Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / George Knapp & Jeremy Corbell (2020) - Area 51, UFO Theories and Unreleased Documents

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George Knapp & Jeremy Corbell (2020) - Area 51, UFO Theories and Unreleased Documents · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Today we're diving deep into a
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  really fascinating conversation from the Joe Rogan Experience.
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  Yeah, episode Hashtag 1510. It features George Knapp, the
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  investigative journalist, and Jeremy Korbel, the filmmaker.
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  Both have spent years, I mean years, looking into the UFO
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  phenomenon. Absolutely.
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  And our mission here is to really unpack what they talked
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  about UFOs, Bob Lazar, how this whole understanding of UA.
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  PS Unidentified aerial phenomena is shifting.
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  We want to pull out the most compelling bits for.
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  You exactly. We'll look at where the whole
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  Bob Lazar story kicked off. You know the government's
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  involvement, past and present. And honestly some pretty mind
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  bending stuff that comes out of it all.
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  It really is. OK, so let's get into it.
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  George Knapp started by talking about how he first got tangled
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  up in all this. It was through John Lear wasn't
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  it, back in 87. That's right, and Knapp was
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  clear he wasn't some UFO believer back then.
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  Not really on his radar. So what grabbed him?
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  Well it was John Lear himself, you know, from the Learjet
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  family, big aviation name and Lear had actually broken the
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  story about the self fighter so he had credibility.
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  OK so Lear shows up at Naps TV station with this like stack of
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  documents. Claims they're about UF OS.
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  And I bet the news director wasn't exactly thrilled.
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  Not at all, basically dismissed it straight away, but Nap Nap
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  was curious. He actually looked at the stuff.
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  He had that public affairs show right?
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  Low profile. Yeah, exactly.
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  So he figured, OK, let's have leer on, see what.
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  Happened and then boom. Pretty much, yeah.
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  The public reaction was huge, totally unexpected.
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  Leer was talking about, you know, secret treaties with
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  aliens, recovered tech. Wild stuff.
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  Really wild. It struck A chord.
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  Nap had him back a few times. He even did one interview with
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  Bill Cooper. Oh, now I mentioned regretting
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  that one, right? Cooper's theories were way out
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  there. Way out there, yeah, Nap
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  definitely expressed some regret.
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  But anyway, it was Lear who first hinted about knowing
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  someone working out at Area 51, Which?
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  Turned out to be Bob Lazar. Bingo.
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  A couple of months Pass Nap has an opening on the main new show,
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  calls Lear and Lazar. Well, he was apparently feeling
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  the pressure needed to talk. But not show his face initially,
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  right? On condition his face was
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  hidden. That was the first time Lazar
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  publicly detailed working at this place he called S4, seeing
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  9 flying saucers. 9. Yeah, and saying he was scared
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  for his life. Wow, The Newsroom must have gone
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  nuts. Oh yeah, Switchboard lit up.
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  So Nap and his news director they met with Lazar, tried to
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  figure out, OK, is this guy legit?
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  What are the risks here? Then sensed it was big though.
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  Definitely felt it could be huge and potentially dangerous.
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  And that's when Nap really dove in, right?
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  He didn't just take Lazar's word for it.
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  No way. He described it as this intense
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  like 8 month cram course on ufology, reading everything,
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  going to the MUFON symposium. MUFON, the big UFO investigation
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  grew. Right.
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  You wanted to understand the landscape.
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  And Lazar even apparently took Knapp and his team inside a Los
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  Alamos lab at one point. People forget that detail.
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  That's pretty significant. And then came the TV series.
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  The nine part series on Lazar that just blew up massive public
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  interest. Phones ringing off the hook.
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  This was even spreading on early Internet stuff like Perinet.
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  So that was the hook for nap. That's what he said.
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  That's what really got him committed to the story.
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  OK, but let's talk about Lazar's credibility.
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  That's been a huge point of contention.
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  The degrees, MIT, Caltech, the records just aren't there.
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  Right, that's the big sticking point for many people.
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  Lazar's explanation, as told to Nap, was that his work at Los
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  Alamos was super classified. Maybe even, you know, illegal
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  weapons stuff. So a formal degree wasn't the
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  point, it was the specific knowledge.
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  That seems to be the claim that in that world, the piece of
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  paper wasn't as important as what you could actually do.
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  And nap. Despite the degree issue, he
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  seems convinced Lazar is genuinely brilliant.
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  He really does. He told that story about the
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  start of the pandemic. Lazar just whipping up a UV
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  Screener from parts in his garage nap sees him as yeah,
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  incredibly smart and practical. It's also interesting that Lazar
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  himself pushes back on some things, like he's skeptical
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  about stuff he didn't see directly, like seeing an alien.
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  Exactly. Nap pointed that out.
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  Lazar downplays that glimpse through a window.
