Coulthart's egg-shaped UFO from outer space

Recreation, probably.

A rotten egg: the plot

​“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).

Coulthart did not display the photo during that podcast, which caused skeptics to have the temerity to demand evidence, behavior he characterized as “the usual spite, malice, bitchiness from UFOtwitter”. This temerity made Bill “angry” and prompted him to allow Coulthart to show the patch during a talk for Close Encounters Australia at State Library Victoria on Aug 12, 2023:

“...on the basis of information he's provided me privately, convinces me that this is a patch for a team at Area 51 that are involved in reverse engineering.” - Coulthart [full patch-related transcripts at end of blog]

Ross Coulthart at State Library Victoria, Aug 12, 2023, where he presents a patch purportedly from a UFO reverse engineering program at Area 51.

In showing the patch, Coulthart’s worst nightmare came true: it got analyzed.

Here I lay out the problems with Coulthart’s story and his source, and present the actual origin of the patch. The evidence comes from Twitter users' interactions with Bill as well as research done on Metabunk.

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