I have come to learn in my many years of watching these claims being made that what they mean by "evidence" is usually just "something that convinced me", not actual proof, because the proof will always be "classified", and that's why you should believe them, because the proof is just out of sight, but its there I tells ya, you just have to believe...
My best guess is that he is referring to whatever will be in the Grusch op-ed, could be that presentation he gave in private that detailed some method of tracking objects in space, or possibly that section of a missile Kirkpatrick mentioned in his interview last week.
Whatever it ends up being, you can be pretty sure it wont be physical, it will probably be a mention of a piece of something they will claim is part of a UFO.
Yeah, Kirkpatrick nailed it when he said it's a religion that can't be argued with. As far as the so called artifacts, sometimes I hear them call it "not of the world", which I really don't know what thy mean by that or metamaterials which have not been presented to date.
More on Ross Coulthart not understanding what first-hand evidence is in the context of UFO crash retrievals.
He interviewed lawyer Daniel Sheehan for NewsNation, released today. Sheehan was given access (for no clear reason) to the supposed secret unreleased "real" Blue Book files on microfiche in 1977, working with Marcia Smith from the Congressional Research Service who was tasked by incoming President Carter to investigate UFOs (since CIA director George WH Bush denied Carter a UFO briefing). Coulthart also writes about Sheehan's story in his book In Plain Sight, chapter 6.
Sheehan was taken to a room in the Madison wing of the Library of Congress and left alone with some microfiche canisters of the abovementioned secret UFO cases. Thinking he wouldn't have time to read it all, he quickly searched for photos and found some in the third canister depicting a crashed UFO with military personnel, and alien symbols on the UFO. Rather than read any context surrounding the photos (he doesn't know the location or date, for example), he instead traced the alien symbols. And then, rather than taking this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to read some secret UFO stuff, he decided he was done, and left. Sheehan says his evidence about the UFO photos never made it back to Carter. Weird. [starts 19:22]
Sheehan says Kirkpatrick from AARO personally conducted an interview with him where he relayed this story.
Anyway, back to Coulthart. He introduces Sheehan as "a direct first-hand witness to the existence of that retrieval program" [4:33] and he has "direct first-hand evidence of a retrieval program he's never been able to talk about before - the fact that he gave direct evidence to AARO... He signed an NDA with Dr Sean Kirkpatrick but he's made the decision over the weekend to speak publicly about what he knows..." [8:00]
More quotes that refer to Sheehan - in the context of this story - as being a first-hand witness and that a context-free photo is direct evidence the USG had an ET retrieval program:
C: Forgive me for having to challenge you on this, but this isn't some BS story on your part? You're actually saying this happened, you were given access quite extraordinarily to direct evidence that the United States government is aware of retrieved potentially nonhuman craft, flying saucers.
I guess I feel a sense of futility that when you've got direct first-hand witness evidence like yours and it's blatantly wilfully ignored by AARO's investigation, and egregiously misrepresented to Congress, what what hope is there?
Sheehan recognizes the problem of first- v second-hand but dismisses it: [38:33]
The question is whether he [Kirkpatrick in his report] was taking some weird position that, well, that was a photograph and it wasn't on site, I didn't lay my hands on the craft. And I could tell from the way the report was written it was kind of wiggle language of trying to pretend that somehow they had no direct evidence.
Despite Coulthart's continually expressed outrage at Kirkpatrick, he does ask these pertinent questions about exactly what Kirkpatrick was working with... which in this case was nothing: [46:34]
C: To your knowledge were any inquiries made by AARO as a result of your evidence to Dr Sean Kirkpatrick? What was his reaction when you gave him the evidence?
Sheehan: He asked me if I could provide to him a copy of the tracings that I had done, and I had said that I didn't have those anymore, you know, that I brought them to Jesuit headquarters [back in 1977] ... [and lost track of them]
It's erroneous as well as pointless to keep calling this sort of thing "first-hand evidence". Sheehan can't tell us one thing about the context of those photos because it seems he didn't read one word about the case. The surrounding text may have explained it was a movie set or a known hoax - we don't know and neither does he. But if this is called first-hand evidence - an improbable story of seeing secret photos with no context - what do we call evidence from someone who says they did touch an alien craft? Zeroth-hand evidence?
