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knapp-ufo-reporter-newsnation-pt2-2023-10-25

45 min read

The UFO Reporter: The Files of George Knapp — Part 2 (NewsNation), Oct 25, 2023

[00:00:02.434] We’re talking with John Lear on the subject. [00:00:05.137] Previously on The UFO Reporter [00:00:06.672] The most commonly described [00:00:08.608] alien is about three and a half feet tall [00:00:10.810] as a round head, arms reaching to or below his knees and [00:00:13.846] is wearing a silvery spacesuit or coveralls. [00:00:17.283] Our guest on this particular day canceled. [00:00:19.819] Who could we get to fill this? [00:00:20.920] I called up John Lear [00:00:22.121] I said, you said you had a guy he was going to work out there [00:00:24.523] and maybe work on flying saucer in the desert. [00:00:26.726] Can we talk to him? [00:00:28.461] Well, there’s several, uh, [00:00:30.563] actually, nine, uh, flying saucers. [00:00:33.633] Flying disks. [00:00:34.300] I don’t even know his name. [00:00:35.434] He used a pseudonym and out the story comes [00:00:38.237] that are out there of extraterrestrial origin. [00:00:40.973] I get pulled off the set, the general manager comes back. [00:00:43.443] What the hell was that? Is this for real? What did you just do? [00:00:47.313] His real name is Robert Lazar. [00:00:49.082] He says he earned degrees in physics and electronics. [00:00:51.784] But the schools we contacted say they’ve never heard of him. [00:00:54.554] Well, they’re trying to make me a non-person. [00:00:56.856] And tonight, George digs deeper, searching for the truth. [00:01:00.359] Did you knowingly lie? [00:01:02.061] I am telling the truth. [00:01:03.162] I tried to prove that. [00:01:04.798] Look, I don’t know if it’s real. [00:01:06.399] But I’m going to find out. [00:01:07.366] The Area 51 whistleblower comes under fire. [00:01:10.202] We got threatening phone calls. [00:01:11.637] You’ll never make it back here. [00:01:13.038] And George gets the attention of the U.S. government. [00:01:15.875] We were followed. [00:01:17.176] So they were definitely listening to you? [00:01:18.343] They were listening to my phone. [00:01:19.745] Along with two secret allies, all paving the way for [00:01:22.782] an unprecedented twist inside the halls of the U.S. [00:01:26.285] Capitol. [00:01:27.520] A multi decade crash retrieval and reverse engineering program. [00:01:31.023] Oh, this is serious. [00:01:31.891] It’s been serious for a long time [00:01:33.392] and it’s been ignored for way too long. [00:01:35.829] The keepers of the secrets are better at their job [00:01:38.430] than people like us are at ours. [00:01:40.032] And they’re not going to let this thing go easily. [00:01:44.136] For over 30 years, investigative journalist [00:01:46.306] George Knapp has fearlessly taken [00:01:48.274] on the biggest mysteries, crimes and scandals. [00:01:51.077] Tonight, we examine a few additional UFO cases. [00:01:53.980] From the Las Vegas mob [00:01:55.348] The murder of Alan Dorfman was never solved, [00:01:57.716] nor was the bombing of Frank Rosenthal’s car. [00:02:00.186] To strange phenomena in the sky. [00:02:02.188] There is some kind of a phenomenon here [00:02:03.922] that can’t just be written off. Covering it all just the same. [00:02:10.162] I’ve always approached it as a news story, [00:02:11.998] It’s not my religion, it’s not a belief. [00:02:13.899] I don’t know what to believe. [00:02:15.101] Even now. [00:02:17.704] Now NewsNation is bringing you unprecedented access [00:02:20.673] to his archives that date back decades and how his life’s [00:02:23.843] work still influences the conversation on UFOs [00:02:27.346] to this day. [00:02:32.352] 36 years later, I’m [00:02:33.619] still trying to figure it out. [00:02:44.029] Well, this field is a mess. [00:02:45.365] This is just, [00:02:46.299] you know, 95% of this stuff is nonsense, [00:02:49.234] it’s explainable, it’s prosaic. [00:02:51.003] And I figured, well, look, [00:02:52.906] I mean, what this topic needs is a good reporter [00:02:55.241] I■ll have this all whipped into shape in six months. [00:02:57.910] And of course, that was ridiculously optimistic. [00:03:03.816] Six months turned into a 36 year Las [00:03:06.519] Vegas career for investigative reporter George Knapp. [00:03:09.755] Did you have any interesting [00:03:11.424] meetings with anyone UFO related around here? [00:03:14.027] You go to any certain restaurants, or? [00:03:16.462] All of them. [00:03:17.430] I mean, the Peppermill where we grabbed lunch, [00:03:20.432] that was like my office annex. [00:03:22.134] I would meet all kinds of people from Area 51 there. [00:03:26.639] George helped reveal the very existence of Area 51 [00:03:29.975] through his interviews with Bob Lazar. [00:03:32.044] Tonight, we’re going to delve a little deeper [00:03:33.679] into the subject with the man who was the impetus [00:03:35.715] for our reports in the first place. [00:03:37.416] Bob Lazar. Bob, good to have you here. [00:03:39.785] A thumbnail sketch of yourself [00:03:41.287] for those who might not be familiar with [00:03:43.022] with your background. [00:03:44.424] Lazar was a young scientist who claimed to work at [00:03:46.825] the secret base called Area 51 near Groom Lake [00:03:50.229] in an especially hidden area called S-4, [00:03:53.165] where Lazar claimed crashed UFOs were stored. [00:03:56.169] Actually, nine flying saucers, flying disk. [00:03:59.138] This came from somewhere else. [00:04:00.239] I mean, as bizarre as that is to believe, [00:04:01.841] but I mean, it’s there. I saw it. [00:04:03.876] I know what the current state of the art is [00:04:05.445] in physics and it can’t be done. [00:04:09.715] This is one of George’s reports from 1989 [00:04:12.551] about what exactly Lazar says he saw. [00:04:15.220] According to Lazar, his employer was the United States Navy. [00:04:18.324] employees would gather near EG&G [00:04:21.894] fly to Groom Lake, and then a very few people [00:04:24.129] would get into a bus with blacked out [00:04:25.998] or no windows and drive to S-4. So you get off the bus, [00:04:29.301] What do you see? [00:04:30.937] It’s a very interesting building. [00:04:32.304] It’s got a slope of probably about 30 degrees. [00:04:37.009] Which are hangar doors, and it has textured paint on it. [00:04:42.114] But it’s it looks like sand. [00:04:43.349] It’s made to look like [00:04:44.249] the side of the mountain [00:04:45.217] that it’s in, whether it’s to disguise it [00:04:46.552] from satellite photographs or what. [00:04:48.287] He says he was never told exactly what he’d be working on, [00:04:50.956] but figured it had something to do with advanced propulsion. [00:04:53.793] On his first day, he was told to read [00:04:55.528] a series of briefings [00:04:56.662] and immediately realized how advanced the propulsion was. [00:05:00.065] The power source is an anti-matter reactor. [00:05:03.802] They run gravity amplifiers. [00:05:06.806] There’s actually two parts to the drive mechanism. [00:05:10.809] It’s just it’s a bizarre technology. [00:05:12.845] There’s no physical hook up between any of the systems [00:05:16.082] in there. [00:05:17.984] They use gravity as [00:05:19.185] a wave, using waveguides, almost