NewsNation 'The Desert Sky Mystery' - Arizona US Border Patrol UAP
- Thread starter Kyle Ferriter
- Start date
MonkeeSage
Senior Member.
The new episode is out with Jeremiah Horstman and Alexandra Caldwell. It's circumstantial evidence being interpreted by credulous conspiracy theorists who have links to the Skinwalker Ranch (SWR) crew. The "chasm" in the title is likely a small void a few feet underground that hasn't breached the surface to become a sinkhole. Another big nothing burger. I probably won't report on any further episodes if Coulthart continues this "Hunting UFOs" series.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIgxuiVkzrk
Some notes:
02:50
Horstman and Caldwell read Tom Dongo's book about portals at Bradshaw Ranch which is how they became interested. They tell Ross about the UFOs and strange events they have seen, including one UFO shaped like a peanut hoving beside the road.
05:31
Coulthart asks why a black-project military base would be located so close to a major tourist attraction like Sedona. Horstman says he talked to ex-CIA agent Andy Bustamante, who told him "that's the way we do things, hide things in plain sight." I note Bustamante is regularly featured as an "expert" on Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, big surprise.
06:05
Horstman says they had "nasty encounters" with armed military-looking people and one of them allegedly was wearing a DoD lanyard. He claims they were threatened and shot at by the people. They heard a "metallic, hollow boom" twice which of course was probably a bunker door to the secret base slamming shut.
They spend the next 14 minutes telling Coulhart about their spooky MiB encounters in more detail. They show a picture (11:24) of a random guy with a radio allegedly wearing body armor (just looks like a t-shirt with no body armor under it) who allegedly got dressed so quickly his pants were tucked into his socks (which is commonly intentionally done by hikers and bush campers to prevent bugs getting in their pants). They were too clever for the dumb MiB and hid behind a rock so he didn't see them. Some Army Ranger friend of Horstman told him the guy had a "special forces radio" with encrypted communications:
It just looks like a standard Forest Service radio with a piece of paper with writing adhered to the lower portion (possibly a quick reference for response codes or something like that):
Source: https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm03512342/index.htm
20:04
They tell Coulthart about their alleged sighting of a silver disk being escorted by Apache helicopters, which is the same photo shown on the previous episode. The way they describe it, it sounds like they took didn't see the disk and just took a picture of the helicopters with their ipad and later noticed the mysterious disk (consistent with the bug/bird in the foreground hypothesis).
21:41
They tell Coulthart the SEGA garden project is cover for the secret military base. How do they know? Because of stories about MiB prowling around the area. I can only assume the men were identified as military by their secret decoder radios. They say they've never seen anyone from Northern Arizona University at the site, so it can't be part of a real university program.
23:30
They tell Coulthart about how their friend who worked at Fort Knox told them the fence and camera were fishy. The camera is pointing "in, not out" and they used the same type cameras at Fort Knox so it must be the military.
They are apparently unaware that the SEGA website for the location provides regular updates from the camera.
Source: https://phenocam.nau.edu/data/latest/segabradshaw.jpg (periodically updated)
Linked from https://www.sega.nau.edu/gardens/bradshaw_ranch
24:18
They tell Coulhart the camera is pointed at where Linda Bradshaw (former owner of the ranch who co-authored the alien portal book with Tom Dongo) saw a portal. They tell the story about Bradshaw's portal experience and how she captured a picture of it with a disk flying out of it (the alleged picture is never shown).
26:02
Horstman has a retired electrical engineer friend who is using all his know-how to build his own equipment to test the "geographical oddities" in the area. Horstman brings up CERN/LHC but doesn't seem to know what a particle accelerator actually does. According to his friend's "own admission and his research" there are "very odd things that happen through the ground here, and they can be measured by science, and there's a lot of empty cavities below the ground here with water running through them and cold air. They create friction which makes electrons, and the electrons are carrying positive and negative ions up into the air, and they're attracted to each other. Now I'm no scientist, so I'm a lay person for describing this, but they attract each other to a point where they collide, and when they collide that's when he says the magic happens." But his friend thinks this is a natural phenomenon and not paranormal. (His friend doesn't sound like he knows what he is talking about either.)