I think there's a good chance we will actually get to see the image he based this off of (if it exists at all), and it will turn out to be from some banal source and have clear explanation around it that it's not of a real alien site. I find the lack of detail except drawing the to us meaningless squiggles truly baffling-in what universe do you not note down what the text says about where and when the photo was made?
More on Ross Coulthart not understanding what first-hand evidence is in the context of UFO crash retrievals.
He interviewed lawyer Daniel Sheehan for NewsNation, released today. Sheehan was given access (for no clear reason) to the supposed secret unreleased "real" Blue Book files on microfiche in 1977, working with Marcia Smith from the Congressional Research Service who was tasked by incoming President Carter to investigate UFOs (since CIA director George WH Bush denied Carter a UFO briefing). Coulthart also writes about Sheehan's story in his book In Plain Sight, chapter 6.
...
It's erroneous as well as pointless to keep calling this sort of thing "first-hand evidence". Sheehan can't tell us one thing about the context of those photos because it seems he didn't read one word about the case. The surrounding text may have explained it was a movie set or a known hoax - we don't know and neither does he. But if this is called first-hand evidence - an improbable story of seeing secret photos with no context - what do we call evidence from someone who says they did touch an alien craft? Zeroth-hand evidence?
And they aren't even "the photos"; if they're on microfiche, they're photos of photos made by an archivist, who we have no reason to believe was one of the original photographers or document preparers. Call me harsh, but I could even slap a "third hand" label on this.
C: To your knowledge were any inquiries made by AARO as a result of your evidence to Dr Sean Kirkpatrick? What was his reaction when you gave him the evidence?
Sheehan: He asked me if I could provide to him a copy of the tracings that I had done, and I had said that I didn't have those anymore, you know, that I brought them to Jesuit headquarters [back in 1977] ... [and lost track of them]
As I was reading your post, I was thinking, AARO had full access to those exact microfiches, they'd have sent someone to look for these symbols and figure out which case it was, but when he doesn't even have those....
His "evidence" is, "there's a picture of what looks like a UFO in the Blue Book files", and it's contradicted by the fact that people have looked at these cases 4 times now (Project Blue Book, O'Brien Committee, AATIP/Elizondo, AARO) and not found anything noteworthy.
On the other hand, there have been several hoaxes that involved alien writing.
All Coulthart really has here is Sheehan's MEMORY of a photo he saw on a microfiche reader 45 years ago! Sheehan was tasked, by the president no less, to investigate UFOs. It seems the best he could come up with is 1 supposed photo of a crashed UFO and all he does is sketch out the "alien symbols" from the craft. Then, after acquiring his "smoking gun" sketch, he loses track of it!
And you gotta love the "alien symbols" trope. The notion that an alien civilization form lightyears away would come here, crash as usual, and paint symbols on their craft the way we do is pure projection. It was the '70s and the original Ancient Aliens, Chariots of the Gods? had come out linking disparate things like Egyptian temples and pyramids with the Mayan Lord Pacal's sarcophagus thus blending ancient human writings with aliens. The original Star Wars also came out in '77 featuring a variety of symbols in the background and the Mayan ruins of Tikal standing in for the rebel base at the end.
Indeed, and I think there's an important point here. We know eyewitness account are not very good evidence, as human perceptions and memories are prone to numerous errors and inaccuracies - even entire accidental fabulations. So we value hard evidence like photos, video, or radar.
But a memory of a photo is no better than an eyewitness account. In fact, it's arguably worse. What's better evidence: someone seeing a UFO or someone seeing a photo of a UFO?
This type of thing crops up a lot in the Nimitz case, which is claimed to be a case with eyewitness and video and radar data. In reality there's only memories of radar data, largely from one guy, Kevin Day, whose recollection is demonstrably inconsistent. Then there eyewitnesses to one event and video of another event.