like microwaves. [00:05:22.188] It took a while, Lazar says, before [00:05:23.923] he actually saw one of the flying discs. [00:05:25.925] However, there were hints everywhere. Right. [00:05:28.060] They had a poster [00:05:29.295] and it looked like a commercial poster, [00:05:31.029] almost like it was a lithograph. [00:05:32.498] And you could buy it at a Kmart or something. [00:05:34.533] But they were all over the place and it had the [00:05:37.170] the disk that I coined, the term, [00:05:38.905] the sport model was lifted off the ground [00:05:41.139] about three feet at at areas, four on the dry lake there. [00:05:47.746] and those are just all over the place. [00:05:50.015] Later, he got to see the real thing. [00:05:51.950] When I was led in, [00:05:53.085] it was the first time I saw the sport model [00:05:55.621] in the hangar sitting down and I was told [00:05:59.759] they could have walked me in the front door, [00:06:01.159] but they purposely wanted to walk me by it. [00:06:02.928] I was told not to say anything and just keep my eyes forward [00:06:04.863] and and walk past the disc into the office area. [00:06:09.301] And I did. [00:06:10.502] And as we went by it, I just kind of stuck my hands on it [00:06:13.506] just to run it alongside the thing. And [00:06:16.742] you know, that that was about the smallest time. [00:06:20.178] After that, I got to see it [00:06:22.748] actually lift off the ground and operate. [00:06:25.184] But you you also in between that you saw more than one. [00:06:29.721] Yeah. [00:06:30.522] The hangars are all connected [00:06:32.057] together and there are large bay doors between each one. [00:06:35.494] And there were nine total that I saw, [00:06:39.031] each one being different, like they had the assortment pack, [00:06:43.101] One of the nine flying disks he says he saw at the base, [00:06:46.138] which was designated S-4, looks exactly like this UFO [00:06:50.076] photographed in Europe. Lazar called it the sport model. [00:06:53.078] I gave everything simple names, there■s the top hat one, and [00:06:58.084] the jello mold and [00:07:00.653] the sport model operated [00:07:04.323] you know without any hitches at all. [00:07:05.658] I mean, it looked new. [00:07:08.260] If I can, if I knew what a new flying saucer looks like [00:07:12.931] one of them look like it was hit with some sort of projectile. [00:07:15.468] Even before he saw the sport model operate, Lazar [00:07:18.370] says he suspected that the ship came from somewhere else. [00:07:21.407] The realization slapped him in the face [00:07:23.376] the first time he glimpsed the inside of the disk. [00:07:26.178] I got to look inside and it had really small chairs, [00:07:29.949] and I think that was the first confirmation I had. [00:07:33.352] That was just a shocking thing because every time before [00:07:36.421] that I was able to label, well, this is just [00:07:40.259] a little advance that a group of scientists had formed [00:07:42.728] and you know, they’re keeping it secret. [00:07:44.062] And yeah, we could have built a big disc like that. [00:07:45.931] That’s no problem. And, [00:07:47.433] you know, we could have adapted these to make it fly. But [00:07:50.836] why does it have little furniture inside? [00:07:52.704] Essentially a little seat in it. [00:07:54.774] And things began to click together just all too fast. [00:07:57.543] A few of the discs had been completely dismantled [00:07:59.979] to find out how they work, Lazar says. [00:08:01.947] But others were fully operational. [00:08:03.816] The bottom of it glowed blue and began to hiss like any [00:08:07.352] like high voltage does on a round sphere. [00:08:11.390] It’s my impression that the reason that they’re [00:08:14.393] round and have no sharp edges is to contain the high voltage. [00:08:17.763] Like if you’ve seen on [00:08:19.965] a high voltage system, the insulators things are round [00:08:22.501] or else you get a corona discharge. [00:08:24.036] In either case, [00:08:26.705] it began to hiss as in high voltage, [00:08:28.407] and it lifted off the ground quietly. [00:08:32.244] And except with that little hiss in the background, [00:08:34.713] then it stopped. [00:08:35.647] As soon as it reached about 20, 30 feet. [00:08:37.682] Lazar’s interview with George [00:08:39.084] got attention far beyond Las Vegas, Nevada. [00:08:41.954] (Japanese narration) [00:08:46.025] Suddenly people around the world were paying attention to it. [00:08:48.227] There was something called Paranet [00:08:49.495] that was transcribing every piece as it aired, [00:08:52.197] and then they send it all over the world [00:08:53.799] via this fledgling technology called the Internet. [00:08:56.368] There were people dubbing it off and then showing it in movie [00:08:59.405] theaters and charging admission to it. [00:09:01.173] We got inquiries from all over the world, [00:09:03.275] other media, everywhere. [00:09:04.443] When that Lazar part of the story [00:09:06.111] broke in episodes five, six and seven, man, [00:09:09.214] it it went to a different level. [00:09:10.549] Lazar was credible enough for the Nippon TV Network. [00:09:13.385] Nippon devoted 2 hours of prime time to a special on Lazar [00:09:16.855] and UFOs in March. [00:09:18.457] Lazar was invited to go to Japan [00:09:20.326] to interview with reporters there. [00:09:22.094] But along with all the attention came disturbing threats. [00:09:25.864] The day we were supposed to go had tickets in [00:09:27.900] hand, even went down and bought yen down at the [00:09:30.936] currency exchange. [00:09:33.905] You know, we got threatening phone calls. [00:09:35.541] I mean, that basically said he’ll never make it back here. [00:09:38.710] So we really sat down and just thought, [00:09:40.346] how important really is the interview? [00:09:41.981] And we didn’t go [00:09:44.015] Lazar told George that security was tight [00:09:46.384] and that fear and intimidation was used as a brainwashing tool [00:09:50.623] They did everything but physically hurt me. [00:09:52.825] Put a gun to your head. [00:09:53.892] Yeah. [00:09:54.926] And said, what? Actually put a gun to your head? [00:09:57.629] Well, they, they did that even in the in the original security [00:10:00.565] briefings they had [00:10:04.269] guards there with M-16s and guys slamming their finger [00:10:07.139] into my chest, screaming in my ear. [00:10:08.774] Some people were pointing weapons at me. [00:10:12.244] Like I said, it’s not a it’s not a good place to work. [00:10:17.182] When you came out with [00:10:18.417] the series and then the special was there pushback? [00:10:21.453] Yeah, well, there was. [00:10:22.955] And during the making of that, there was push back. [00:10:25.491] We were followed, me, Lazar, a couple of others of us. [00:10:29.127] I know it’s hard to believe that, [00:10:31.097] that they would go to that trouble [00:10:33.064] but they knew I was working with him. [00:10:34.366] They knew what I was digging into. [00:10:36.268] They would go to his house when he wasn’t there, [00:10:38.537] open up the doors and windows, write stuff on his blackboard, [00:10:42.007] move things around just to mess with his head. [00:10:44.509] He went to the gym one time with a friend