27:50
Apparently Beyond Skinwalker Ranch shot an episode at the Bradshaw Ranch and Horstman and Caldwell featured on that episode (imdb link). So that explains how they know Andy Bustamante. Of course, the SWR crew found anomalous stuff there. They used their "gamma ray camera" (Horstman isn't sure if that's what it's actually called), and they caught "an immense amount of gamma rays...in the shape of a rectangle" right where Linda Bradshaw had seen the portal. I really can't be bothered to go watch that episode, I'm going to assume based on track record they were misusing their equipment or misinterpreting the results.
28:50
They tell Coulthart the military set up the secret base disguised as the SEGA garden experiment because if you have a "door" you can't control, the best thing to do is sieze the land and wait for something to come through. I note they have been talking in front of the dinky chicken-wire fence enclosing the SEGA experiment (which could be easily climbed or cut) for 10 minutes of edited air time (probably longer uncut) along with Coulthart's film crew, and later have a guy show up with GPR, and there was an entire Beyond Skinwalker Ranch episode shot there, but no MiB have showed up to run them off or shoot at them.
30:08
They talk about how there's electrical junction box and generator at the site. They say it's probably powering the underground base. In reality it's just the generator mentioned on the SEGA website for the location (linked above): "The SEGA site fence encloses an area of old pasture/field & has a 900 ft deep well for water to the irrigation system – currently powered by a diesel generator."
30:24
They talk about a secret underground tunnel from the base to the Clarkdale cement factory 17 miles away. Why? Because the SWR crew used GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) on a drone and detected a 50ft underground void, and they said it can't be natural. I note this is completely expected in karst topography and not at all an indication of being artificial constructed. They of course do not discuss the geology and topography of the area.
31:33
Coulthart brings in his friend, Australian treasure hunter Paul Duggan, with a hand-held GPR. Duggan detects a burried metal object "not very deep and not very big [...] maybe about 4-7 inches...3ft down" and a small void ("about 8ft [wide]"). They show two images of his scans:
This is again completely expected and sinkholes like this are common in the area. When they form under roads they cause the asphalt to collpase and create a big hole in the road. Here's an example from a nearby road from an AZ Department of Transportation video:
Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYvnA653_mw
35:18
Duggan says his scanner can only penetrate at most 15ft below ground, so he says he's either "skimming the top of a big cavity, or a smaller cavity that's not very deep." Duggan says it doesn't make sense to detect metal in the cavity, but he says the shape doesn't look like rebar (as they speculated would be used in an artifical underground tunnel), "it's more like a diamond shape." They don't explain how he can tell it's metalic as opposed to some other hard mineral like quartz. Duggan apparently doesn't find anything else interesting after scanning all around the area.
36:22
They talk about the Clarkdale cement factory being owned by "Martin Marietta", allegedly a defense contractor linked to Skunkworks and Lockheed Martin. I note that it is true that the cement plant is owned by Martin Marietta Materials: https://www.martinmarietta.com/locations/west/arizona-ready-mix-district/clarkdale-ready-mix - but they have nothing to do with Lockheed Martin.
38:58
They tell Coulthart there must be some big secret, because if they spent all the time and money to build a 17 mile underground tunnel from the cement plant to the secret underground base, it must really be a big deal. They tell stories about how orbs are flying out of the mountains behind the cement plant and being met by blackhawk helicopters. They are standing somewhere on Woodchute Mountain looking NE at the mountains behind the cement plant. They say Melinda Leslie has been seeing the orbs almost every night. See called them, very excited, one night and they met her on Bill Gray Road (on the other side over the mountains they are looking at). They say they saw 17 Blackhawks, and then an amber ball of light came up from the valley and two of the helicopters left and followed it. They talk more about how all this circumstantial evidence points paranormal events going on in the area and the government investigating it.
