Coulthart was on 3AW (talk radio in Melbourne) on Sep 26, 2023, with Neil Mitchell, a well-known personality here. Also on YouTube (link at the end). I've excerpted some quotes to give a picture of how he approaches UAP coverage and what his conclusions are. My emphasis. My comments for discussion in [brackets].
He is the first mainstream investigative journalist to ever cover UAPs, and the intel community may be using debunkers to ridicule him:
I finished working in mainstream media about four or five years ago and I looked around, and I thought what is the most taboo stigmatized subject in the media that we look at? and one of course is suicide, but the other that I've always been intrigued in is UAPs, unidentified anomalous phenomena or UFOs, as they're more popularly known. And I decided to do the basic concept of investigative journalism and apply it to uaps because to my great surprise nobody had ever done that before. ... I am probably the most vocal, the most well-known Legacy Media journalist that is taking this issue seriously. And so far all I've been on the receiving end of is an attempt at ridicule and denigration by, I suspect, sections of the intelligence community that are trying to debunk. but it hasn't really worked because my audience has more than quadrupled since the David Grusch episode went to air.
[Where is my check???]
He can't tell us the evidence/sources that convinced him many in the DoD and private aerospace believe NHI is visiting us:
Neil, as a journalist, you reach a conclusion based on a preponderance of evidence. I appreciate I'm dealing largely, with the exception of Nat, with off the record sources or sources that cannot be attributed or cannot be named. but I have convinced myself that there is sufficient evidence to at least believe that a large number of people in the U.S military and intelligence community and private Aerospace believe very very strongly that the world is being visited by non-human intelligences, and moreover that the United States and other countries have actually recovered non-human technology.
[Since he's seen no craft or aliens himself, presumably he's convinced it's real because his sources believe so.]
The reason for the coverup - used to be religious upset, but is now:
the United States definitely has recovered technology, I think that there is a Cold War battle underway [between Americans, Chinese, Russians] for the attempt to try to replicate that technology, to reverse engineer it. this has been going on since at least the end of World War II incredibly, and it hasn't been very successful.
Disinfo campaign began in 1952:
...a decision was made in 1952 after what's called the Washington flyover, where because of the such overt displays by these UAPs, a very jolted US military made a stern decision to shut down public interest in the phenomenon. And so a disinformation campaign was created to essentially persuade people that this was rubbish, that UAPs were things to be ridiculed and stigmatized, when in fact all along it's now emerging that the Pentagon has basically been taking this extremely seriously.
[See his book
In Plain Sight, chp 3 "The Launch of Project Blue Book".]
Slight chance it's all a psy-op to fool adversaries:
This is why I'm not a hundred percent - I mean this is there is always the remote possibility, however remote, that this is some kind of advanced psyops operation by an advanced arm of US propaganda designed to impress upon America's potential adversaries that they've got something up their sleeve that they don't want to reveal, but they want them to know about. There's always that possibility.
[The rest of his interview, he emphasizes it's a global phenomenon & cover-up, so presumably all countries are doing the same psyop on each other if this theory is correct - but he thinks that's unlikely.]
His witnesses:
I think on the balance of probabilities, yes, I do think that we have what are called biologics. I do think that they have recovered biological material and bodies. and I've actually spoken to people who've told me that they've seen bodies and craft, and it's very confronting because I've gone uphill and down dale with these people and interrogated them sideways, and frankly if they're lying, they're very good liars... Most of the descriptions that I've heard concord with the classic Gray shape... I'm talking to people who've told me that they have seen these entities, these beings.
[To me, biologics, bodies, and entites/beings are three different things. I'd like some clarity. To me: Biologics could be as little as a tissue smear. Bodies means physical dead aliens. Entities/beings means living ones, not necessarily in a controlled setting - i.e. hallucinations in your bedroom qualifies, if you believe it's aliens.]