of his. [00:10:46.611] He was really getting kind of panicky about the whole thing. [00:10:49.248] He has a gun. [00:10:50.249] He had an Uzi in his car for self-protection. [00:10:51.917] He goes to the gym, has a workout, [00:10:53.318] comes out an hour later. [00:10:54.453] The doors of the car open, the windows are rolled down. [00:10:57.289] The Uzi, which had been in a glove box, [00:10:59.057] was there sitting on the front seat. [00:11:01.026] They were just letting him know that they’re watching. [00:11:05.063] Coming up, [00:11:06.265] threats and also questions about whether Bob Lazar [00:11:09.501] was telling the truth about what he saw at Area 51. [00:11:12.904] Did you knowingly lie when you said you had actually [00:11:16.374] seen anti-gravity propulsion in operation? [00:11:21.480] No. [00:11:22.748] The results of several lie detector tests. [00:11:25.351] I am telling the truth [00:11:26.418] I■ve tried to prove that. [00:11:28.120] Plus [00:11:28.854] As soon as they talked to me, [00:11:29.722] they got visited the next day by people [00:11:31.724] claiming to be government agents. [00:11:33.125] More sources coming forward [00:11:34.827] as the government ramps up their intimidation tactics. [00:11:37.863] When we come back, [00:11:49.041] They had guards there with M-16■s [00:11:51.910] Guys slamming their finger [00:11:53.479] into my chest, screaming in my ear. [00:11:55.114] Some people were pointin weapons at me. [00:11:58.583] Like I said, it’s not a good place to work. [00:12:02.254] It was one of the stand [00:12:03.422] out scoops for famed UFO reporter George Knapp. [00:12:06.425] His interviews with Bob Lazar, a young scientist [00:12:09.528] who claimed to have worked at Area 51. [00:12:11.830] But was Bob Lazar telling the truth? [00:12:14.133] George put him to the test in a series of reports, [00:12:17.235] Lazar agreed to undergo a polygraph exam [00:12:19.571] as part of this report. Polygrapher Ron Sleigh [00:12:22.107] asked about the technology Lazar had seen. [00:12:25.977] Did you knowingly lie when you said you had actually [00:12:29.447] seen anti-gravity propulsion in operation? [00:12:34.453] No. [00:12:35.453] The results of this exam were inconclusive, [00:12:37.489] Lazar appeared [00:12:38.590] to be truthful on one test, deceitful on a second [00:12:41.460] Sleigh recommended that a second examiner [00:12:43.529] be brought in. Polygrapher Terry Tavernetti runs [00:12:46.565] a corporate security operation [00:12:48.333] and is a former Los Angeles police officer. [00:12:50.869] He put Lazar through four tests [00:12:53.072] and concluded there was no attempt to deceive. [00:12:55.440] And I left there thinking that [00:12:57.843] I feel we do have some [00:12:58.811] credibility to what the subject had to say. [00:13:03.215] And that’s when I went to some of my colleagues. [00:13:05.618] Tavernetti sent the [00:13:06.552] test results to a third polygrapher [00:13:08.520] who agreed the results appeared truthful. [00:13:10.622] The charts were then sent [00:13:11.790] to a fourth examiner who did not agree, [00:13:14.193] suggesting Lazar might be relating [00:13:16.061] information he’d learned from someone else. [00:13:18.230] The polygraphers conferred and decided they would not issue [00:13:21.200] a final statement on truthfulness [00:13:23.034] until more specific testing can be conducted. [00:13:25.737] And that’s where it stands. [00:13:27.105] Tavernetti believes that difficulty in determining [00:13:29.742] Lazar■s truthfulness stems from the fear that was [00:13:32.778] drilled into him. I think we■re [00:13:34.112] talking about a subject here that is so far reaching [00:13:38.083] and it is so emotional. [00:13:40.085] And when you’re dealing with emotions, this is polygraph. [00:13:42.254] Because we’re dealing, in polygraph [00:13:43.622] you’re looking at fear, [00:13:45.123] the fear of getting caught telling a lie [00:13:47.525] because something bad will happen to you if you do. [00:13:51.529] Well, [00:13:53.331] I am telling the truth. [00:13:54.499] I’ve tried to prove that [00:13:57.369] what’s going on up there could be the most [00:13:59.404] important event in history. [00:14:01.740] You’re talking about contact, physical, [00:14:05.343] physical contact and proof from another, [00:14:08.146] another system, another planet, another intelligence. [00:14:11.283] That’s got to be the biggest event in history, period. [00:14:14.553] And it’s real. [00:14:15.753] And it’s real and it’s there. [00:14:17.889] And I had an extremely small part in it, but [00:14:21.626] I’m convinced that what I saw is absolute proof of that. [00:14:24.696] There is [00:14:25.798] there is no way we could have created those systems. [00:14:27.666] There’s no way we could have made the disc, [00:14:29.401] the power supplies, anything to go with them. [00:14:31.269] You believe his story, don’t you? [00:14:33.238] Yeah, I do. Yeah. [00:14:34.306] I’ve got to know him [00:14:35.373] pretty well over the last couple of months, [00:14:36.875] and I believe he’s telling the truth. [00:14:40.211] George■s connection to Bob Lazar [00:14:41.913] led other tipsters to start calling him. [00:14:43.982] But again, there was intimidation [00:14:45.650] that made his quest to learn more, increasingly difficult. [00:14:48.987] I had people call me during those projects, [00:14:51.223] those first two who offered to give me information [00:14:53.424] about reverse engineering, flying saucers. [00:14:55.894] 6 of them, [00:14:57.128] right in a row were visited. As soon as they talked to me. [00:14:58.863] They got visited the next day [00:15:00.332] by people proclaiming to be government agents [00:15:02.600] who told them, Shut the hell up. [00:15:04.102] Even one of the polygraph examiners, [00:15:05.971] former police officer Terry Tavernetti [00:15:08.340] says shortly after his involvement [00:15:10.041] with Lazar was made public, his employers were contacted. [00:15:13.745] The corporate offices where I’m employed, [00:15:16.114] received a telephone call from a government agency [00:15:19.818] wanting to know why I was getting involved in [00:15:22.621] something that I shouldn’t be. [00:15:25.924] And I asked, well, what agency, what was said? [00:15:28.527] They identified themselves and I said, [00:15:30.596] because I’ve be more than happy to talk to them. [00:15:33.031] And I was refused this information, [00:15:35.166] told that he didn’t know, meaning my boss. [00:15:38.303] Tavernetti says his house was also burglarized [00:15:40.773] around the time [00:15:41.407] he did Lazar’s polygraph. [00:15:43.075] As an investigator of over 20 years, [00:15:45.376] I don’t believe in coincidences. [00:15:46.644] There’s a reason for everything. [00:15:49.648] I mean, could it have been a random residential burglary? [00:15:52.417] Yes. [00:15:53.552] One case, the source was a cop. [00:15:55.520] He worked at the courthouse and she worked [00:15:58.557] at the courthouse as a court reporter. [00:16:01.593] And he said [00:16:02.327] she told me one time over lunch [00:16:04.062] that she had worked for a defense contractor [00:16:06.331] and heard this information about Roswell [00:16:08.467] and wreckage and bodies and it being