41:55
Coulthart again incorrectly states the cement plant is owned by Lockheed Martin.
I'm almost dissappointed they didn't mention the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Lab study at the Bradshaw Ranch SEGA site. They (incorrectly) made the Lockheed Martin connection, so I think they would have mentioned it had they known about it. I really shouldn't have better fake conspiracy evidence than they do!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIgxuiVkzrk
Some notes:
02:50
Horstman and Caldwell read Tom Dongo's book about portals at Bradshaw Ranch which is how they became interested. They tell Ross about the UFOs and strange events they have seen, including one UFO shaped like a peanut hoving beside the road.
05:31
Coulthart asks why a black-project military base would be located so close to a major tourist attraction like Sedona. Horstman says he talked to ex-CIA agent Andy Bustamante, who told him "that's the way we do things, hide things in plain sight." I note Bustamante is regularly featured as an "expert" on Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, big surprise.
06:05
Horstman says they had "nasty encounters" with armed military-looking people and one of them allegedly was wearing a DoD lanyard. He claims they were threatened and shot at by the people. They heard a "metallic, hollow boom" twice which of course was probably a bunker door to the secret base slamming shut.
They spend the next 14 minutes telling Coulhart about their spooky MiB encounters in more detail. They show a picture (11:24) of a random guy with a radio allegedly wearing body armor (just looks like a t-shirt with no body armor under it) who allegedly got dressed so quickly his pants were tucked into his socks (which is commonly intentionally done by hikers and bush campers to prevent bugs getting in their pants). They were too clever for the dumb MiB and hid behind a rock so he didn't see them. Some Army Ranger friend of Horstman told him the guy had a "special forces radio" with encrypted communications:
It just looks like a standard Forest Service radio with a piece of paper with writing adhered to the lower portion (possibly a quick reference for response codes or something like that):
Source: https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm03512342/index.htm
20:04
They tell Coulthart about their alleged sighting of a silver disk being escorted by Apache helicopters, which is the same photo shown on the previous episode. The way they describe it, it sounds like they took didn't see the disk and just took a picture of the helicopters with their ipad and later noticed the mysterious disk (consistent with the bug/bird in the foreground hypothesis).
21:41
They tell Coulthart the SEGA garden project is cover for the secret military base. How do they know? Because of stories about MiB prowling around the area. I can only assume the men were identified as military by their secret decoder radios. They say they've never seen anyone from Northern Arizona University at the site, so it can't be part of a real university program.
23:30
They tell Coulthart about how their friend who worked at Fort Knox told them the fence and camera were fishy. The camera is pointing "in, not out" and they used the same type cameras at Fort Knox so it must be the military.
They are apparently unaware that the SEGA website for the location provides regular updates from the camera.
Source: https://phenocam.nau.edu/data/latest/segabradshaw.jpg (periodically updated)
Linked from https://www.sega.nau.edu/gardens/bradshaw_ranch
24:18
They tell Coulhart the camera is pointed at where Linda Bradshaw (former owner of the ranch who co-authored the alien portal book with Tom Dongo) saw a portal. They tell the story about Bradshaw's portal experience and how she captured a picture of it with a disk flying out of it (the alleged picture is never shown).
26:02
Horstman has a retired electrical engineer friend who is using all his know-how to build his own equipment to test the "geographical oddities" in the area. Horstman brings up CERN/LHC but doesn't seem to know what a particle accelerator actually does. According to his friend's "own admission and his research" there are "very odd things that happen through the ground here, and they can be measured by science, and there's a lot of empty cavities below the ground here with water running through them and cold air. They create friction which makes electrons, and the electrons are carrying positive and negative ions up into the air, and they're attracted to each other. Now I'm no scientist, so I'm a lay person for describing this, but they attract each other to a point where they collide, and when they collide that's when he says the magic happens." But his friend thinks this is a natural phenomenon and not paranormal. (His friend doesn't sound like he knows what he is talking about either.)
