The Calvine UFO made a comeback in 2022. It is, according to UK academic David Clarke, "the best image of an unidentified flying object ever taken" - an unsurprising opinion from the man who tracked down the photo 32 years after it was taken.

Before he became a part of the story he was investigating, Clarke found no good evidence the craft was real (alien or otherwise) and preferred the conclusion that it was a hoax.

Now he promotes the mystery of the photograph as a high-tech black project craft hovering over the Scottish moors in full view of two hapless hikers (but no one else) taking a break from their menial hotel jobs. He hasn't explained why his previous analysis was wrong. And he not only ridicules skeptical theories but misrepresents them.

The way Clarke has been dishonestly reporting on one aspect of this story in particular, for no apparent reason other than to mislead, leads me to conclude that he believes the photo is a hoax - specifically, that it is a 3D star ornament, a theory first proposed by Wim van Utrecht.

His accomplice in this deception is Andrew Robinson, the photography expert who analyzed the Calvine UFO. Robinson has softened his stance to include the possibility of a hoax, but can't come right out and say it's a model without undermining his "expert" analysis.

Ross Coulthart has a problem. As a key voice in ufology, that means he is a problem.

Looking over the stories Coulthart has reported on in the UFO space over the past couple of years, his credulity, poor sources, overhyping of weak evidence, and failure to issue retractions, are adding up to severely impact his credibility.

This is a rundown of some of his UFO work that I find problematic - cases that I personally find interesting. Unfortunately, this shoddy work casts doubt on all his reporting, especially when he often uses unnamed sources and is cagey about providing evidence - even while hinting he has it.

In my previous post I presented a witness from Ariel who claims UFOs and aliens did not land at the school on Sep 16, 1994. Any testimony should be open to criticism, but to anyone criticizing Dallyn's story I ask they do the same of the other witness testimonies from that event.

Here I present a critique of witness Emma's testimony - her changing stories cannot be reconciled, therefore at least some versions must be false or distorted. I do not believe she's lying now, or ever lied. The fact is, our memories do change over time, even from one day to the next. We absorb others' stories as our own. False memories are created. Yet the now-adult witnesses from Ariel (at least the ones speaking up) have not shown any awareness, to my knowledge, of this simple proven fact of human psychology.

"I know what I saw."
"I was there, you were not."

...But they weren't really there. Their childhood selves were there. And psychological studies on (false) memory and (mis)perception - not to mention countless examples in the field of ufology - have proven that sometimes: No, you don't know what you saw.​

​“Investigative journalist” Ross Coulthart (see: Jim’s ball) recently told a story on his Need To Know podcast (Aug 4, 2023) about an egg-shaped craft discovered in the 1980s that was analyzed in a UFO reverse engineering (RE) program at Area 51 in the 1990s. The story comes from a new source (let’s call him Bill) who sent Coulthart a photo of his uncle's patch that Coulthart is claiming comes from a RE program, along with a photo of his team, and sufficient evidence to convince Coulthart that Bill’s great uncle (let's call him Gruncle) worked at Area 51 for contractor EG&G from 1997-2014 and that Bill has talked to AARO about it for 45 minutes (with what amounts to a third-hand story).

Gruncle never saw the egg-shaped craft for himself. According to Bill, Gruncle's job was putting data from human tech into storage vaults. He never saw UFOs or aliens or even data about UFOs or aliens. Gruncle was told about an alien reverse engineering program by the senior engineer in charge of that program, when he started work in 1997. The senior engineer described an egg-shaped craft, silverish-grey, featureless, and the size of an SUV. It was never cracked open, was impenetrable to X-rays, but was nevertheless concluded to be a “probe craft from another planet”. He retired the next year and Gruncle died last year, so we'll just have to take Bill's word for all this.

Later, Gruncle saw hanging on the wall of a secure data storage room at Area 51 a “close-up crystal-clear” “huge image” of “the same exact object” (i.e. a featureless silver egg he'd never seen in person). 

Coulthart was sent the one and only photo that Bill sneakily took of Gruncle's insignia patch from the program (he took it while Gruncle was sleeping).

​In 1952, Shell R. Alpert, US Coast Guard photographer, shot this formation of four bright lights through the window of his photo lab in Salem MA, in the middle of the 2-week “Washington flap”.

It’s hailed as a classic UFO photo. It was in all the papers!

Was it a genuine UFO? A misunderstanding? Or a hoax?