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  He even admitted to being hypnotized given some weird
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  green liquid, suggesting maybe he was being manipulated
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  somehow. But the core stuff, the science,
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  the tech at S4, that hasn't changed in 30 years.
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  That's the thing. Over 3 decades, through all the
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  attacks and debunking attempts, his description of the
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  propulsion system, element 115, the saucers, it stayed
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  remarkably consistent. Which is, you have to admit,
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  pretty compelling in itself. Whether true or not, the
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  consistency is notable. It is.
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  It's a key data point for sure. So why did he come forward?
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  What are the theories? Money.
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  Attention. Those are definitely out there
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  making money, seeking fame or the other big one, government
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  disinformation. But Knapp argued that if it was
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  disinfo, it kind of backfired, didn't it?
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  Spectacularly. I mean, Lazar is the reason Area
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  51 is a household name globally, The ET highway, the baseball
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  team. If the goal was to mislead, it
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  created a massive, probably unintended spotlight.
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  And Lazar's background is colorful.
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  The jet car, The hydrogen Corvette explosives.
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  Right. Playing with jet engines,
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  hydrogen power, explosives, pirate flags, illegal fireworks.
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  His detractors definitely use all that to paint him as
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  unreliable. A bit of a cook maybe?
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  But Knapp later found some corroboration about S4.
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  Yeah, that's important. Despite official denials for
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  years, Nap's own digging eventually confirmed there was a
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  facility at Papoose Lake Site 4S4, just like Lazar said.
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  And the element 115 cloud chamber test.
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  Nat mentioned that too, though the details aren't public.
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  So yeah, these core claims, they've proven surprisingly
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  resilient against decades of attempts to just brush them
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  aside. OK, so Lazar blows up public
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  awareness, but what about the official side?
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  The government? Rogan himself talked about how
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  things seem to be shifting now. Yeah, Rogan mentioned his own
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  skeptical friends kind of change their tune after hearing Lazar
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  on his show, and especially after Commander David Fraver.
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  Yes, the Tic Tac incident. Fraver's account is just
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  incredible, the way that thing moved.
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  Seemingly impossible physics. Yeah, and then you get the New
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  York Times articles dropping the Pentagon videos, the government
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  actually admitting. OK, yeah, we study these things.
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  We call them Uaps. Which feels like a massive
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  shift. It really does, and it raises
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  that question Knapp brought up. If the goal was always secrecy,
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  why talk about it openly now? It's weird.
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  Knapp himself became sort of the UFO reporter.
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  He must have seen it all in terms of credibility issues.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  He talked about the long, long history of government lies and
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  stonewalling on this topic way before Freedom of Information
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  Act requests were even a thing. He said internal documents
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  showed they knew more than they let on.
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  Yeah, internal docs from back then apparently acknowledged the
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  reality of the phenomenon much more openly than the public
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  statements ever did. And there are these documented
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  cases, UFOs over nuclear sites. Right, like the Northern Tier
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  incidents in 1975. Multiple nuke missile bases
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  reporting UFOs hovering, sometimes even seeming to
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  interfere with the missiles. That's serious stuff.
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  And not just the US, Russia too. NAP mentioned Russian studies
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  like a K GB one from the late 70s early 80s.
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  It apparently documented cases where Russian fighter jets were
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  even shot down by UFOs. Wow, even Trump piped up about
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  Roswell in Area 51. He did, Nap suggested.
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  Trump probably got some kind of briefing and you see guys like
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  Tucker Carlson consistently platforming guests talking about
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  UF OS. It's definitely more mainstream
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  now. So, pulling back, what are the
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  big theories, the implications floating around from all this?
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  Well the biggest 1 is just the sheer possibility of technology
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  wildly beyond what we understand.
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  Maybe reverse engineered like Lazar claimed.
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  Which would validate Lazar at least partially.
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  It could and it forces you to think about non human
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  intelligence. What if they evolved totally
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  differently? What would their tech look like?
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  The Fermi paradox, the Drake equation, Those old thought
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  experiments are suddenly relevant again even in
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  government docs. Apparently so, which is
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  fascinating. Knapp also mentioned things like
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  the zoo hypothesis, maybe you were being observed, or Jacques
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  Valet's work looking at metamaterials.
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  Materials with a weird isotopic ratios not from Earth.
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  Exactly. And Whitley Straber's
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  experiences, it opens up possibilities beyond just
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  classic ETS from other planets. Like time travelers,
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  interdimensional beings. Those ideas were floated, too.
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  The point is, the Lazar story, whether you believe every detail
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  or not, undeniably cracked open the public conversation.
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  It encouraged others, even military folks, to share their
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  stories. But.
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  It's a messy field, lots of noise, misinformation.
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  For sure, Knapp and Korbel were very clear about the bullshit
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  artists as they put it. It makes finding the real signal
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  incredibly hard. Frustratingly hard, no
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  definitive answers yet. Nope.