27:50
Apparently Beyond Skinwalker Ranch shot an episode at the Bradshaw Ranch and Horstman and Caldwell featured on that episode (imdb link). So that explains how they know Andy Bustamante. Of course, the SWR crew found anomalous stuff there. They used their "gamma ray camera" (Horstman isn't sure if that's what it's actually called), and they caught "an immense amount of gamma rays...in the shape of a rectangle" right where Linda Bradshaw had seen the portal. I really can't be bothered to go watch that episode, I'm going to assume based on track record they were misusing their equipment or misinterpreting the results.
28:50
They tell Coulthart the military set up the secret base disguised as the SEGA garden experiment because if you have a "door" you can't control, the best thing to do is sieze the land and wait for something to come through. I note they have been talking in front of the dinky chicken-wire fence enclosing the SEGA experiment (which could be easily climbed or cut) for 10 minutes of edited air time (probably longer uncut) along with Coulthart's film crew, and later have a guy show up with GPR, and there was an entire Beyond Skinwalker Ranch episode shot there, but no MiB have showed up to run them off or shoot at them.
30:08
They talk about how there's electrical junction box and generator at the site. They say it's probably powering the underground base. In reality it's just the generator mentioned on the SEGA website for the location (linked above): "The SEGA site fence encloses an area of old pasture/field & has a 900 ft deep well for water to the irrigation system – currently powered by a diesel generator."
30:24
They talk about a secret underground tunnel from the base to the Clarkdale cement factory 17 miles away. Why? Because the SWR crew used GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) on a drone and detected a 50ft underground void, and they said it can't be natural. I note this is completely expected in karst topography and not at all an indication of being artificial constructed. They of course do not discuss the geology and topography of the area.
31:33
Coulthart brings in his friend, Australian treasure hunter Paul Duggan, with a hand-held GPR. Duggan detects a burried metal object "not very deep and not very big [...] maybe about 4-7 inches...3ft down" and a small void ("about 8ft [wide]"). They show two images of his scans:
This is again completely expected and sinkholes like this are common in the area. When they form under roads they cause the asphalt to collpase and create a big hole in the road. Here's an example from a nearby road from an AZ Department of Transportation video:
Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYvnA653_mw
35:18
Duggan says his scanner can only penetrate at most 15ft below ground, so he says he's either "skimming the top of a big cavity, or a smaller cavity that's not very deep." Duggan says it doesn't make sense to detect metal in the cavity, but he says the shape doesn't look like rebar (as they speculated would be used in an artifical underground tunnel), "it's more like a diamond shape." They don't explain how he can tell it's metalic as opposed to some other hard mineral like quartz. Duggan apparently doesn't find anything else interesting after scanning all around the area.
36:22
They talk about the Clarkdale cement factory being owned by "Martin Marietta", allegedly a defense contractor linked to Skunkworks and Lockheed Martin. I note that it is true that the cement plant is owned by Martin Marietta Materials: https://www.martinmarietta.com/locations/west/arizona-ready-mix-district/clarkdale-ready-mix - but they have nothing to do with Lockheed Martin.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Marietta_MaterialsExternal Quote:
38:58
They tell Coulthart there must be some big secret, because if they spent all the time and money to build a 17 mile underground tunnel from the cement plant to the secret underground base, it must really be a big deal. They tell stories about how orbs are flying out of the mountains behind the cement plant and being met by blackhawk helicopters. They are standing somewhere on Woodchute Mountain looking NE at the mountains behind the cement plant. They say Melinda Leslie has been seeing the orbs almost every night. See called them, very excited, one night and they met her on Bill Gray Road (on the other side over the mountains they are looking at). They say they saw 17 Blackhawks, and then an amber ball of light came up from the valley and two of the helicopters left and followed it. They talk more about how all this circumstantial evidence points paranormal events going on in the area and the government investigating it.
