump in May to declassify military and historical records on UAPs. After four fairly dull tranches of heavily redacted, often very blurry, and frankly, often very underwhelming UAP videos, I can assure you, President Trump is most

5:11 definitely not revealing all he knows. I can't name my sources for what I'm telling you about today, but I'm very sure they're rock solid. I've spoken to people in the Trump administration and people who are part of the ongoing military operation that I'm going to tell you about for the very first time today. You know, in this line of work, I spend most of my time asking who's in charge of the information you're not allowed to see. Who's guarding those files? Who's protecting the people who can't protect themselves? And it got me thinking about a different kind of cover up. Cover ups that happen after a car accident, a workplace injury, or when an insurance company sends their own investigator to make sure you get as little

6:12 as possible. That's a bit like putting the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse. Not at all, unlike the Defense Department looking after UFO transparency. You wouldn't do that. That's exactly why we're talking about Morgan & Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. For over 35 years, they've been fighting for everyday people, not the interests of powerful insurance companies. They care about the people. They care about their clients a lot. Morgan & Morgan have recovered over 30 billion for their clients. And look, I've covered enough stories to know when something's being buried, it usually takes serious manpower to back it up. The guys at Morgan & Morgan bring over 1,000 lawyers and 100 offices across all 50 states to every case. That's not a guy with a briefcase. That's an operation built to get answers.

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8:17 February, the Federal Aviation Administration dramatically closed the airspace over El Paso without any or adequate warning to government agencies. The airport's airspace suddenly shut down. At the time they said for 10 days. The public was initially told Mexican organized crime cartel drones were breaching the airspace with their drones. And with next to no notice to local authorities, the FAA shut a massive area over El Paso for what they said would be a 10 day shutdown. You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable. As the New York Times reported, top administration officials quickly claimed

9:19 that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels requiring a military response. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tweeted, quote, "The threat has been neutralized." This cartel drones explanation never really made any sense. As my NewsNation border correspondent colleague Ali Bradley has detailed many times, the Mexican cartels frequently fly their drones over the US border and airspace is rarely, if ever, shut down because of these frequent incursions. Then a hint of what was really going on. The New York Times claimed the real reason why the FAA shut down the El Paso airspace was because immigration officials had used an anti-drone weapon shared by the Pentagon

10:24 without coordinating with the FAA. The Times quoted sources saying customs border protection officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, but it turned out to be a party balloon. It acknowledged Defense Department officials were present during the incident, neither the Defense Department nor Homeland Security nor the FAA offered any further comment. I think it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to suggest that the Defense Department, the Defense Department of War couldn't distinguish a drone from a balloon. Then, just seven hours after the FAA imposed its El Paso shutdown, the restriction was lifted early the next morning around 7am. Unsurprisingly, lawmakers were rightly sceptical

11:24 about this shutdown explanation. Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FAA, demanded a classified briefing on what really happened. He wasn't believing it, and neither should he, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, rejected the administration's explanation. Six months on, no one in Congress has ever revealed anything about what they were told in those classified briefings. So what's really going on? My first clue came when I checked what are called the TFRs, the FAA records for temporary flight restrictions. This is a NOTAM, a safety advisory to aviators,

12:28 posted by the Federal Aviation Administration on 8th November last year, closing a massive area of airspace southeast of El Paso, right through to the 7th November this year. It deemed this area as National Defense Airspace, warning pilots that any breach of the airspace would allow them to be intercepted, detained and interviewed. It authorized the U.S. Government to use deadly force if the aircraft posed an imminent threat to security. And here's where things start getting very interesting, because this area known as Sierra Blanca is exactly where Skywatcher was doing its operations until July last year. Months after Skywatcher ceased official operations at Sierra Blanca, the Defense