All Coulthart really has here is Sheehan's MEMORY of a photo he saw on a microfiche reader 45 years ago! Sheehan was tasked, by the president no less, to investigate UFOs. It seems the best he could come up with is 1 supposed photo of a crashed UFO and all he does is sketch out the "alien symbols" from the craft. Then, after acquiring his "smoking gun" sketch, he loses track of it!
Mr. Sheehan has reproduced the symbols various times and places and the symbols appear to be in different orders, different orientations, and with different symbols missing or present. His response when questioned about that, is that he doesn't remember the order but he definitely remembers the correct symbols. Right...he lost the most important piece of UFO evidence he ever discovered, can't even consistently reproduce the symbols, but for Mr. Coulthart, Sheehan's story is enough to conclude "There you have it ladies and gentlemen: we have a constitutional crisis in America. We have a direct threat to the control by Congress of everything that happens inside the US government." (58:42).
Here are some of Mr. Sheehan's previous reproductions of the symbols:
Mr. Sheehan has reproduced the symbols various times and places and the symbols appear to be in different orders, different orientations, and with different symbols missing or present. His response when questioned about that, is that he doesn't remember the order but he definitely remembers the correct symbols. Right...he lost the most important piece of UFO evidence he ever discovered, can't even consistently reproduce the symbols, but for Mr. Coulthart, Sheehan's story is enough to conclude "There you have it ladies and gentlemen: we have a constitutional crisis in America. We have a direct threat to the control by Congress of everything that happens inside the US government." (58:42).
Here are some of Mr. Sheehan's previous reproductions of the symbols:
The big mystery to me is that he recorded these symbols at all.
If I was in a position where I was looking at a vital piece of evidence, and I had only moments to make a record I could take away with me I would not copy some symbols.
I would write the indexing information from the end of the microfiche I was looking at. The Dewey Decimal system number, the Library of Congress classification number, the IP address, the zip code, whatever was being used to identify where that piece of film was being stored.
With that information I could find it again, or others could find it. The content is important, but the ability to return to that content in the future is far, far more important. What does he remember about WHERE that microfiche was? Anything?
Was this the first time he had ever been assigned to perform research?
The big mystery to me is that he recorded these symbols at all.
If I was in a position where I was looking at a vital piece of evidence, and I had only moments to make a record I could take away with me I would not copy some symbols.
I would write the indexing information from the end of the microfiche I was looking at. The Dewey Decimal system number, the Library of Congress classification number, the IP address, the zip code, whatever was being used to identify where that piece of film was being stored.
With that information I could find it again, or others could find it. The content is important, but the ability to return to that content in the future is far, far more important. What does he remember about WHERE that microfiche was? Anything?
Was this the first time he had ever been assigned to perform research?
Mr. Sheehan has reproduced the symbols various times and places and the symbols appear to be in different orders, different orientations, and with different symbols missing or present. His response when questioned about that, is that he doesn't remember the order but he definitely remembers the correct symbols. Right...he lost the most important piece of UFO evidence he ever discovered, can't even consistently reproduce the symbols, but for Mr. Coulthart, Sheehan's story is enough to conclude "There you have it ladies and gentlemen: we have a constitutional crisis in America. We have a direct threat to the control by Congress of everything that happens inside the US government." (58:42).
Here are some of Mr. Sheehan's previous reproductions of the symbols:
The first six symbols define the destination point in 3D space, but without the seventh glyph you don't have an origin point. If he can't remember all seven symbols, he can't generate a wormhole and get home. Saw it in an old documentary somewhere. /s
I would write the indexing information from the end of the microfiche I was looking at. The Dewey Decimal system number, the Library of Congress classification number, the IP address, the zip code, whatever was being used to identify where that piece of film was being stored.
I'm going to be honest here: if I was holding actual evidence that proves there's flying saucers and they're being driven by aliens, I'm stealing it from the Library of Congress and will deal with the consequences later.
I think there's a good chance we will actually get to see the image he based this off of (if it exists at all), and it will turn out to be from some banal source and have clear explanation around it that it's not of a real alien site. I find the lack of detail except drawing the to us meaningless squiggles truly baffling-in what universe do you not note down what the text says about where and when the photo was made?
