Ross Coulthart is an Australian investigative journalist and author who has spent the better part of a decade cultivating sources inside the US intelligence community, military, and contractor network. He is the journalist who interviewed David Grusch — first, before Congress — and whose reporting has consistently preceded official disclosures by months or years.
Coulthart’s background is conventional investigative journalism at the highest level: decades at Nine Network Australia and 60 Minutes, multiple Walkley Awards (Australia’s equivalent of the Pulitzer), investigations into war crimes, organised crime, and government corruption. He came to UAP not as a believer but as an investigator who followed a story that kept producing credible sources.
The Grusch Interview
In June 2023, Coulthart published the first interview with David Grusch — the NGA/NRO intelligence officer who had filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General alleging a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program. Coulthart’s interview ran on NewsNation before Grusch’s Congressional testimony in July 2023. That interview broke the story to the mainstream public and set the agenda for the Congressional hearing that followed.
Coulthart did not stumble onto Grusch. He had spent years building the source network that produced him — cultivating relationships with serving and retired intelligence officials who trusted that he would publish accurately and protect sources. Grusch chose Coulthart as his first public interview for a reason.
Underground Sites and Program Architecture
Coulthart has reported — citing multiple independent intelligence sources — on the existence of underground storage and research facilities holding recovered UAP materials. He has named specific geographic areas in the American Southwest and described the contractor-operated model where materials are held outside direct government ownership, consistent with David Grusch’s congressional testimony and the UAP Oracle dossier’s documentation of programs held by SAIC, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman.
His 2023 book In Plain Sight documents the full scope of his UAP investigation — from the physics of observed performance envelopes to the whistleblower testimony pipeline and the congressional push for disclosure. It is one of the most rigorously sourced UAP books in the genre.
Pentagon Deception — Documented
Coulthart has specifically documented Pentagon deception operations targeting UAP researchers and journalists — the same playbook used against Paul Bennewitz by Richard Doty (AFOSI) in the 1980s, updated for the 21st century. He has described being targeted with disinformation himself and has identified specific individuals within the Pentagon press apparatus whose role appears to be narrative management rather than factual communication.
Current Work
Coulthart continues to report for NewsNation and publishes through his personal channels. He has been consistently ahead of the disclosure curve — his sources inside the intelligence community have provided him with information that subsequently proved accurate when official releases confirmed it. On the Pentagon’s May 8, 2026 PURSUE release, Coulthart’s prior reporting had already documented the existence and content of many of the programs referenced.
Affiliation: NewsNation (correspondent), author of In Plain Sight (2023). Multiple Walkley Award winner. Based in Australia.