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  Still, you're a huge mystery. And you can't entirely rule out
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  advanced human tech from adversaries either.
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  They'll some of the reported behaviors are hard to square
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  with that. OK, the conversation also went
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  into specific locations beyond just Area 51.
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  Skinwalker Ranch came up quite a bit.
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  How does that connect back to Lazar?
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  Well, Robert Bigelow, the billionaire aerospace guy, he
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  was initially really interested in Bob Lazar's story.
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  That interest was apparently a big factor in him setting up
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  NIDS. NIDS National Institute for
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  Discovery Science, Bigelow's private paranormal research
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  group. Right.
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  And Senator Harry Reid got involved, interested in what
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  NIDS was doing, apparently tipped off by George Knapp.
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  And Skinwalker Ranch itself, it's legendary for high
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  strangeness, isn't it? Oh yeah, the book about it
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  details all sorts of phenomena, not just UFOs, but poltergeist
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  activity, weird creatures, electromagnetic anomalies, just
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  bizarre stuff. And the government got involved
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  there too, The DIA. Yeah, the Defense Intelligence
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  Agency, they funded a program called AWSA, Advanced Aerospace
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  Weapon System Applications Program.
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  Its focus was explicitly studying Skinwalker Ranch and
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  related phenomena. But the funding got cut for a
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  strange reason. Reportedly, yeah.
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  The alleged reason was fear of demonic influence associated
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  with the phenomena at the ranch, which is quite something.
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  Definitely not your usual budget cut reason.
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  I do. Not exactly.
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  But importantly, Knapp and others maintain that government
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  UFO studies didn't stop there. They just continued under
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  different programs, different names like ATIPA.
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  And the sightings continue. Those recent military reports.
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  Beach balls with cubes. Yeah, Nap mentioned those
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  reports off the Virginia coast. Military personnel seeing these
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  weird objects. He also stressed that the
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  government commissioned dozens of scientific papers.
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  Defense Intelligence reference documents, they're called.
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  On relevant topics. Meta materials.
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  Advanced propulsion. Exactly.
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  Things like meta materials, warp Dr. theory, hypersonic vehicles,
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  stuff directly related to UAP characteristics, and in many of
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  these papers still haven't been released publicly.
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  Knapp claims to have some of them.
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  That hints at a serious ongoing scientific interest behind the
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  scenes. It certainly seems that way.
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  Analysis of potential meta materials, maybe from crash
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  craft, was also mentioned. The discussion also briefly
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  touched on abductions. There was that personal
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  connection. Right Angela Hill, the UFC
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  fighter. Her grandfather was Barney Hill
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  from the famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction case back in the
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  60s. That's quite a link.
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  Abductions are obviously highly controversial.
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  Hugely lots of skepticism, but also, as Nap noted, you find
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  these weird similarities and accounts from people who have no
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  connection to each other. It's perplexing.
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  Why wouldn't it be more widely known if it were common?
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  That's the question, isn't it? The whole phenomenon seems
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  elusive, like it shows glimpses but never enough for solid
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  proof. That seems true for Skinwalker 2
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  experiences way beyond just seeing craft.
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  So trying to wrap this up, where does that leave us?
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  Staring into the unknown. Pretty much.
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  I mean the sheer scale of the universe.
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  Statistically, it feels improbable.
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  We're alone. That's a common thread.
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  And our current physics just can't explain some of these UAP
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  movement. Not easily.
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  Now if any of this, the non human intelligence aspect is
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  confirmed, well that changes everything.
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  Our whole understanding of reality shifts.
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  So keeping an open mind but also a critical one seems key.
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  Absolutely essential. You have to question everything,
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  especially with all the disinformation, but you also
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  have to be willing to consider possibilities outside our normal
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  boxes. So as you can clearly tell, this
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  conversation with George Knapp and Jeremy Korbel and JRE, it
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  really was a deep dive. So much intrigue, credible
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  accounts mixed with just persistent mysteries.
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  Yeah, from Lazar's initial bombshells to how the
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  government's talking about it now, plus the weirdness at
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  places like Skinwalker Ranch, the questions raised are huge.
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  They really push at the edges of what we think we know.
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  What art of this sticks with you the most?
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  After hearing this recap, is there anything you're now
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  curious to dig into more? Because honestly, we've just
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  scratched the surface here. There are decades of research,
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  so many first hand stories packed into that original
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  conversation. We'd really encourage you, if
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  you're interested, to check out the full episode.
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  Check out naps and Corbell's work form your own ideas.
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  Definitely. The search for answers isn't
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  stopping. New info, new angles that keep
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  popping up. Maybe the biggest takeaways.
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  Just stay critical, stay curious, be willing to think
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  about things that seem impossible right now.
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  Well said, thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
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  We hope it gave you some surprising things to chew on.
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  What mystery will you unpack next?