Promise, Hope, and Disappointment as Another ‘Whistleblower’ Tells His Story

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

*Note: I have a different opinion than Charles, but respect other people’s opinions, Martin

On Saturday, January 18, there was a much hyped exclusive on NewsNation, presented by Ross Coulthart. What was promised was testimony from a “whistleblower” along with video to back it up that a government UFO crash retrieval program does indeed exist. There was much excitement on social media, but once the episode aired, there was much anger and disappointment, the main complaint being that the video was less than convincing. While there was a lot of focus on the video, there was another focus on what we believe should always be the first principle when examining claims of this nature, and that is: Consider the source.

The first source to consider is Ross Coulthart. Coulthart has a long history as a presenter of sensationalized UFO stories on news programs. We first ran into him as we were working on a blog about the 1993 Cosford (a village in Shropshire, England) incident, which involved reports by witnesses in the area of lights and objects in the sky. Many of these were convincingly argued by Jenny Randles and consultants to the British UFO Research Association to be the result of a satellite booster rocket re-entering the atmosphere at the time. The most dramatic report was by Meteorological Officer Wayne Elliot at RAF Shawbury, though he later reconsidered and felt that a police helicopter with a searchlight chasing a car was a plausible answer for his sighting.

On an Australian News 7 Spotlight episode hosted by Coulthart, which features Nick Pope discussing the case, animations throughout show a slow-moving, large triangular-shaped craft shining a spotlight down on the ground, and Coulthart describes what was reported over RAF Shawbury as “a clearly structured black, triangular craft.” Out of 29 reports during the incident that made it into the MOD files (hence Nick Pope) there was only one of a “triangle with a central red glow” and two (1 and 2) reports of three lights, one of which was from Elliot. Elliot told researcher David Clarke that he would prefer to describe what he saw in terms of lights rather than any discernable shape.

Coulthart’s involvement in a messy instance of sensationalistic journalism in 2015 for a Channel Nine, 60-Minutes episode is described on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website Media Watch. The episode featured an alleged pedophile ring in London involving “a secret network of the highest officeholders in the land: past and current members of Parliament, cabinet ministers, judges, diplomats, even one of the country’s top spies.” According to the article, the witness’s credibility subsequently collapsed, and £100,000 was paid out by the Metropolitan Police to the widow of one of the accused.

In the NewsNation episode, Coulthart introduces Jacob Barber, said to be a former Airman in the USAF who was an aerospace mechanic in the late 90’s, received NATO top-secret security clearance, and served in Bosnia. According to NewsNation, “He was also recruited into Air Force Special Operations, known as ‘combat control.’ He would eventually go on to work in a nonofficial capacity for the Defense Department and the intelligence community.” Three men said to be “former Special Operations soldiers” are presented to corroborate his claims (two say he is someone they can depend on, and one says “absolutely” to Coulthart asking if “we’ve recovered craft”), but Coulthart doesn’t ask if Barber was in Special Ops.

According to Barber, the events of 9/11 led him to move to California, and he ended up on a path that led to him being contracted as a helicopter pilot for a crash recovery team. He says he flew a helicopter at a military testing site “in the desert” that he calls “The Range,” and describes seeing unusual things, most notably, objects with “trans-medium” capabilities that could pass through solid earth.

He then goes on to claim that he was involved in the recovery of an egg-shaped object that didn’t look to him to be human made, and a disk with 8 segments he calls an “eightgon.” According to him he was overwhelmed with emotion during recovery of the eightgon and feels he was possessed by something feminine and god-like that continues to protect and guide him. He says the craft was called in to land by what he calls a “psionic” team using psychic powers. The exclusive video, said by Coulthart to have been “independently obtained by NewsNation,” shows green night-vision footage of an egg-shaped object at the end of a long cable being set down on the ground. The noise of a helicopter is heard throughout.

It then comes out that Barber has put together a private UAP crash recovery team (one member is said to be psionic) called Skywatcher using venture capital, and he says “Stay tuned and watch what our new project is going to do and prepare to be dazzled.” He is said to have met with Marco Rubio’s staff members and the UAP Task Force.

Barber, of course, is the main source to consider, and two Reddit users looked at his military records to see if they supported the claims about his service and posted their opinions on the “Reddit UFO Community” subreddit.

The first of the postings we looked at is titled “Why Barber is full of s*it, and how news nation tried to deceive you. From an Air Force Veteran perspective..” It was posted by user Lostinternally on January 18.  The first thing that’s pointed out is that Barber was an Airman and that one has to become an officer to fly an aircraft (including helicopters) in the Air Force. While it’s never stated during the NewsNation episode that Barber flew while in the Air Force, an illustration of a pilot sitting in a helicopter is presented just after Coulthart says (4:19) “he was also recruited into Air Force Special Operations, known as “Combat Control.”

As support that Barber was in Special Ops, his DD-214 (a record of release or discharge with a summary of service) is shown briefly on the NewsNation episode with everything blurred out except the words “Combat Control.” The Reddit user points out: “If they wanted to PROVE he was special forces [sic] (should be Ops), they would’ve highlighted the part of DD-214 that listed afsc’s [sic] (Air Force Force [sic] specialty code/your job in the Air Force).”

The second posting we looked at is titled “Is Jacob Barber Lying About Being a Combat Controller? A Deep Dive into His Military Records.” It was put up by user Weokee on January 21, and it is highly detailed.

To begin with, the user points out that while NewsNation made it seem as if Barber was in Special Ops, Barber himself has stated that he was in Special Ops covertly and that his job as an aircraft mechanic was a cover. According to the user, Barber enlisted in the Air Force under a Guaranteed Training Enlistment Program that gave him the assurance that he would be trained as a 1C231 (AFSC) Combat Control (CCT) Apprentice. While he was guaranteed the opportunity to train for Combat Control, “he still had to qualify and complete the training.”

According to his DD-214, he entered active duty on September 29, 1994. According to Weokee, he would have had to go through six weeks of basic training and then many months of additional training to be qualified for Combat Control, but his DD-214 shows he completed a 12-week Aerospace Maintenance course in February 1995, which indicates that Barber “very likely washed out during the Assessment and Selection course immediately after the Indoc in December and was quickly re-classed into being a Crew Chief.”

In an extended version of Coulthart’s interview with Barber (almost 3 hours) Barber talks about the Guaranteed Training Enlistment Program that he describes as “a ten-year commitment to Air Force Special Operations.” He says that after completing his basic training and Air Force Special Operations Selection, he entered “the pipeline” which he describes as an approximately two-year training schedule. According to him, it was during this time that he was approached by “certain individuals” who suggested he become a mechanic. He says this was a cover for him to become a covert operative. He says he participated in Air Force “clubs,” to acquire the skills he would need as an operative (he specifically says “nobody was training me.”) including a pilot club.

According to him, he flew as a covert operator, and in order to fly as a private contractor, he had to take a commercial pilot course. He says he had to fake a learning curve, so his instructors wouldn’t know he’d already had training. He goes on to say that while he was getting his pilot’s license, he set up businesses that would seek government contracts as part of his cover. He explains “The incidental benefits of the capabilities of the companies you set up are those benefits that are on standby to be deployed in the subject matter of UAPs.”

The concept of parsimony comes to mind.