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The case for UAP science | Reality Check

September 22, 2026 · 1 h 55 min

Show notes

In this episode of "Reality Check," Ross Coulthart sits down with professor Matthew Szydagis, an astroparticle physicist at the University at Albany SUNY, who was recently appointed to the UAP Science Advisory Council for the White House and federal agencies. Szydagis describes what the council can and cannot do without security clearances, including the more than 50 declassification requests its members have already filed and names the Varginha UFO case as the one he most wants disclosed.


He walks Coulthart through the energy a Tic Tac maneuver would demand, and why he treats the claim that interstellar distances are too great as a misreading of relativity rather than a limit on visitation. He also gives a detailed account of his ongoing testing of one of the Art's Parts samples entrusted to him by Tom DeLonge and Hal Puthoff, including the millimeter-scale holes that point toward a human origin. The harassment that followed came not from debunkers but from people who want the sample to be alien, and he says it has been worse than anything skeptics have sent him.


#UAP #science #declassification


CREDITS:

Host: Ross Coulthart

Executive Producer: Andy Gipson

Editorial Producer: Meagan Medick

Associate Producer: Will Tomasi

Research Producer: Rob Jones

Editor: Kanyon Lyons


On "Reality Check," NewsNation Special Correspondent Ross Coulthart takes a fact-based approach to tackle everything from unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to mysteries often missing from the headlines.


More Reality Check: https://www.newsnationnow.com/podcasts-newsnation/reality-check-with-ross-coulthart/


Email your questions to [email protected]


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CHAPTER SUMMARY:

0:00 Intro

2:18 Funding UAP Science at Albany

5:22 Why One Camera Is Never Enough

17:08 Disclosure From the Bottom Up

19:17 Inside the Science Advisory Council

27:17 Stigma and Threats Against Researchers

30:26 What Catastrophic Disclosure Means

38:46 Energy From the Quantum Vacuum

44:54 Evidence Versus Proof

48:38 Time Dilation and Warp Drive

55:16 Eric Davis and Extraordinary Claims

1:04:51 Testing Art's Parts

1:12:22 The Millimeter Holes

1:20:54 Ubatuba Sample

1:25:09 Malevolent NHI and the Trickster

1:29:18 Faith, Demons, and Ontological Shock

1:39:58 Designing the Ideal UAP Program

1:43:42 Is Physics Being Suppressed?

All episodes of Reality Check with Ross Coulthart

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