41:55
Coulthart again incorrectly states the cement plant is owned by Lockheed Martin.
I'm almost dissappointed they didn't mention the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Lab study at the Bradshaw Ranch SEGA site. They (incorrectly) made the Lockheed Martin connection, so I think they would have mentioned it had they known about it. I really shouldn't have better fake conspiracy evidence than they do!
Last edited:
Mendel
Senior Member.
An underground base is hiding underground, not in plain sight.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Throughout your long post, there are things that sound as if they've expressly been written as a movie script, things that sound like the dreams one might have after finishing off the rest of the cold pizza at bedtime, and things such as the above, that sound like someone pretending to be "sciency" while not having a clue.
If I were into UFO belief (which I haven't been since my early teens), this film would have "turned me straight" and I would immediately have become a skeptic. Alas, there is still an audience for this bunk.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Thanks to @MonkeeSage for the recap of episode 2. I had intended on watching it, alas I'm currently camped at a lovely winery with lots of wine and sketchy cell coverage 
. Sacrifices must be made to arrive at the UFO festival.
Besides most of the nonsense described, a telling point is the complete lack of standard journalism. Did Coulthart ever mention talking to the folks that run SEGA. We should have a conversation with a government PR shill trying to explain why this shame gardening project is not a secret portal.
Someone Coulthart can drill down on about the MiBs, the AH6s, the underground tunnel to the Lockheed cement plant and the secret radios. Some government spokesperson that squirms as Ross integrates them, 60 Minutes style, about the diabolical cover up.
At the very least an obviously fraudulent email from a SEGA claiming it's just a garden project.
It's not just lazy, it's just pandering. Passing along ever wilder stories and using Coulthart's supposed journalism credentials to give them a veneer of truth. Ancient Aliens without Georgio's silly hair.
. Sacrifices must be made to arrive at the UFO festival.Besides most of the nonsense described, a telling point is the complete lack of standard journalism. Did Coulthart ever mention talking to the folks that run SEGA. We should have a conversation with a government PR shill trying to explain why this shame gardening project is not a secret portal.
Someone Coulthart can drill down on about the MiBs, the AH6s, the underground tunnel to the Lockheed cement plant and the secret radios. Some government spokesperson that squirms as Ross integrates them, 60 Minutes style, about the diabolical cover up.
At the very least an obviously fraudulent email from a SEGA claiming it's just a garden project.
It's not just lazy, it's just pandering. Passing along ever wilder stories and using Coulthart's supposed journalism credentials to give them a veneer of truth. Ancient Aliens without Georgio's silly hair.
I always love the secret facilities that are supposedly dug hundreds of feet into the ground, like no one would have ever noticed the dirt being excavated, the concrete being poured, the elevators being installed, the housing and transportation of hundreds or thousands of contractors. Let alone the ongoing logistical deliveries and arrival/departure of employees.
You're better off with windowless mystery buildings in the middle of metro areas, like 33 Thomas Street.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Yeah, except someone did go out and build various secret facilities in the past. Area 51/Groom Lake was first built in the '50s for the U2 project and has been expanded on since. Some concrete, electrical, plumbing and other contractors went out there and worked. I guess maybe it depends on what they're told about what they're building. They get the plans for a obvious hanger building with an NDA. They done and gone before a U2 or captured Soviet aircraft ever shows up. Or flying saucers.
I always find Project Azorian fascinating in this regard. The CIA built a highly specialized ship, The Glomare Explorer, in plane site using Howard Hughes as a cover story. Some of the ship builders must have thought they were just building a ship for Hughes, but some of them were involved in the secret hull that opened up and had to be concealed. What did they know? The special secret grappling device, known as Clementine, was built by Lockheed across the country near San Francisco IIRC. The designers and managers knew what it was, but did the builders?
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Anybody who always wanted to write a book about a quirky bit of history might look into this -- the time is probably right, as the need for secrecy is passed (the ship was converted into an oil driller, where it had a busy career, and then was eventually scrapped -- according to Wikipedia at a Chinese ship breaker, so there can't have been a lot of concerns about secrecy at that point!) and many of those involved will still be alive.