stored out [00:16:11.369] in the Nevada desert. [00:16:12.571] I asked this cop friend, would she talk to me [00:16:14.606] He goes, I think so. Here’s her number. [00:16:16.074] I called her and she gave me the broad strokes of her story. [00:16:19.978] I said, Can we meet if I need to hide your face [00:16:22.447] or your identity, change your name. I will. [00:16:24.649] Very next day she gets visited by these two guys. [00:16:26.852] They told her, You know, you’re still subject [00:16:28.653] to your security clearance. [00:16:29.788] And then they go, We know your daughter lives in L.A. [00:16:32.490] and you travel across the desert to see her [00:16:35.060] and she comes to see you. [00:16:36.861] It’s a a big desert out there. [00:16:38.096] It’d be a shame if something happened to either one of you. [00:16:41.233] This is a veiled threat, not so veiled threat. [00:16:43.968] She was scared to death. [00:16:45.403] Not only wouldn’t talk to me, I called her [00:16:47.438] ten years later after she had left that job, [00:16:50.042] and she still wouldn’t talk to me. [00:16:51.243] So they were definitely listening. [00:16:52.477] They were listening to my phone and it really pissed me off. [00:16:55.180] I mean, they couldn’t have obtained a warrant to do it. [00:16:57.949] No judge in Nevada would approve something like that. [00:17:00.385] They wanted to know who was offering [00:17:01.586] to give me information and it really made me mad. [00:17:03.989] Again, I was already sort of on a crusade because of the [00:17:06.959] the FOIA documents, [00:17:08.193] the paper trail and the lies, this really got under my skin. [00:17:11.997] And so we produced another nine part series [00:17:14.933] in May of 1990, and it hit even harder. [00:17:18.770] And that sort of sealed the deal for me. [00:17:21.540] It made me the the UFO reporter, whether I like it or not. [00:17:25.110] Coming up next, [00:17:26.311] the UFO reporter was about to get two of his best sources. [00:17:29.681] I■ve been interested in this subject for a long time. [00:17:31.850] You■ve said that you don’t think it’s little green men. [00:17:34.019] Is it possible that nobody really [00:17:35.587] there’s no one who knows the ultimate answer? [00:17:37.355] I don’t think no one has the answers. [00:17:39.924] I■m anxious to get the facts. [00:17:41.226] I think it’s something we should look into. [00:17:43.461] A U.S. senator and a rich American businessman [00:17:46.164] take George’s UFO reporting to places he never imagined. [00:17:59.644] It was George Knapp■s [00:18:00.778] bombshell 1989 interview with young scientist Bob Lazar [00:18:04.983] that opened the door to new UFO sources. [00:18:08.153] Two really important things that happened in association [00:18:11.089] with that project. [00:18:12.357] One was Harry Reid. [00:18:14.493] Nevada Senator Harry Reid saw George’s UFO series [00:18:18.096] and was interested. [00:18:19.231] You know, George, I’ll have to look at this. [00:18:21.066] I have heard about this exact story. [00:18:23.769] I’ve heard about it, [00:18:25.370] as kind of a preview of your program. [00:18:27.171] I visited with you once before. [00:18:28.973] I’m anxious to get the facts. [00:18:30.275] I think it’s something we should looknto. [00:18:31.943] He says, Yeah, well, I’m going back to Washington. [00:18:34.312] My car will pick you up. [00:18:35.380] You can talk to me on the way to the airport. [00:18:36.882] And so I spilled the beans to him. [00:18:39.184] What I’d learned so far, he didn’t kick me out of his car. [00:18:41.753] He was interested. [00:18:42.621] He said at the end, Well, look, keep [00:18:43.755] keep me in the loop and I’ll do the same for you. [00:18:45.790] And that friendship that sort of started [00:18:47.892] there, the secret conversation started that day. [00:18:50.695] It lasted for the rest of his life [00:18:52.865] and had a major effect on my life. [00:18:55.800] Senator Reid visited Area 51 several times over the years, [00:18:59.237] but never commented to George on the record about what he saw. [00:19:02.774] I had never wanted to ask you on the record [00:19:04.809] because I know there are limits [00:19:06.011] on what you can say, but you’ve been there multiple times. [00:19:07.346] More than enough, quite a few times, and that was something [00:19:10.382] that was really necessary, [00:19:13.451] especially with the Soviets, [00:19:14.920] with their satellites. [00:19:18.589] No, it■s, and I, look, today [00:19:20.325] I see things that were experimental up there that [00:19:24.262] are now are everyday deals. [00:19:26.632] Were there a lot of off the record conversations? [00:19:28.766] Oh yeah. [00:19:29.767] Documents he would give you that you weren’t [00:19:30.469] reporting on? [00:19:31.203] For years and years and years. [00:19:32.503] It would [00:19:33.605] ebb and flow at different times depending on what else [00:19:36.140] I was working on. [00:19:36.975] I’d go to Washington [00:19:37.943] if not every year or every other year [00:19:39.811] to interview our congressional delegation, [00:19:41.480] and I always made a point to spend time with him, [00:19:43.714] and he’d always pulled me aside [00:19:45.149] and we’d have our own little UFO conversation out of ear [00:19:48.120] reach of his staff. Drove them crazy. [00:19:50.755] Drove me crazy, crazy for years [00:19:52.690] because neither one of us would tell him what it was about. [00:19:55.160] Now, after a while, they figured it out. [00:19:57.195] And George, as you know, I [00:20:00.498] became terribly interested in this. [00:20:02.601] And rather than [00:20:04.535] think about it, I said, Why want to do something about? [00:20:09.140] In 2007, Reid and other senators [00:20:11.476] authorized the black budget study of UFOs. [00:20:15.213] AAWSAP [00:20:16.347] Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program [00:20:19.584] A contract with the program was awarded [00:20:21.452] to a company called BASS, an offshoot of Bigelow [00:20:24.156] Aerospace, owned by Las Vegas space entrepreneur [00:20:27.359] Robert Bigelow, a billionaire who had funded his own [00:20:30.328] UFO studies for years. [00:20:31.830] Bigelow fifirst connted with George [00:20:33.564] after his initial UFO reports in the late eighties. [00:20:36.701] I start getting all these calls. [00:20:37.969] One of them came from this businessman I’d never heard of. [00:20:40.572] Hold for Robert Bigelow. Okay. [00:20:43.141] He gets on there. Boy, that was really good. [00:20:44.776] He kind of introduces himself. I had no idea that he had [00:20:47.545] already been funding UFO research. [00:20:49.748] He offered to help. [00:20:50.581] He was going to give me money [00:20:51.750] to go ahead and pursue the investigation. [00:20:53.485] I said, No, no, no, I can’t do that. [00:20:54.852] I■m working for channel 8, but I appreciate [00:20:56.721] your offer of support and maybe we can get in touch. [00:20:58.890] That friendship that I developed with Bigelow [00:21:00.892] then proved so important in the long run, and eventually [00:21:05.063] Reid and Bigelow got together and I introduced them. [00:21:08.366] George reported on every step of the new project. [00:21:11.402] Bigelow