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

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6u7-_kSP0wU
• Extraction: youtube_transcript.py (timestamps), 2026-05-28
• Significance: Part 2 of the NewsNation Knapp profile. Primary for ../../sources/knapp-career-and-claims.

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[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.