Jeff Knox (MrJeffKnox on Twitter, who daily posts old UFO cases) has pointed out the similarities between Sheehan's description of the photos and an old Russian "hoax" (I mean... it could be real?) which was profiled in this 1998 documentary called The Secret KGB UFO Files [IMDb] (hosted by Roger Moore) but the footage was presumably doing the rounds before then.
The incident was supposed to be 1969 and is referred to as the Russian Roswell - it includes footage of a crashed UFO as well as an alien autopsy. The UFO footage starts at 5:10. Note Sheehan said there were photos and a "movie" (How did he know from viewing microfilm that there was a movie?) The UFO appears to possibly have alien markings on it but it's hard to tell from the footage. Maybe Sheehan saw clearer photos.
I'd like to find out when Sheehan first started telling his story. There are some obvious differences (the guys are quite obviously Russian not US and the flying saucer is smaller) but if Sheehan, for example, saw this footage only once and has been going from memory ever since, maybe it's a candidate for what he saw... But in the 90s not the 70s.
Another candidate for what he saw in the 70s (via Jeff Knox) is the 70 canisters of microfilm of 130,000 pages of Air Force files 1947-1969 i.e. Blue Book cases. These were sent to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1975, two years before Sheehan's story, increasing the likelihood that's what he saw.
Perhaps this all belongs in its own Sheehan Claims thread.
So we have to hold in our heads the ideas simultaneously that "the UFO programs are ultra-giga-mega secret and are kept away from even Congressional oversight" and "a lawyer was easily able to access ultra top secret direct images of crashed UFOs via the Library of Congress who kept the evidence easily accessible on microfiche" for this story to make any sense.
Sheehan says he was asked for two forms of photo ID before being let into the building - the then brand new unopened Madison wing of the Library of Congress. He showed his DC driver's licence and passport. I haven't yet found info on whether DC was using photos on driver's licences in 1977. The mid-to-late-70s appears to be the crossover period when they started appearing in some states.
What happened is Marcia Smith had told me that I had to bring two forms of official photo ID, so I brought my Washington DC driver's license and I brought my passport.
So, what Coulthart calls (in his book) a "cloak-and-dagger rendezvous" and "intense security" (chp 6) consisted of Sheehan being asked for ID. This does not equate to a background check to view top secret documents. Sounds more like a check-in process. And they let him walk into the basement office with a notepad while telling him he couldn't take notes.
Jeff Knox (MrJeffKnox on Twitter, who daily posts old UFO cases) has pointed out the similarities between Sheehan's description of the photos and an old Russian "hoax" (I mean... it could be real?) which was profiled in this 1998 documentary called The Secret KGB UFO Files [IMDb] (hosted by Roger Moore) but the footage was presumably doing the rounds before then.
The incident was supposed to be 1969 and is referred to as the Russian Roswell - it includes footage of a crashed UFO as well as an alien autopsy. The UFO footage starts at 5:10. Note Sheehan said there were photos and a "movie" (How did he know from viewing microfilm that there was a movie?) The UFO appears to possibly have alien markings on it but it's hard to tell from the footage. Maybe Sheehan saw clearer photos.
I'd like to find out when Sheehan first started telling his story. There are some obvious differences (the guys are quite obviously Russian not US and the flying saucer is smaller) but if Sheehan, for example, saw this footage only once and has been going from memory ever since, maybe it's a candidate for what he saw... But in the 90s not the 70s.
Another candidate for what he saw in the 70s (via Jeff Knox) is the 70 canisters of microfilm of 130,000 pages of Air Force files 1947-1969 i.e. Blue Book cases. These were sent to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1975, two years before Sheehan's story, increasing the likelihood that's what he saw. John Greenewald published them in 2015 as PDFs according to this ABC article but I haven't found them on his BlackVault website (I find that site hard to use).
More than 130,000 pages of declassified documents relating to Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) from the U.S. Air Force have been published online for the first time in history... Greenewald took the painstaking effort to convert every single page into downloadable PDF files for digital consumption across the world.
Perhaps this all belongs in its own Sheehan Claims thread.
those symbols are blurry but they do look similar-it could be he's blended memories from seeing this documentary with when he looked over Blue Book all those years ago via confabulation.