built secure facilities inside his aerospace company. [00:21:15.474] At its peak, [00:21:16.708] the study had 46 scientists working at the Nevada facility, [00:21:20.045] writing reports [00:21:21.113] and analyzing data that came in from the military. [00:21:24.248] Rapid response teams were dispatched [00:21:26.351] to the scene of UFO events. Over the five years [00:21:29.654] The project cost a total of $22 million. [00:21:32.557] So you knew that the US government [00:21:34.392] was funding a secret program [00:21:36.261] and you just had to stay qet? [00:21:37.695] Yeah. [00:21:38.863] They asked me to be part of it. [00:21:40.265] I was asked twice to get a security clearance [00:21:42.333] so that they could bring me in and show me stuff. [00:21:44.069] I was not privy to everything that was going on. [00:21:47.038] I did not have a security clearance, [00:21:48.473] so I’d get bits and pieces, big picture stuff [00:21:50.942] about what they were doing. [00:21:52.344] And most of what they did [00:21:53.445] was not classified, but it was very restricted, [00:21:56.514] you know, it was kept in a stovepipe. [00:22:01.253] And during the five years of research, [00:22:02.854] Robert Bigelow’s team made an unexpected finding. [00:22:05.857] Details of a UFO resembling a Tic Tac [00:22:08.893] off the West coast of the United States. [00:22:11.462] Over a two week period in late 2004, an unknown 45 foot long [00:22:16.301] tic tac shaped object played cat and mouse with the U.S. [00:22:20.005] Navy off the coast of California. [00:22:21.973] Even before a bombshell New York Times story on the Tic Tac, [00:22:25.143] George knew about it. [00:22:26.845] The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier [00:22:28.980] and its support ships [00:22:30.414] carrying the most sophisticated sensor systems in the world [00:22:33.752] repeatedly detected recurring glimpses of the tic tac, [00:22:37.555] but were unable to lock on. [00:22:39.624] On November 14th, F-18■s were ordered into the area [00:22:43.295] and saw it up close. [00:22:44.830] Veteran pilot Dave Fravor, commander of the elite Black [00:22:48.400] Aces unit, says the Tic Tac reacted to the presence [00:22:51.802] of the F-18s, then took off like a bullet fired from a gun. [00:22:55.774] If you go from what what I saw, [00:22:58.543] which is very close to what Bob describes, [00:23:01.612] that would change mankind. [00:23:02.613] And it’s one of the reasons [00:23:03.681] why you believe what you saw in 2004 was not ours. [00:23:06.684] Yeah, like I said last night, I think a lot of it was, [00:23:10.521] if you ask me in 2004, I don’t know. [00:23:13.357] My thing is it’s now almost 15 years later [00:23:16.194] and that technology is still there. [00:23:17.628] No one has figured it out or no one has seen it. [00:23:19.998] You can hide stuff. [00:23:20.832] You can hide stuff for a long time, [00:23:23.267] but hiding stuff for 15 years, [00:23:26.004] I think it gets harder and harder. [00:23:27.071] Something that revolutionary. [00:23:28.339] Yes. I mean, it’s literally, [00:23:30.208] why would you hide a huge technology leap for mankind [00:23:34.279] if you have it? [00:23:40.318] AAWSAP had created the world’s largest UFO database, [00:23:43.955] 200,000 cases, a data warehouse or what it was, [00:23:46.758] they put together an amazing pile of work [00:23:50.662] in a short period of time, a stack of documents, [00:23:53.564] if you print it out, the pages would be taller [00:23:55.500] than than either of us in-depth reports about different topics. [00:23:59.771] The tic tac, [00:24:00.972] There’s an investigation, an explanation of the tic tac [00:24:03.908] that is so much more advanced than anything [00:24:06.811] that anyone has seen. [00:24:08.513] Congress has not seen one page of that stuff. [00:24:11.716] The public hasn’t seen one page of it. [00:24:13.250] Where is it all? Good question. [00:24:15.320] I don’t think the DIA can find it. [00:24:17.155] You know, we’ve seen these reports and documents [00:24:20.091] that we’ve obtained and photos and information [00:24:23.094] from the Navy about these drones buzzing their ships. [00:24:27.866] And they don’t know where they came from. [00:24:29.267] They can’t track them. [00:24:30.668] They’re coming in swarms, swarms like bees, like [00:24:35.106] insects. [00:24:36.575] I don’t know if it’s scarier that it’s an unknown [00:24:39.076] or if it■s scarier [00:24:40.277] that our adversaries have made great strides in technology. [00:24:43.982] And always remember, [00:24:46.383] Russia, the former Soviet Union [00:24:49.320] is run by a man who ran the KGB. [00:24:53.190] They had [00:24:54.258] as many as 30,000 agents at one time, KGB agents. [00:24:58.963] So Russia’s involved in this? [00:25:01.966] No question about it. [00:25:05.136] Coming up, George [00:25:06.104] travels 6000 miles from Vegas to Moscow. [00:25:09.941] There was a period of ‘78 to ■88 where the Russians [00:25:12.543] had had these dramatic UFO incidents. [00:25:14.746] And wait until you hear what he came back with. [00:25:18.383] Plus, never before heard parts of our exclusive interview [00:25:21.486] with UFO whistleblower David Grusch. [00:25:30.395] As George Knapp started to become synonymous [00:25:32.697] with UFO reporting, [00:25:34.031] he started to look outside the U.S., specifically at Russia. [00:25:38.235] So there comes this high level Russian scientist to Las Vegas. [00:25:42.140] We have a couple of beers, I ask about UFOs. [00:25:44.475] You ever hear anything about it? He goes, no, [00:25:46.611] I don’t think so. It doesn’t ring a bell. [00:25:48.446] We have one more beer. [00:25:49.413] He goes, you know, now that you mention it, [00:25:51.149] there’s a friend of mine at KGB [00:25:52.417] who said he had worked on a report about UFOs [00:25:55.620] and some documents. [00:25:56.788] I could ask him about it. [00:25:58.523] I said, you think there’s anybody else who might know? [00:26:00.725] In the Ministry of Defense? [00:26:02.293] Well, I know all those guys, I could find out. [00:26:04.395] So he said, yeah, I’ll do it. [00:26:07.131] Behind the scenes, [00:26:08.099] George planned a high stakes trip in 1993, [00:26:11.435] with Russia in turmoil and sources ready to talk. [00:26:14.706] We were there ten days, we were pulled over by cops seven times. [00:26:18.443] There were people stationed outside of our rooms [00:26:21.212] at the hotel. [00:26:21.912] I would put little traps [00:26:24.282] to see [00:26:25.516] if they went through my stuff, which they did every single day. [00:26:27.719] We met with this guy, Boris Sokolov, who had been [00:26:30.988] the head of what was then the largest UFO investigation [00:26:34.926] conducted by a government in the history of the world. [00:26:37.762] There was a period of ‘78 [00:26:39.063] to ‘88 where the Russians had these dramatic UFO incidents, [00:26:42.833] and they decided [00:26:43.901] to create a program to get to the bottom of it. [00:26:46.771] And man, well, that was really something. [00:26:50.174] I won’t explain exactly how I got access to the files, [00:26:53.210] but I did, thousands of pages [00:26:55.246] from the Russian Ministry of Defense. [00:26:56.848] Many of those pages were classified at the time. [00:27:00.819] So then we had the problem of how to get it out. [00:27:02.687] Well, that■s what I was going to ask. [00:27:04.122] That was pretty tricky. [00:27:05.356] What did you do? [00:27:06.390] Well, these documents in those days, at least, [00:27:08.225] the Russian Ministry of Defense [00:27:09.427] would stamp classification on the top page of the document, [00:27:12.463] and the rest of them weren’t marked at all. [00:27:14.164] It was clear they were military documents. [00:27:15.833] But without that classification, [00:27:17.835] it’s a lot less onerous and dangerous. [00:27:20.472] I just removed the top pages of all those documents [00:27:23.374] and I threw the rest of it in my suitcase. [00:27:25.677] With some caviar, by way, which they told us [00:27:27.945] we were not allowed to take out caviar. [00:27:29.748] So I threw some caviar in there as a diversion, [00:27:32.984] and it worked because they opened it up, they [00:27:34.785] look, hey, caviar. Not allowed. [00:27:36.420] Close the suitcase back up. [00:27:37.955] And then the other pages [00:27:39.524] I carry through security, I carry it on my person. [00:27:42.059] If they caught me, I’d still be there in a gulag somewhere. [00:27:44.495] But they didn■t. [00:27:45.262] And, you know, the goal was maybe [00:27:47.098] we’ll find out more from the Russians [00:27:49.166] about what our government knows about UFOs [00:27:52.003] that we’ll ever learn from our government itself. [00:27:54.139] Which is true. We did. [00:27:55.974] George started sharing his findings [00:27:57.675] with key players in Washington and his friends, Senator Reid [00:28:00.945] and Robert Bigelow. [00:28:02.080] I’d ask Colonel Sokolov, what’s the interest? [00:28:04.048] What are you trying to do here? [00:28:05.416] And he said, it’s really simple. [00:28:06.518] These craft can do things that we can■t. [00:28:10.154] Th fly circles around our best aircraft. [00:28:12.123] We know they do the same thing to you. [00:28:13.724] And we figured if we could find one, [00:28:15.393] figure out how they work, we could kick your ass [00:28:17.728] in terms of stealth technology, [00:28:19.263] because at that point, we’re way ahead of them. [00:28:20.731] Three years later, George returned to Russia and came back [00:28:23.768] with even more bombshells. [00:28:25.603] I interviewed [00:28:26.570] this guy named Maltsev, who’d been commander [00:28:28.439] of the entire Russian air forces, [00:28:30.108] and he told me about these encounters [00:28:31.909] that Sokolov had recounted 40 different incidents [00:28:34.912] where Russian warplanes chased UFOs and boom, they were gone. [00:28:39.183] In three of those cases, though, the Russian warplanes crashed, [00:28:42.553] two of the pilots died. [00:28:44.122] And after that, this guy Maltsev issued an order. [00:28:47.358] Leave him alone. [00:28:48.559] You see a UFO, leave them the hell alone, because, quote, [00:28:50.995] they have incredible capacities for retaliation. [00:28:56.000] More than 25 years later, a Pentagon [00:29:00.905] that George reported back then. [00:29:02.607] A secret Cold War with some of our biggest enemies. [00:29:06.243] We’re in a competition with our adversaries to understand this. [00:29:09.447] It’s a multidecade Cold War that has been under our nose [00:29:13.784] for so long. [00:29:14.752] And, you know, there is no good way to level [00:29:17.588] the playing field and hold other nation [00:29:19.557] states accountable if they’re doing unethical [00:29:21.626] or illicit activity as it relates to this subject. [00:29:25.396] And I think the obtuse secrecy is actually putting us [00:29:29.400] in a very dangerous position where [00:29:32.770] a country might make a breakthrough that■s say [00:29:35.106] an adversary of ours and it is so destabilizing. [00:29:44.149] In June 2023, [00:29:45.783] a worldwide exclusive interview on NewsNation [00:29:48.719] revealed alleged secrets within our own government. [00:29:52.089] What conclusn [00:29:53.357] did you come to at the end of your time on the UAP task force? [00:29:58.095] The UAP task force was refused access [00:30:00.531] to a broad crash retrieval program. [00:30:04.435] We have spacecraft from another species. [00:30:07.905] We do. Yeah. How many? [00:30:10.908] Quite a number. [00:30:11.843] You’re kidding. [00:30:12.777] No, I thought it was totally nuts. [00:30:15.479] And I thought at first I was being deceived. [00:30:17.681] It was a ruse. [00:30:18.982] People started confiding in me. [00:30:20.551] They approached me. [00:30:21.785] I have plenty of current former senior intelligence officers [00:30:25.323] that came to me, [00:30:26.356] many of which I knew almost my whole career [00:30:28.793] that confided in me. They were a part of a program. [00:30:31.262] They named the program. [00:30:32.763] I’ve never heard of it. [00:30:34.698] And they they told me based on their oral testimony [00:30:39.370] and they provided me documents and other proof [00:30:42.740] that there was, [00:30:44.008] in fact, a program that the UAP task force was not read into. [00:30:47.345] I’ve been told that there have been attempts [00:30:50.715] to bring down craft. [00:30:52.550] There have been instances and there are certain [00:30:56.487] techniques. Have human beings been hurt [00:31:00.892] or killed by a non-human intelligence? [00:31:04.161] While I can’t get into the specifics [00:31:05.797] because that would reveal certain U.S. classified [00:31:08.933] operations, I was briefed by a few individuals [00:31:12.970] on the program that there were malevolent events like that, [00:31:20.878] Including this never before seen moment where Grusch describes [00:31:23.948] the roadblocks he says he faced when trying to pry for answers. [00:31:27.919] You’re telling us we’re being lied to? [00:31:29.586] Yeah. It’s an obvious intelligence community [00:31:31.555] disrespect to the legislative branch. [00:31:33.391] And I. [00:31:34.458] I tried to gain access in my official capacity and, [00:31:37.628] you know, [00:31:38.195] I had one agency say, [00:31:39.296] oh yes, we have what you’re looking for. [00:31:41.632] We■ll read you in. [00:31:43.334] And then two months went by. [00:31:44.636] they wouldn■t return phone calls. [00:31:46.336] They wouldn’t return inquiries by the UAP task force director, [00:31:51.508] my colleagues with the same kind of statutory authority [00:31:55.012] to investigate this and in one case, [00:31:58.115] they tried to kill all my security clearances [00:32:01.718] from that particular agency, as almost like a show of force. [00:32:04.521] Like, please don’t ask again, Dave. And I [00:32:07.024] I thought that was extremely unprofessional. [00:32:09.027] And yet you were legally entitled [00:32:10.595] to seek this information. [00:32:11.996] I, I stated my official capacity to look into this. [00:32:17.067] This wasn’t me trying to [00:32:18.803] get access to a program [00:32:20.104] I wasn’t supposed to or anything like that. [00:32:22.106] I this was in my official capacity. [00:32:23.974] Grusch’s story [00:32:25.175] first shared publicly in June, was actually known to George [00:32:28.312] well before then. I had been told [00:32:30.214] that I might be introduced to somebody. [00:32:31.816] I’m sitting at a bar [00:32:32.850] and they’re shooting video of me just cutaways. [00:32:35.153] And at that exact moment, while they’re getting video [00:32:37.588] made, Dave Grusch walks up and introduces himself [00:32:39.690] and we started a conversation and got to know each other. [00:32:41.726] And we’ve been talking ever since. [00:32:42.926] And boy, [00:32:43.961] a shared with me something that I wasn’t allowed [00:32:45.696] to make public t then, butt was his whistleblower complaint, [00:32:49.534] what he had filed [00:32:50.635] with the inspector general, because at that point [00:32:53.237] they were already coming after him. [00:32:54.505] Now, he had come to that conference [00:32:57.041] to meet people, to learn about UFOs, to interact [00:33:00.377] with UFO world a little bit, [00:33:01.812] and to [00:33:02.846] interact with Jay Stratton, who was, you know, [00:33:04.715] the guy who had given this assignment. [00:33:06.884] He didn’t come alone. [00:33:08.018] Now, Grusch came with his boss and his boss■s boss. [00:33:10.854] They also went to this thing. [00:33:12.289] They knew what he was up to. They knew what he had found. [00:33:14.892] They haven’t come forward. [00:33:16.160] It’s interesting that nobody’s [00:33:17.995] asked them questions about what he was doing [00:33:20.264] or whether it was legitimate, but they were there [00:33:22.466] because they knew what he found and they wanted to support him. [00:33:24.868] We’ve heard these stories for years [00:33:26.937] that there’s reverse engineering, crashed saucers, [00:33:30.407] UFO secrets stashed in there, hidden by the use of hundreds [00:33:34.812] of millions of dollars [00:33:35.946] of national security dollars that are unaccounted for, [00:33:38.615] that Congress has no idea what’s being spent on. [00:33:40.885] Go find it. And he did. [00:33:44.321] He had the clearances to go [00:33:45.622] into those special access programs, [00:33:48.058] interview the people, put them under under oath, [00:33:51.029] get their testimony, collect it at all, and send [00:33:54.198] it send it up the stairs, up the chain of command. [00:33:57.268] And once it became clear [00:33:58.635] what he was doing, what he was going [00:34:00.103] after, he was messing with the fundamental forces of nature. [00:34:03.173] These are powerful interests that have this stuff. [00:34:05.476] The keepers of the secrets are real [00:34:07.778] and they’re not going to give it up. [00:34:08.946] So they came after him. [00:34:13.684] Coming up, it all comes full circle. [00:34:16.520] As George■s front row for historic UFO [00:34:19.523] congressional hearings. [00:34:20.958] A multi decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse [00:34:25.129] engineering program. [00:34:35.539] David Grusch■s claims on NewsNation [00:34:37.575] sparked an unprecedented move in Washington. [00:34:41.979] A historic hearing [00:34:44.081] specifically focused on disclosure [00:34:46.183] and getting answers about what [00:34:47.418] the government truly knows about UFOs. [00:34:50.688] Mr. Chairman, ranking members and congressmen, thank you. [00:34:53.991] I’m happy to be here. [00:34:55.159] This is an important issue and I’m grateful for your time. [00:34:58.229] My name is David Charles Grusch. [00:34:59.930] I was an intelligence officer 14 years. [00:35:02.600] I was informed in the course of my official duties [00:35:06.070] of a multi decade [00:35:07.905] UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program. [00:35:11.509] And seated right behind the three key [00:35:13.610] witnesses was none other than George Knapp. [00:35:17.081] So how did you end up in the front row [00:35:19.817] right there of the hearings? [00:35:21.085] Well, these members of Congress haven’t been at it that long. [00:35:24.888] They knew they needed help. [00:35:26.289] They wanted to set up a hearing. [00:35:27.992] Do you have any personal knowledge of people [00:35:29.593] who’ve been harmed or injured [00:35:31.295] in efforts to cover up or conceal [00:35:32.930] these extraterrestrial technology? [00:35:35.266] Yes. [00:35:38.368] Personally. [00:35:39.403] Would you have had the capability [00:35:40.804] to defend yourself, your crew, your aircraft? [00:35:43.907] Absolutely not, sir. [00:35:45.476] No. My main concern that it needed to be bipartisan. [00:35:48.813] It can’t just be Tim Burchett and other Republicans [00:35:51.649] one sided kind of a thing [00:35:52.916] because the temptation to be really partisan [00:35:55.219] you can’t help it. And he agreed to that. [00:35:56.821] He said, Yeah, we’re going to make it bipartisan. [00:35:58.556] We got some Democratic members who are interested in it. [00:36:01.291] And he did. He kept his promise. [00:36:03.627] And thank you all for being here [00:36:05.296] and the courage it took to come forward. [00:36:07.531] And and again, the sacrifice that you’ve made. [00:36:10.567] Is it possible that these UAP are testing for vulnerabilities [00:36:13.771] in our current systems? [00:36:15.573] Yes. [00:36:16.807] Yes. [00:36:17.975] Possible. [00:36:18.909] It is, based off [00:36:20.111] of the information that you’ve been privy to. [00:36:21.979] Is there any indication that these UAPs are interested [00:36:25.316] in our nuclear technology and capabilities? [00:36:27.785] Yes. [00:36:28.753] By external observation, sure. [00:36:30.320] That could be a fair assessment, Yeah. [00:36:31.922] Yes. [00:36:32.489] Is there any indication [00:36:33.724] the Department of Energy is involved in UAP data collection [00:36:37.328] and housing? I don’t have an answer. [00:36:39.363] I can’t confirm or deny that in a public setting. [00:36:41.365] Could you do it in a secure setting? [00:36:43.634] Yes. [00:36:44.768] For the record, if you were me, where would you look? [00:36:48.505] And I put that as an open question to the three of you. [00:36:51.442] I’d be happy to give you that in a closed environment. [00:36:53.577] I can tell you specifically. [00:36:55.179] Thank you. [00:36:56.947] And Commander Fravor. [00:36:59.049] And I would say I’ve told people that you have to know [00:37:01.552] where to look. [00:37:02.386] They’re not going to divulge it to you [00:37:03.454] because the classification levels. [00:37:04.621] But if you know where to look [00:37:05.555] and who to talk to, which is exactly [00:37:07.024] Mr. Grusch can point you then then you have them. [00:37:09.559] Okay. Mr. Graves. [00:37:11.161] I was an operator, so I was depending on folks like [00:37:13.330] Mr. Grusch to do that homework. [00:37:14.765] Okay. [00:37:15.799] Thank you very much. I yield back to the chair. [00:37:17.167] Congress, it’s a perilous moment for them right now. [00:37:19.903] You saw those members of the House. [00:37:22.005] They were very passionate at that hearing. [00:37:23.907] They wanted to get to the bottom of this. [00:37:25.309] If you believe we have crashed [00:37:27.010] craft stated earlier, do [00:37:29.046] we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? [00:37:32.149] As I’ve stated publicly already in my NewsNation interview, [00:37:34.985] biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah. [00:37:38.689] Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? [00:37:41.625] Non-human. [00:37:42.526] And that was the assessment of people [00:37:44.028] with direct knowledge on the program [00:37:45.162] I talked to [00:37:46.096] that are currently still on the program. [00:37:47.198] And was this documentary evidence is video, photos, [00:37:51.001] eyewitness like how would that be determined? [00:37:53.503] The specific documentation? [00:37:55.039] I would have to talk to you in a SCIF about. [00:37:57.375] Yeah, absolutely astonishing for me to see Tim Burchett [00:38:00.677] and Matt Gaetz, as far right as you can get. [00:38:03.246] And over on [00:38:03.680] the other side [00:38:04.681] is AOC and Jamie Raskin, and they’re all asking [00:38:07.785] pointed questions. They’re all into it. [00:38:09.587] These are not questions just prepared by staff. [00:38:11.789] They’re listening the witnesses and asking good stuff. [00:38:14.591] And they are, they’re pissed off. [00:38:16.226] But as I have said 100 times, the keepers of the secrets [00:38:19.797] are better at their job than I am, [00:38:22.032] people like us are at ours, [00:38:23.734] and they’re not going to let this thing go easily. [00:38:26.403] The pushback has already begun. [00:38:27.905] So yeah, it’s interesting. Burchett said that too. [00:38:30.140] There were other witnesses that backed out. [00:38:32.509] Well, I think there was a statement about other witnesses. [00:38:35.145] They didn’t pass their security clearance or something [00:38:37.248] and that was not the case. [00:38:38.448] Okay. [00:38:39.549] There was two other witnesses that we tried to get [00:38:41.118] who declined to be part of it, [00:38:43.153] but they might do it at some future point. [00:38:45.288] Well, how do you think the Pentagon [00:38:46.657] is going to react, given, [00:38:48.358] you know, your experience covering this issue? [00:38:50.660] You know, they’ve resisted [00:38:52.696] being truthful for 75 years. [00:38:54.798] It’s not going to turn around on a dime. [00:38:56.767] But after what happened today, [00:38:57.968] I don’t think you can put the genie back in the bottle. [00:39:00.237] Mr. Knapp, having covered this [00:39:01.572] for years, decades, is today surreal for you as weird? [00:39:04.374] Yeah, it■s weird. [00:39:05.676] It’s really, it’s weird to see it finally happen. [00:39:07.678] I had a moment where it kind of overwhelmed me, [00:39:11.148] thinking about, [00:39:13.050] Gosh, this is happening right in front of my eyes [00:39:14.818] after all these years, progress finally being made. [00:39:18.888] It was, it was quite a moment. [00:39:21.992] It’s quite a moment. [00:39:27.431] I wonder, [00:39:28.965] are we going to be able to figure out these mysteries [00:39:30.767] even if we have, say, a crashed saucer? [00:39:32.603] Does it tell us where they’re from [00:39:34.271] or why they’re here or what their interest is in us? [00:39:36.574] I’ve been pretty far up the food chain. [00:39:38.275] I don’t know anyone who knows the big picture. [00:39:41.211] Do you think there’s someone behind the scenes that does? [00:39:43.447] I think there’s, there are people [00:39:44.782] behind the scenes who know a lot more than we do. [00:39:46.616] A lot more than I do, a lot more than AAWSAP learned. [00:39:49.486] I’ve heard about these people for a long time and [00:39:51.688] somebody pulls these strings. [00:39:53.423] I don’t know that there was ever an MJ-12, [00:39:56.159] but I suspect that there was an organization like that. [00:39:58.896] You know, [00:39:59.797] I’d love to have the answers while I’m [00:40:01.131] still alive and kicking here, [00:40:03.500] but I’m not sure that that’s going to happen. [00:40:09.073] It seems like this is the [00:40:10.440] worst possible moment for you to retire, [00:40:13.010] which you’re obviously not retiring. [00:40:14.344] But are you working harder than ever? Would you say? [00:40:16.479] It seems like it. [00:40:17.047] I tried to retire. [00:40:18.448] It lasted two months. [00:40:19.649] And yeah, it’d be pretty hard to walk away from it now. [00:40:22.286] George has teamed up with UFO researcher Jeremy Corbell [00:40:25.388] for his podcast Weaponized. [00:40:27.424] They continue to be at the forefront, [00:40:29.292] breaking some of the biggest stories. [00:40:31.428] Congress has made it pretty clear [00:40:33.063] they want this information, they want to have access to it, [00:40:35.966] they want whistleblowers who have information, [00:40:38.802] direct hands on experience with these legacy programs [00:40:42.105] to step forward. [00:40:43.340] Those people are really reluctant, as we know. [00:40:46.143] We talk to them. [00:40:47.077] We have [00:40:48.045] we have passed people through the process [00:40:50.180] that are verifiably who they say they are. Other people [00:40:52.315] whose names are not yet known to the public or to the UFO world [00:40:56.153] who want to tell the story. [00:40:57.988] And George says there’s more to come. [00:41:00.424] There are more whistleblowers, [00:41:01.958] and there will be more that will come out. [00:41:04.294] We know some of them. [00:41:05.328] There are some big shoes still to drop. [00:41:07.397] Do you think it’s sunk in for you [00:41:09.266] how pivotal you were in all of that? [00:41:11.401] I lucked into it a lot. [00:41:12.535] And I’ll take credit where, you know, I’ll take credit [00:41:15.573] if somebody wants to give me some of it here and there. [00:41:17.608] But moving here in the first place, [00:41:19.209] getting to know Lazar and Lear and all that, [00:41:21.478] that where it lead- [00:41:22.612] You may not find out in a month, a year, [00:41:25.582] five years or ten years, but you’ll look back at what [00:41:28.052] I’m telling you now and you’ll say to yourself, [00:41:31.187] My gosh, that son of a gun was right. [00:41:33.624] You got to work it. [00:41:34.491] You know like a like a reporter does. [00:41:36.593] Yeah. [00:41:37.661] You got to, if it becomes your beat, you work it. [00:41:39.129] I think [00:41:40.397] what we can say about this is there is a body of information, [00:41:42.599] there is [00:41:43.834] some kind of a phenomenon here that can’t just be written off. [00:41:46.103] The government [00:41:47.037] is sitting on a certain amount of information [00:41:48.872] that it isn’t letting us know about. [00:41:50.573] And I don’t think the topic has been fairly [00:41:52.442] treated by science or journalism. [00:41:53.911] It would be interesting if we could have [00:41:55.279] a much larger investigation by someone else. [00:41:57.281] It does seem a lot more mainstream [00:41:59.349] now, though, to have these conversations. [00:42:01.451] I’m thrilled when I see other media covering it. [00:42:03.854] It■s fun. [00:42:04.721] The public’s interested, our listeners, [00:42:06.423] our viewers, our readers are interested. [00:42:08.725] And it’s important, too. [00:42:10.160] I mean, the big picture, if we could get to the bottom [00:42:12.228] of it, it changes everything. [00:42:17.267] George Knapp, Channel 8, Eyewitness News.

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