Consciousness research:
[the phenomenon] may also explain the other mystery in human life which is what happens to us after we die? because a large part of what I'm investigating at the moment is that what we're talking about here may not in fact be a technology as we understand it, which might explain why we're having so much trouble reverse engineering it. It might in fact be a manifestation of some kind of uber consciousness that is essentially - the theory goes, expressing itself through physical form to basically make humanity become aware. I mean I know this sounds kooky but I'm getting this from people in US intelligence...
[He has not gone too woo in previous interviews - is he heading in that direction?]
Stigma:
So there is a phenomenon that the Pentagon has officially admitted to Congress, under oath, is real, and yet a large part of the mainstream media, the Legacy Media particularly in the United States, still has its head in the wrong place and are treating this with the stigma, ridicule and taboo that the subject was being treated with for much of the last 70 to 80 years
[The Pentagon admitting the phenomenon is real is news to me. I thought they admitted they have some things they can't explain.]
Skinwalker fan:
I've spoken to other people in the intelligence Community, one is a former very senior official who ran the UAP task force for the US government, and that individual was visited by some kind of paranormal entity that - essentially like the hitchhiker syndrome - followed him home to his home in East Coast America from a site that he'd visited on the west coast. Believe it or not... Yeah, Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.
[I cannot take seriously anyone who believes anything about Skinwalker, see: Metabunk]
What frightens him:
multiple sources have told me that we should be taking the abduction phenomenon more seriously than we have done to date... I don't know whether the taking itself is real but I certainly think the phenomenon is real... I have not formed a view on this, and I'm not in a position to be able to because I can't verify it. I haven't seen it.
[He hasn't seen craft or bodies either and AFAIK is not an experiencer, so...]
Does he fear for the future?
No... my sources tell me, they're angry. I mean the scientists that I've spoken to who've been involved in looking and examining this technology, they're furious that they can't do what scientists want to do, which is to share this information. ... The big problem with these alleged recovered craft is the secrecy, the compartmentalization that has been used to protect this program has been such that it has hindered proper rigorous objective examination.
[Jim's magic ball is right there awaiting scientific examination. Just never seems to happen.]
Disclosure timeline:
...the sources that I've been privileged to speak to, people at a very high level in US defense and intelligence, people in the French government, the British government, the Russian government, across the world there are people who are in a position to assert that they know that the human race is aware of a non-human intelligence. and I think that the world will probably know publicly within I suspect 12 to 18 months [that] ... a non-human intelligence that has been engaging with this planet. And I know that there are moves afoot to get interviews with senior officials who may very well admit and say that very thing.
... I think the evidence suggests on the balance of probabilities that we are being surveilled by a non-human intelligence, and I think the world will probably know that for sure, as I've said, within 12 to 18 months. I don't think it's going to come from official disclosures unless the government is forced by this legislation to admit what Congress now knows in secret.
[Unexpectedly pleasing to see a timeline but he didn't give reasons for why he "thinks" this timeline is accurate. No indication that craft and bodies will be unveiled - this could simply mean people in high places saying they believe they're communicating with NHI, which would be disappointing for me and has sort of already happened.]
Reputation on the line:
Q: Ross just finally, a long career in journalism newspapers, television, five walkleys, gold Walkley, a superb career. Are you putting it all on the line here?
I guess I am in the perception of the audience. I mean I don't believe that the levels of proof that I'm relying on to make the assertions that I'm making are any different from the levels of proof - in fact I've probably been more rigorous and more stringent with myself than I would normally would be, because I've known how serious these allegations are.
[Again, I think he's relying on how much he likes the witnesses (in this interview, Tim Golladay is "a lovely guy", Jim Semivan is "a really good guy", meeting Grusch was "the most extraordinary thing") rather than seeing evidence himself. He uses the phrase "very senior" 6 times.]
My favorite to end with - psi abilities from the aliens!
some of them are suffering health effects, but there are others who are also claiming to have had things happen to their brains after they were exposed to the phenomenon that have given them, well, PSI abilities, the ability to have precognition or understanding of things that they previously couldn't understand, understanding of advanced physics.
[Zero evidence provided by him or by science that psi exists, let alone where it comes from]
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbJDRwPHnqE