Ross Coulthart told NewsNation viewers this weekend that the United States is no longer just collecting UAP files. According to people he describes as White House sources, the Department of War is running a covert intercept operation – and has already brought objects down.
The claims landed in a Reality Check Q&A framed around Air Force disinformation, White Sands Missile Range, and China. They are the most specific public description yet of an alleged live shoot-down effort. The White House has not confirmed them.
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who chairs the administration’s UAP Science Advisory Council, quoted Coulthart’s reporting at length on August 10 and wrote that it “could be either fact or fiction.” Former Pentagon UAP official Luis Elizondo has said a similar lure-and-engage plan, Project Interloper, was real – and that actually shooting a UAP down would be a mistake and a provocation.
What Coulthart Says His Sources Told Him
In a video message transcribed by Loeb, Coulthart put the operation inside the current administration, not the legacy crash-retrieval architecture Trump was briefed on in May:
“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 Juárez in Mexico. I am also told by White House sources that President Trump has personally authorized 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.”
He said the effort is “totally separate from the so-called legacy program” and is being run out of the White House by the president’s senior intelligence advisers. Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, was tasked “to find out what these objects are and to capture them.” ODNI is involved as well.
The weapon named in that account is not a missile. Coulthart said sources identified high pulse microwave – a directed-energy burst that travels at light speed, enters an airframe, and fries electronics. The objects over White Sands, he said, match the five UAP observables: instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic velocity, low observability, trans-medium travel, and anti-gravity.
UFONews, recapping Coulthart’s NewsNation episodes, added that the research group Skywatcher – known for the electromagnetic “dog whistle” used to draw objects in – has reportedly been folded into the government effort, and that February’s sudden El Paso airspace shutdown, which officials tied to cartel drones, was used to clear the corridor for intercept work. Coulthart has not published documents that prove those two points.
White Sands Already Hosts Directed-Energy Tests
None of that is the same as a public confirmation that UAP were the targets. What is on the record is that White Sands is where the Pentagon has been firing the class of weapons Coulthart described.
On June 23, Hegseth and Under Secretary Emil Michael watched a live demonstration of high-energy lasers and high-power microwave systems at White Sands – the first time a sitting defense secretary is known to have observed a live directed-energy shot. Coverage in Laser Wars and Defence Blog listed five systems, including Epirus’s Leonidas-based high-power microwave and a Raytheon microwave variant of the Coyote interceptor. Pentagon officials framed the demo as counter-drone and magazine-depth air defense, not as a UAP hunt.
Months earlier, the Pentagon and the FAA agreed to run anti-drone laser tests at White Sands after military laser deployments led the FAA to close Texas airspace twice – the same El Paso corridor Coulthart now ties to intercept activity. Army Times reported those closures as a safety fight between directed-energy tests and civil aviation, not as a cover story.
The hardware and the range are real. Whether the targets include the objects Coulthart’s sources call UAP is the unconfirmed piece.
Elizondo: Interloper Was Real – a Shoot-Down Would Be a Provocation
Elizondo addressed the lure-and-engage concept on August 14 with Eli Karetny at CUNY’s Ralph Bunche Institute. He said Project Interloper was a real plan, and that using it to shoot down a UAP would be a mistake – comparable, in his telling, to why the United States does not casually shoot down Russian aircraft. Intent, he said, matters more than an immediate show of force.
He had already made the same point in mid-August: shooting a UAP down “would be a mistake and a provocation.” Beck interview update →
Loeb: If It’s Real, Hand the Materials to Scientists
Loeb’s August 10 Medium essay did not vouch for Coulthart’s sources. It treated the report as a testable claim.
If the Department of War was authorized to engage unidentified orbs over White Sands, he wrote, then “the scientific analysis of their materials or digital data is key for progress.” Isotopic composition, solid-state structure, and flight response would tell the UAP Science Advisory Council whether the objects are mundane, human-made, or something else. If scientists get that access, he argued, they would not need historic files from any legacy program.
That request sits on top of the council’s existing 50-item ask for videos, images, and “materials if they exist.” No public inventory of White Sands recoveries has been released.
How This Ties to June’s Southwest Incursion
The trail Coulthart is working did not start this weekend. On June 9, Jordan Flowers, executive director of the Disclosure Foundation, told a Capitol press event that senior intelligence officials had witnessed an incursion at a sensitive southwest facility involving capabilities they could not explain – a claim Rep. Eric Burlison later described as incontrovertible, according to UFONews. Coulthart has treated that incident as part of the same White Sands picture.
| Date | What is on the record |
|---|---|
| March 2026 | Pentagon/FAA run anti-drone laser tests at White Sands after Texas airspace closures |
| June 9, 2026 | Flowers/Burlison: unexplained southwest incursion witnessed by senior IC officials |
| June 23, 2026 | Hegseth observes live laser and high-power microwave shots at White Sands |
| August 10, 2026 | Loeb quotes Coulthart’s intercept claims; asks for materials |
| August 14, 2026 | Elizondo: Project Interloper was real; a shoot-down would be a provocation |
| August 23, 2026 | NewsNation Q&A: Air Force disinformation, White Sands, China |
What has not appeared is a White House, Pentagon, or Mexican government confirmation that unidentified craft were downed near Juárez or over the range. Coulthart says the authorization itself is why no full admission has been made. Until officials speak, the public record is his sourcing, Loeb’s demand for lab access, Elizondo’s warning, and a documented directed-energy test program at the same stretch of New Mexico desert.
Sources: NewsNation Q&A · NewsNation on X · Avi Loeb, Medium, Aug 10 · UFONews recap · Elizondo / CUNY · Defence Blog – Hegseth White Sands demo · Army Times – FAA/White Sands laser tests