All Coulthart really has here is Sheehan's MEMORY of a photo he saw on a microfiche reader 45 years ago! Sheehan was tasked, by the president no less, to investigate UFOs. It seems the best he could come up with is 1 supposed photo of a crashed UFO and all he does is sketch out the "alien symbols" from the craft. Then, after acquiring his "smoking gun" sketch, he loses track of it!
The way the story is told, it wasn't even Sheehan who was tasked with this by the President. It was Marcia Smith in her official capacity. For some reason she got Sheehan involved, according to Sheehan, instead of doing it herself. If I were her and I got permission to view top secret UFO files, I'd damn well go myself!!
So we have to hold in our heads the ideas simultaneously that "the UFO programs are ultra-giga-mega secret and are kept away from even Congressional oversight" and "a lawyer was easily able to access ultra top secret direct images of crashed UFOs via the Library of Congress who kept the evidence easily accessible on microfiche" for this story to make any sense.
Which is why, to me, this entire story reads like the sort of thing Kirkpatrick wrote about - people misinterpreting things they saw, and in particular misinterpreting in hindsight. Similar to experiencers who, once they have a defining incident that convinces them of ET, they look back on their lives and now every single unusual thing that happened to them is part of their "lifelong contact with the Phenomenon". Or someone got an accidental or compartmentalized sneak peek at some tech, out of context, and years later they "put two and two together" and it becomes a crash retrieval program in their mind.
So, perhaps in 1977 Sheehan was shown some files that weren't even classified, some rejected Blue Book case files perhaps, and maybe someone was even pulling his leg into making him think they were more than they were, and at the time it wasn't even particularly memorable (since he didn't even copy his tracing or read the surrounding info on the photos) but then in the 90s he saw that Russian movie or something similar, and conflated things in his head to produce the narrative he has been spouting since then.
those symbols are blurry but they do look similar-it could be he's blended memories from seeing this documentary with when he looked over Blue Book all those years ago via confabulation.
Another point of note is that Sheehan's symbols are very simple. Yet he projected the microfilm onto the cardboard backing of his notepad and traced them - which takes much longer than just copying them. Which tells me they were probably indistinct on the photo (like the Russian movie) so he projected them to get a better tracing?
I don't think that's what happened, though. I'm asking myself why he didn't just write the symbols on his forearm under his sleeve, if they were that simple, thus avoiding detection. The guards let him take the notebook (but not his briefcase) into the room, and checked the pages on the way out but he'd sneakily traced them onto the cardboard backing and they didn't notice.
Again, I would really love to know when he first started telling this story so we can see what was around in the public sphere at the time. And also if details have been added since he first started telling it because that could be a sign that over time he's covered the plot holes of what on the face of it is an implausible and rather silly sequence of events.
Is it me, or do most of these just look like variations on one of the standard "divide" symbols? If so, it would mean the aliens are using a largely Anglophone symbol, Rule Britania! Or the symbol was given to the ancient Brittons, or maybe better yet some of the English Kings, so they could use it and other stuff the aliens taught them to create the British Empire:
The division sign (÷) is a mathematical symbol consisting of a short horizontal line with a dot above and another dot below, used in Anglophone countries to indicate the operation of division. This usage, though widespread in some countries, is not universal and the symbol has a different meaning in other countries. Its use to denote division is not recommended in the ISO 80000-2 standard for mathematical notation.[1]
Seriously, this is comically embarrassing I would think. Coulthart is claiming a guy talking about a microfiche photo he saw 45 years ago and some recollections about line and dot symbols is "firsthand" evidence of aliens. I guess he's preaching to the choir with this.
Or the symbol was given to the ancient Brittons, or maybe better yet some of the English Kings, so they could use it and other stuff the aliens taught them to create the British Empire:
His "evidence" is, "there's a picture of what looks like a UFO in the Blue Book files", and it's contradicted by the fact that people have looked at these cases 4 times now (Project Blue Book, O'Brien Committee, AATIP/Elizondo, AARO) and not found anything noteworthy.