Offered as an idea, just mention me in the part at the end where the author thanks everybody!
Peoples impression of how good or bad the cover story for Project Azorian was is somewhat biased by hindsight, we now know what it was for. There are a number of plausible cover stories that could have been given to various participants. Ocean floor mining is one, but also searching for sunken galleons filled with gold would work. Recovering lost nuclear weapons from crashed USAF planes, or sunken US nuclear submarines, or the reactors that went down with those subs maybe? Recovering crashed flying saucers? How about a plan to kidnap a Russian submarine by grabbing it while submerged? Probably a bit far-fetched. Different cover stories for different participants goes without saying.
Hindsight can make what people thought or said seem quite silly, but at the time?
Ann K
Senior Member.
Aah, the good old days! Things built half a century or more ago did not have constant eyes in the sky on them. No Google Earth, no hundreds of satellites - anybody out in the boonies would be fairly certain that they were not being watched 24/7. Groom Lake was not only in very sparsely populated Nevada, but had the added advantage of being on an Air Force facility.
John J.
Senior Member.
I can see some problems with that as a cover story
JJB
New Member
I agree. It is exactly as all the other sensational garbage out there.
MonkeeSage
Senior Member.
Coulthart released a new episode with Melinda Leslie. I didn't watch it, but I skimmed through looking for any new pictures or videos. There are a few short clips captured through the NV goggles shown at 38:27, 39:58, 40:40, 43:47, 45:11. They look like normal planes, helicopters and satellites and are not doing anything unusual. They didn't even capture any cool flares like the video from Ms. Leslie in this thread: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/orb-ufos-in-sedona-likely-starlink.13666 though it sounds like they saw some earlier in the night.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeNaduaQOf8
Coulthart doesn't consult any planetarium/satellite tracking apps or ADS-B apps, and just assumes himself and Ms. Leslie are able to identify aircraft and satellites. We can see that is a mistaken assumption from the thread above, and Ms. Leslie sounds like she is only familiar with starlink trains and not individual flares. It sounds like they are describing flares when they talk about orbs. They talk about them changing direction but don't show any video of that (they may be confusing multiple satellites in the same area as being a single object or misidentifying aircraft).
38:40
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeNaduaQOf8
Coulthart doesn't consult any planetarium/satellite tracking apps or ADS-B apps, and just assumes himself and Ms. Leslie are able to identify aircraft and satellites. We can see that is a mistaken assumption from the thread above, and Ms. Leslie sounds like she is only familiar with starlink trains and not individual flares. It sounds like they are describing flares when they talk about orbs. They talk about them changing direction but don't show any video of that (they may be confusing multiple satellites in the same area as being a single object or misidentifying aircraft).
38:40
External Quote:
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
She was back in the first episode and now back for more. Is Coulthart still based in Australia or is he in the states now? It's like he flies over here and just shoots as much footage as possible and then edits it into multiple episodes that are out of chronological order. He likely spent 1 night, a couple of hours maybe, with Leslie and is now dolling out footage over several weeks.
I thought in his previous video with Barber, that when he introduced the "egg" video he was back in Australia, not in the parts of California he had been with Barber. It was just inserted in. I wonder if he finished his interviews with Barber, then headed onto Arizona to collect the current footage all on 1 trip.
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
Honestly I had assumed all this time that Coulthart is now living in the US, since he's working for a US company and now largely interviewing people who are in the US and occasionally visiting locations in the US. I guess he could be doing a lot of transpacific travel but I know that is pretty rough. On the other hand if he's in the US I would also think he'd be visiting *more* places in person to do live interviews and gathering footage onsite than he currently is.
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
The total lack of basic rigor is what annoys me the most. They don't even try. Almost makes it not worth addressing, but somehow this does have a lot of reach right now and that makes it worth addressing.
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