13:29 Department shut down their airspace. But something happened to reverse this decision because this TFR was cancelled six days later on the 14th of November 2025. I figure it's unlikely to be a coincidence that the one area shut down by the FAA, presumably on the orders of the Defense Department, is exactly where Skywatcher ran its operations until July last year. I've also learned that the TFR, the shutdown, was initiated by the Defense Department's Joint Special Operations Command liaison to the FAA, and that it was imposed to, quote, "shoot down drones". The TFR this time, was excluded from the airspace only the exact airspace over Skywatcher's

14:30 zone of operations was affected. There is no doubt that this one year long airspace closure effectively shut down any further Skywatcher operations over the Sierra Blanca range. This is what the El Paso shutdown looked like in February, when a TFR was placed over the entire city and airport. Here's the scale of the El Paso shutdown relative to the White Sands missile range to the north. There was also another airspace shutdown that same 11 February date of the El Paso temporary flight restriction. Again, for special security reasons. It covered a huge area to the west of El Paso. Well, I finally learned what happened. Defense sources tell me that their observers were watching on during Skywatcher's Sierra

15:32 Blanca operation, and they made a major discovery during Skywatcher's psionic summoning and dog whistle operations during 2025, including in that last July 2025 test. At exactly the same time that Skywatcher was doing its operations at Sierra Blanca, 200 miles to the northwest, UAP swarms suddenly began appearing in great numbers over the White Sands Missile Range to the northwest of El Paso. The U.S. Defense Department's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, known as Wisma, is north of El Paso, where the supposed party balloon sighting had shut down the airport in February. 81 years ago, the first atomic bomb, code-named

16:33 Trinity, was test-detonated at Wisma. At the end of World War II, the U.S. tested 100 captured German atomic bomb rockets. Holloman Air Force Base, also long speculated to be the scene of anomalous craft sightings, borders Wisma to the east. White Sands is the premier military test range in America, the birthplace of the U.S. missile and space technology. Any disruption of Wisma's airspace by UAPs, unidentified objects of any kind, is a major national security threat. While it appears that Skywatcher is indeed defunct, it's been dissolved as a business entity, I suspect key individuals from the Skywatcher team are now working with the Defense War

17:35 Department at the White Sands range. It would make sense they're using the Skywatcher experts because I'm told that from November last year until now, the United States government, in a joint operation with multiple intelligence and defense agencies, has been using these airspace shutdowns, these TFRs, to do its own UAP intercept operations. Yes, they have been summoning, detecting, and yes, shooting down what we some call drones, others UAPs. The airspace was closed to stop any other non-government activity so that the government had a secure location from where it could summon, detect, and

18:39 shoot down UAPs – craft. This has been happening. To be clear, I'm told the Defense Department is using the same so-called dog whistle – electromechanical signalling – and psionic summoners – neuromeditative interaction – as Skywatcher's team was doing at Sierra Blanca. It also perhaps explains why, if members of Skywatcher are working with the Defense Department, why Skywatcher has gone very quiet. The Department of War has quite literally taken on the running of its own covert operation to intercept these mystery objects, and I'm told they have recently downed objects – craft – both in the U.S. and across the border near Juarez in Mexico.

19:43 I am also told by White House sources that President Trump has personally authorised this operation – which perhaps explains why no full admission has yet been made to the public about the full extent of what the government really knows. There is a full-on effort underway by the administration to recover suspected non-human intelligence exotic technology in a program totally separate from the so-called legacy program. This is an attempt by the President to circumvent the legacy program. It has been run out of the White House by the President's most senior intelligence advisors. President Trump has tasked the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to find out what these objects are and to capture them.

20:46 The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI, is also involved. Sources have told me that one of the directed energy weapons systems used at White Sands in an attempt to shoot down these mystery craft is what's called high-pulse microwave. It shuts down an aircraft by emitting an intense burst of electromagnetic energy that travels at the speed of light that penetrates the aircraft, penetrates the aircraft, and fries its electronic systems. My sources tell me that the craft objects, UAPs, whatever you want to call them, are being targeted over White Sands, and they definitely show anomalous properties conforming to the five observables that define UAPs. There's no visible means of propulsion, no jets, no turbines, no propellers, no rocket motors. They have instantaneous maneuvers, hypersonic

21:49 velocities, stealth mode. What's concerning is that I'm being told the President is not getting the full story about what's being recovered. There's a concern he's being snowed with an explanation that these are just foreign adversary drones. It's being considered as a possibility, I'm told, that some of these objects may be Chinese or other foreign adversary drones doing intelligence or surveillance on what is one of America's most sensitive military test ranges. But what is being detected is without doubt far beyond any known conventional human technology. If these are Chinese spy drones, then the Chinese have cracked super advanced stealth propulsion systems with no visible means of propulsion. The fear also is that this secret operation,

22:51 authorised and being run by the White House on the orders of the President, is compromised. That some of the people in the multiple agencies brought into this now massive operation are part of the covert legacy program that has been retrieving and attempting to reverse engineer NHI craft for decades. Understandably, the President wants the US to have and to know all about these exotic technologies. But is he being told the full story by those he trusts to keep him briefed? I'm told he's not. If the President intends to disclose to the public what they're discovering over at White Sands, then this is potentially a huge development for UAP disclosure. But what he plans to do with the information

23:53 he gets and the exotic technology he recovers is not yet clear. And by the way, I'm told the object that was detected and fired at over El Paso, Texas, that started all the public hullabaloo was most definitely not a party balloon or a cartel drone. It was most definitely anomalous. Why do you think Skywatcher would get in bed with government entities such as the CIA and other aforementioned ones there in the first place? It seems a little contrary to the mission of disclosure straight from the people. That's a good question. I can't speak for Skywatcher, but I suspect they had no choice. I think the simple fact is that their operation was effectively shut down when the TFR was put over the Sierra Blanca range. They were planning more operations.

24:54 I'm very sure of that. Multiple people have told me that. They wanted to continue their research. And frankly, they have private equity funders who wanted a bang for their buck. And the government was offering them their opportunity. I can't really criticise Skywatcher for taking up the offer, because if the President is genuinely doing this for the purposes of informing the public eventually, I think it's a laudable initiative. The concerns that my sources have is that the President is not being told the full story. My understanding is he's being told or being led to believe that what's being detected are highly advanced Chinese drones, which I'm told is possibly the case for one or two of the objects, particularly the jellyfish, but not for all of the objects. You've said multiple times on Reality Check that Jake Barber should be called into Congress to testify under oath, that he

25:57 would be a good witness. Do you think that some of this plays a part into why he's not being called? Because some of the truths he could offer are just not, we're just not ready for him yet. Look, I share Jake's cynicism about the genuine attempt, intent of Congress to actually be straight with the public. I'm pretty sure there are people in Congress that know about this covert operation, and they've been lying to you and to me and to the general public about what they know. I think that what's happened is that this has been concealed behind the excuse and the explanation that it was a covert operation to down mystery drones, foreign adversary drones. They're not foreign adversary drones at all in the main, and they know that. And I suspect that there are key members of Congress, particularly on the key oversight committees, who know this very, very well. So I share Jake's cynicism that Congress is actually serious with the public about this.

27:00 And frankly, it really does put a complexion on the whole Pursue initiative. If the president's being straight with us, he will offer an explanation as to whether, for example, the King Air aircraft that was down over or near White Sands, whether that aircraft was hit by HPM weapons or any kind of weaponry that was being used in one of these operations. I'm told from my own sources that there have been craft incidentally brought down, civilian aircraft brought down as an accident by high pulse microwaves during legacy operations that have taken place in other parts of the United States targeting UAP craft. I know this is a big stretch for people because, frankly, at the moment, we still have the mythology where the Pentagon, the White House are pushing the line that we still don't know what these objects are,