I opened up the yellow pad to the inside cardboard backing and what I did is I pushed the backing underneath the microfiche machine and then focused the microfiche right onto the inside back, inside cover of the yellow pad so that I could trace them identically, absolutely totally accurately, every single one of them. There must have been about 8 or 10 of them that were all obvious, so I traced them in detail and I got them all done.
I opened up the yellow pad to the inside cardboard backing and what I did is I pushed the backing underneath the microfiche machine and then focused the microfiche right onto the inside back, inside cover of the yellow pad so that I could trace them identically, absolutely totally accurately, every single one of them. There must have been about 8 or 10 of them that were all obvious, so I traced them in detail and I got them all done.
I opened up the yellow pad to the inside cardboard backing and what I did is I pushed the backing underneath the microfiche machine and then focused the microfiche right onto the inside back, inside cover of the yellow pad so that I could trace them identically, absolutely totally accurately, every single one of them. There must have been about 8 or 10 of them that were all obvious, so I traced them in detail and I got them all done.
As I mentioned above, the original Star Wars movies had lots of writing in the background. Turns out for uber-geeks there is an entire alpha-numeric system and language from the films. This is written Aurebesh:
I'm going to be honest here: if I was holding actual evidence that proves there's flying saucers and they're being driven by aliens, I'm stealing it from the Library of Congress and will deal with the consequences later.
Sheehan's changing story
Maybe a new thread can be made with his claims, and migrate this over?
I've found a 1995 talk by Sheehan where he tells this story. It's rather different, to say the least. In this version: [starts at 28:47]
This trip to see the photos was a precursor to a 3h talk he was invited to give at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, and he'd asked Marcia Smith to make him a contractor so he could have classified access in order to do some research for the talk.
He was not alone but went with Jim Garrison, to an unnamed location, and says "she" has astonishing stuff - i.e. the microfilms seem to have been in the possession of Marcia Smith at the time, or at least he implies she already saw this stuff. (She's still alive and active, incidentally. Coulthart makes no mention of having tried to contact her.)
The guards saw the yellow notepad as he was going in and warned him not to take notes (today he implies they didn't see it and in fact he slid it behind a box, once in the room, to prevent anyone seeing it).
He traced the "writing" from "different metallic things" in the photos (no mention of any photos of crashed flying saucers, let alone one showing writing on the hull).
He still has the tracing in 1995 (today he gives a vague story of handing it to the priest and assuming it was in the files there, then losing track of it in a move to CA).
I get a hold of Jim Garrison, who was in my staff at the Jesuit National Headquarters previous to his incarnation as the head of the Gorbachev Foundation. So Jimmy and I go over and we get to look at all this stuff with these cranky little films, you know, you have to crank that little machine and look at all this stuff. And there was some astonishing stuff that she had, you know which included guys, I mean these Air Force grunts, you know, with these big long tape measures measuring these strange metallic things, you know, and with writing on them. I mean with really interesting writing on them.
But when we're ready to go in, they said "You can't you can't take any notes and you can't take anything out with you."
And so I said, "Well all I've got here is my yellow pad but you can check the yellow pad when I come back."
So I went in and what I did is I adjusted the little overhead job that we had, that had the pictures, and I just cranked it down to the exact size of the yellow pad and I flipped open the yellow pad and on the inside of the cardboard at the back end I traced the writing on these different metallic things they have. That's why I still have that. And so we come out and I get to go to JPL and for three hours I then start to talk with them...
The guards saw the yellow notepad as he was going in and warned him not to take notes (today he implies they didn't see it and in fact he slid it behind a box, once in the room, to prevent anyone seeing it).
Why would the JPL have invited him to speak? Maybe they did, but I can't see what he was doing was related to JPL, other than his UFO stuff, mostly in later years:
But when we're ready to go in, they said "You can't you can't take any notes and you can't take anything out with you."
And so I said, "Well all I've got here is my yellow pad but you can check the yellow pad when I come back."
Which makes no sense. If he couldn't take notes, then why let him take a notebook in?
I get a hold of Jim Garrison, who was in my staff at the Jesuit National Headquarters previous to his incarnation as the head of the Gorbachev Foundation. So Jimmy and I go over and we get to look at all this stuff with these cranky little films, you know, you have to crank that little machine and look at all this stuff. And there was some astonishing stuff that she had, you know which included guys, I mean these Air Force grunts, you know, with these big long tape measures measuring these strange metallic things, you know, and with writing on them. I mean with really interesting writing on them.
But when we're ready to go in, they said "You can't you can't take any notes and you can't take anything out with you."
And so I said, "Well all I've got here is my yellow pad but you can check the yellow pad when I come back."
So I went in and what I did is I adjusted the little overhead job that we had, that had the pictures, and I just cranked it down to the exact size of the yellow pad and I flipped open the yellow pad and on the inside of the cardboard at the back end I traced the writing on these different metallic things they have. That's why I still have that. And so we come out and I get to go to JPL and for three hours I then start to talk with them...
To bring this back to Coulthart: in his book In Plain Sight chp 6 he writes:
Sheehan has told this story for decades, unchallenged by any official, asserting that what he saw in the multiple images was a full-scale classic saucer with a dome. The craft he saw had crashed in a field and was covered with snow.
Except that the 1995 version of the story, at least in this talk, said nothing about the crashed UFO. And that can't be because of some embargo on talking about secret UFOs, because earlier in the 1995 talk Sheehan mentions reading a classified report by Marcia Smith with diagrams of various UFO shapes.
Marcia goes forward and prepares the report, a classified report on UFOs, which I end up being given a copy of, which concludes - the official conclusion of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service is that there are at least from two to ten addition other highly civilized and highly technological civilizations other than the Earth, within our galaxy. And then there is a section on UFOs, which has you know - little drawings of like about six or eight different kinds of classic repeatedly seen UFOs.
Note that here Sheehan says the report was written before he got access to the microfilm, and his access was for a talk at JPL. He told Coulthart he was given access before she wrote the report, as part of their research for the report, but for mysterious reasons his evidence of seeing the photos was not included in the report for the President, hence Carter did not know about them.
And another discrepancy: He told Coulthart that Marcia Smith was annoyed with him for not getting more evidence from the microfilm he saw... but in 1995 he clearly implies she had already seen all the microfilm - hence "And there was some astonishing stuff that she had."
Coulthart does not appear to have done any research on comparing previous iterations of the story. He displayed the same problem with his Westall reporting, where he believed a likeable* witness whose story has been dramatically and progressively embellished since she first started telling it a decade earlier. I wrote about it earlier in this thread.
*Regarding Coulthart's impression of Sheehan from In Plain Sight chp 6:
I talked to Sheehan many times over the course of several months and, although now an older man, his brain is still razor sharp. A well respected jurist and civil rights campaigner, he also has a theatrical flourish for storytelling and an Irish charm that trial juries enjoy.
Did the guard not think he might copy stuff down, then rip out the page and stuff it down his pants? (Evidently not, since in the 2024 version of the story the guard merely flicks though the pages.) What possible reason could the guard have for letting him take the notebook in there?
Why would the JPL have invited him to speak? Maybe they did, but I can't see what he was doing was related to JPL, other than his UFO stuff, mostly in later years:
The funding for SETI had been cut, so he helped lobby with astronauts to get it back. The people at JPL were "ecstatic" about this and invited him to do a 3h seminar.
[Marcia Smith] said would you be willing, as the chief counsel for the Jesuit National Headquarters office of Social Ministry, to join with a few of the astronauts to lobby with the congressman to get this funding back in. So I said sure I'll do that, let me check with the Jesuit office and the
directors and the board and get permission to do this. And they gave me permission to do it, so I go back in and we lobby for it and it all gets put back in... And so the people out at JPL the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were ecstatic about this. So I get invited to go meet with the top 40 scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to do a three-hour seminar with them on anything I want.
So I said to Marcia, I go to Marcia Smith and I said, look if I'm going to prepare adequately for this, how about letting me see all of the classified information that you saw in doing this report?
It's not plausible to me that even if he got access to these top secret files as a contractor, he was then allowed to spill all those beans to 40 top scientists at JPL who may have had no need to know regardless of their clearance level.
