Coulthart: Trump Authorized UAP Intercepts at White Sands, Sources Say
August 17, 2026 – August 23, 2026
Sunday, August 23
Coulthart: White House Sources Say Trump Authorized UAP Shoot-Downs at White Sands
Ross Coulthart used this week’s NewsNation Reality Check Q&A – billed around Air Force disinformation, White Sands, and China – to repeat what he says White House sources told him: the Department of War is running a covert intercept of mystery objects, has already downed craft in the U.S. and near Juárez, and is using high pulse microwave weapons at White Sands against targets that match the five UAP observables. He says President Trump personally authorized the effort, tasked Secretary Pete Hegseth with capturing the objects, and kept it separate from the legacy crash-retrieval program. The White House has not confirmed any of it. Avi Loeb quoted the same reporting on August 10 and said it could be fact or fiction – and that if recoveries exist, the Science Advisory Council needs the materials. Lue Elizondo says a related lure plan, Project Interloper, was real, and that shooting a UAP down would be a provocation. Directed-energy tests at White Sands, including a June 23 Hegseth demo of lasers and high-power microwaves, are documented as counter-drone work. Full article →
Sources: NewsNation · Avi Loeb, Medium · UFONews
Thursday, August 20
Advisory Scientists: 112 PURSUE Videos Can’t Recover How Fast Anything Is Moving
Jacob Haqq-Misra (Blue Marble Space) and Ravi Kopparapu (NASA Goddard) – both on the White House UAP Science Advisory Council – posted a preprint measuring all 112 sensor videos released under PURSUE this year. Pixel motion is measurable. Real speed is not: range, aircraft velocity, aspect angle, and field of view are missing or redacted across the set. Their worked example, DOW-UAP-PR113 (western U.S., 1996), cannot tell a close-range bird from a Mach 5 craft a kilometer away. DOW-UAP-PR149 (Middle East, 2023) yields only an upper bound around Mach 0.4 because a carrier is in frame. Kopparapu told The Debrief to avoid both extraordinary conclusions and outright dismissal – and that range-over-time is the number that would change the analysis. Full article →
Sources: The Debrief · arXiv:2608.12445
Burlison: Office Is Now Assisting People Through UAP NDA Waivers
Rep. Eric Burlison posted that his office is now assisting qualified individuals seeking waivers from UAP-related nondisclosure agreements. He first offered that help after Trump’s July directive and after releasing the Lukas memo on August 1; today’s line treats the channel as active intake, not just a press offer. He has previously told witnesses to bring a lawyer and, if they talk to the executive branch, to ask that a member of Congress sit in. Trump NDA directive →
Source: Rep. Eric Burlison on X
Wednesday, August 19
Liberation Times: Pressure on Trump Intensifies; New Unnamed Claims on AARO, CIA, NRO
Christopher Sharp reports a coordinated push for a presidential confirmation of non-human UAP before the November 3 midterms – Grusch on Dr. Phil, James Fox videos with Grusch, Dylan Borland, Matthew Brown, and Eric Davis, plus Robert Bigelow’s earlier advice to Trump. New unnamed-source lines: AARO is said to hold data on extreme-performance events, including objects crossing the Atlantic in three seconds and similar kinematics near Japan; the CIA’s chief scientist is described as an operational gatekeeper for alleged retrieval/reverse-engineering in the Directorate of Science and Technology; former NRO director Betty Sapp is named with James Clapper and Stephanie O’Sullivan on an Obama-era locate/recover/reverse-engineer effort. Clapper, per one source, has stepped back from public UAP work since Age of Disclosure. None of those program claims are independently documented in the piece. Grusch/Dr. Phil → · Loeb council →
Sources: Liberation Times · Chris Sharp on X
Tuesday, August 18
Davis Tells NewsNation: Four Recovered Species – and He Needs Immunity to Say More
Eric Davis told Katie Pavlich Tonight on NewsNation (Monday night) that he has “seen the evidence” and “seen the records” of recovered non-human bodies, and that there is “a minimum of four” species in those files: Grays, tall Nordics, mantis-like insectoids, and reptilians. He said the remains he knows about came from crash recoveries and were dead; he has not seen a live-occupant file himself, though he noted David Grusch has spoken of one. Asked where the biologics went, he said an institute tied to the recoveries was split into two or three military medical components during the first Obama administration – he did not name the sites. He again said he needs White House immunity before a fuller public accounting, the same waiver track Ross Coulthart flagged last week. Grusch has separately described at least four types of NHI. Davis record article →
Sources: NewsNation · NewsNation on X
Monday, August 17
Euronews: Brussels Has Been Tracking UAP ‘Under the Radar’ Since 2023
Euronews published an exclusive based on a European Commission defence-department document: the EU executive has been engaged with unidentified anomalous phenomena since at least 2023, more actively than its public line suggests. A Commission letter said officials are “getting better at seeing it (UAPs) and better identifying it” as technology improves, “but we need to get even better.” The paper trail starts with a 2022 appeal from Malaysian amateur astronomers who sent 37 sky/space images to Brussels, including alleged UAP near aircraft and sensitive sites. The Commission said it lacked authority over Malaysia but would propose that the 27 member states “increase its ability to detect objects in the space environment around the Earth” – in part to identify UAP and space debris. A spokesperson still told Euronews that “UAP are the responsibility of EU member states.” MEP Fabio De Masi and Dutch pilots are pressing for a dedicated aviation-reporting category; EASA says existing occurrence reporting already covers UAP and it has not found a systemic safety issue. Full article →
Sources: Euronews exclusive · Ross Coulthart on X
NORTHCOM Deputy: U.S. Bases Are ‘Ill-Equipped’ to Stop Drone Swarms
Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command and vice commander of the U.S. NORAD element, told the Space and Missile Defense Symposium (Thursday) that homeland bases lack the sensors and effectors to handle a small-drone swarm. “We are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that,” he said, adding detection is “the biggest issue.” Fox News published the remarks Monday and placed them next to Secretary Marco Rubio’s line that objects over U.S. installations are “not ours” – while noting Jarrard was talking about cheap attack drones, not labeling every overflight a UAP. The comments sit in the same Huntsville panel week as retired Gen. Glen VanHerck’s Langley remarks. Langley article → · Rubio coverage →
Sources: Fox News · The War Zone · DefenseScoop
Loeb: Most Reported UAP Orbs Look Like Adversary Drones – Some Speeds Still Don’t
Avi Loeb, chair of the White House UAP Science Advisory Council, argued in a new Medium essay that orb reports in PURSUE files are a mixed bag. Meter-scale size, formation flying, no visible exhaust, and clustering in conflict zones (Gulf of Oman, Bagram, CENTCOM) fit small electric drones. What does not: claimed supersonic speeds for those same small objects, and cold infrared signatures. His working split: most low-speed, radar-quiet orbs are likely human-made; high-speed or strong-radar cases may be measurement error, a different object in the same scene – or still unexplained. He says better digital data via the council is required to decide. Council article →
Sources: Avi Loeb on Medium