28:01 but we're doing our level best to investigate them. They're far better informed than they're letting on, and it may very well be they've taken the decision that they need to do this for national security imperatives. I can kind of understand that. But what I can't understand is why they're putting civilians at risk. We now know that a weapon used by the White Sands Mistral Range accidentally caused the deaths of four people in a medevac aircraft. Now, we don't know for sure that that was connected to the covert operation that I'm describing. But we do know that very dangerous weapons are being used, which is why they shut down the El Paso airspace. The real story is that they have been using these weapons to try to shoot down NHI technology. And I think we're getting to the point now, so many people are leaking to me about this. I think we're getting to the point now where it's unsustainable for the government to maintain this fictional cover story

29:01 that this was either a party balloon over El Paso, Texas, or a cartel drone. You do not shut down a very busy city in America just because a cartel drone or a balloon floats into the airspace. Doesn't make sense. The bigger explanation, and I think I can't speak for Jake. I've not been in a position to be able to question him about this. But I know he's deeply sceptical from the times I was encouraging him. He has given evidence, by the way, to the Congress. I took him there. We actually took him to the Congress, and he sat down with a committee and gave his evidence. So the Congress has Jake's evidence. They know what he knows. And I'm sure if he was asked, he's a patriot, he would probably want to give his evidence. But it has to be in a way that can be trusted. The simple fact is there are a lot of people playing double games right now, claiming to be pro-disclosure, especially in Congress. And frankly, they're bullshitting it. Do you have any idea where these downcraft

30:03 are being taken? No idea at all. I'm not privy to any of what's happened once they've been taken away by the retrieval teams. All right, Wes. Thank you for that awesome report. Really good reporting there. And I know the viewers are really going to appreciate that. What I can say, Megan, is I'm privy to a lot of material that I haven't put here. And I've been very careful because I want to respect national security constraints. I'm aware of units, individuals and specific orders. And I really do think that it's time for the Defence Department, the Department of War, the President, the entire administration to realise that there are people who are genuinely concerned that the President is not being told the full story about what's going on on his behalf at the White Sands Missile Range. And God help us, the mere fact that a

31:03 civilian aircraft has been caused to crash by operations at White Sands Missile Range, which are not necessarily part of this operation, but part of an exercise, illustrates just how dangerous this can be. And frankly, it needs to be put on a secure footing with accountability to Congress and full public transparency. Frankly, I think if we are targeting NHI technology, if there's a possibility that there is a biological entity on board those craft, a living, intelligent, advanced being, what does it say about our potential first contact with a non-human intelligence that we're acting offensively against them? One of the excuses that was put to me by one person I spoke to about this was that if you ran through the security area of a secure airport with something in your hands,

32:07 the first thing that security guards would be obliged to do is to shoot at you. The problem is, we've invited these entities, we've summoned them into this area, and we're now shooting them down. There are really big moral and ethical issues here that I think need to be debated publicly. And there is squeamishness and concern amongst even the personnel on these rangers about what's being done on the United States behalf. And frankly, I know there will be a lot of people who roll their eyes and say, you know, this is all confidential sources. We can't prove this. Prove me wrong. The simple fact is, this is happening. The TFR was imposed over the Skywatcher operation for a very specific national security reason. They wanted it shut down because it was disrupting operations at White Sands. And what has transpired since is something that I think should be brought to the

33:07 attention of the American public and made fully accountable to the U.S. Congress. Thank you very much, Megan. I'm a fun holiday. Thank you, Ross. I hope you have a great trip. You've earned it. If you do want to send questions to us, you can always send them to us at realitycheckatnewsnationnow.com. And you can always listen to us on all good audio platforms, including Audible and Spotify, because, of course, too much reality check is barely enough. Thank you so much, Megan. And thank you very much, audience. How many chances does extraordinary privilege buy someone until the public decides enough is enough? I'm Megan Medic, and make sure you tune in to Unreported this week, where we do a deep dive into the allegations of sexual assault against former Prince Andrew and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. We're speaking with the woman for a behind-the-scenes look at what actually happened in the infamous interview with the BBC that kind of

34:07 put the nail in his coffin on his royal career. She also booked him for that interview and convinced him sitting down might be a good thing for his reputation. We ask, was justice served when it comes to former Prince Andrew? Tune in to Unreported this Wednesday.