George Knapp interview.
From: paranet!p0.f422.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Michael.Corbin
Subject: Knapp Interview #1
Date: 24 Dec 89 05:08:00 GMT
DATE OF UPLOAD: December 23, 1989
ORIGIN OF UPLOAD: ParaNet Information Service
CONTRIBUTED BY: Chuck Harder/Special Correspondent to ParaNet
========================================================
(C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information Service
All Rights Reserved unless copyrighted by Author.
========================================================
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE KNAPP OF KLAS-TV (LAS VEGAS, NEVADA) ON
NOVEMBER 17, 1989. INTERVIEWED BY CHUCK HARDER, HOST AND
MODERATOR OF 'FOR THE PEOPLE' OF THE SUN RADIO NETWORK.
CHUCK HARDER
My guest has (now) called in and I'm going to run down who he is
and where he's from for a number of reasons, some of them for his
own protection. George, are you there...
GEORGE KNAPP
Hello Chuck.
CHUCK HARDER
Please tell us, you are George Knapp, right...
GEORGE KNAPP
That's right.
CHUCK HARDER
George, what do you do for a living?
GEORGE KNAPP
I'm a journalist with KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, the CBS affiliate
here.
CHUCK HARDER
So you are a TV newsman...
GEORGE KNAPP
Right.
CHUCK HARDER
And you work for Channel 8, KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada...
GEORGE KNAPP
Right.
CHUCK HARDER
I understand that you have come upon some very interesting
information and you've done some special reports, could you tell
us about it...?
GEORGE KNAPP
Well we just finished a nine-part series -- what may be the
longest series that's ever been done on this subject dealing with
UFOs.
Our research actually started about two and a half years ago, a
fellow named John Lear, the son of the guy who invented the Lear
Jet brought some of this information to our attention. In May of
this year, Mr. Lear introduced us to a fellow who claims to have
worked at a secret base designated S-4...on a top-secret Nevada
test site...the fellow said that he worked on flying saucers,
that the technology was not from Earth, and we interviewed him
live in silhouette in May, the response was incredible...we got
response from Japan, parts of that interview aired on radio in
Europe, and six different European countries...so we decided with
this much interest we might want to take a look at the subject in
more depth.
We started doing that and the first thing we found out is that
really UFOs have not been given a fair shake by science, by
government, by religion and especially by journalism. Millions
of people have seen UFOs, millions more believe...I think the
latest Gallup poll shows about 70 percent of college-educated
Americans believe that there's something to it, but because of
the tabloid aspects...'The Girl Who Gives Birth to 52 UFO Babies'
-- kind of things in the National Enquirer, people have shied
away from it...Serious people have shied away. Scientists,
although they might be interested in searching the universe for
radio signals really don't want to look in their own back yard --
they can't get grants...people would laugh at them. Journalism -
- the coverage is generally condescending and quirky, especially
by the networks, as in the coverage of this UFO that supposedly
landed in the USSR, people making fun of it...so, we figured out
that millions of people want to know as Roy Neary, the guy in the
'Close Encounters' movie said, 'What's going on?' So we started
investigating it. The focal point of the story being this fellow
who said he worked at S-4. We broke his identity last Friday.
His name is Bob Lazar, he is a former scientist who worked at Los
Alamos National Labs, he is a physicist...we did a lot of
checking on him and found interestingly enough that his life was
disappearing around him. In other words we called Los Alamos
Labs and they said they never heard of him. We called MIT where
he says he went to school and they had never heard of him. We
called for his Birth records and they had disappeared...as if
someone was trying to make him a non-person. We did however
confirm some of the information that he had given us...we found
newspaper articles from Los Alamos indicating that he had indeed
worked there...we found an old telephone book from the lab with
his name in it, which gave him a certain amount of credibility in
our eyes. The story he tells is an incredible one. He was hired
to work at this area called S-4 on the test site, he was flown up
to a place called Groom Lake -- taken by bus with no windows to
S-4...the base is built almost to look like its part of the
desert with sand covered hanger doors, he goes inside and he
starts reading these briefing papers dealing with UFOs! Pictures
of UFOs on the walls, pictures of aliens, autopsy reports on
alien bodies...things of this nature -- he's pretty amazed. Then
he sees the discs. He says there are nine of the discs up there,
they are powered by an anti-matter reactor which produces its own
gravitational field...technology that does not exist on this
planet, and the interesting thing...he thought for a while that
perhaps it was just an advanced secret scientific project that
our government is pursuing until he looked inside one of the
discs and noticed the small furniture...all the chairs were built
like for children...and then things started coming together for
him. Are you with me Chuck?
CHUCK HARDER
I'm listening.
GEORGE KNAPP
Er, I'm not sure how much detail you want me to go in on...
CHUCK HARDER
Oh I think you ought to keep going.
GEORGE KNAPP
Well, this fellow was up there for only a few months. And it was
a rough place for him to work...the security was so hard and he
was being harassed at home, his phones being tapped...plus he's
on to what he thinks are the secrets of the universe...he starts
to tell other people about it, confide with close friends.
CHUCK HARDER
Ummmmmm.....
GEORGE KNAPP
He had the date of a couple of tests and on two consecutive
weekends he took people up into the desert outside of the
boundaries of area S-4, and they video taped the saucers...what
looks like a saucer coming over the mountains!
CHUCK HARDER
Wow...
GEORGE KNAPP
We showed that video as well...
CHUCK HARDER
Uh-huh....
GEORGE KNAPP
Five different people that we interviewed that had gone up there
confirmed the same story...we also had confirmation of other bits
of his story from other people, a former security guard who
worked up there...who said he had seen the saucers, a former
technician...
CHUCK HARDER
By the way, excuse me, I have some letters from some people
postmarked from that area, one inside of a base, who tells me
what you're saying is true. Keep going.
GEORGE KNAPP
Ah, we also found a Nellis Airman who had been on radar duty at
Nellis airbase which is here just south of the area that this
fellow is talking about...he reported numerous times seeing...
CHUCK HARDER
George, excuse me...let me do the half hour news break, I want
you to tell your story, I want America to hear it...please stand
by.
>>>>At this point the SUN RADIO NETWORK runs the half hour news
headlines and sports audio package from UPI<<<<
(After news the guest is re-introduced for listeners who may have
just tuned in...)
CHUCK HARDER
How many reports did you do, George?
GEORGE KNAPP
We did nine total in this series.
CHUCK HARDER
Ok, now at the time we went to news on the half hour you told me
that a scientist named Bob Lazar...
GEORGE KNAPP
Right...
CHUCK HARDER
Ok, came to you and came to the public and apparently was
concerned for his safety because he wanted to tell America or get
news out that - yes, the Federal Government has nine saucers, and
yes they are near...it's near Nellis, is it not?
GEORGE KNAPP
Yes.
CHUCK HARDER
Cause I have letters from people who are at Nellis. Some of
which don't want to give their name, some of which gave their
name, I have the postmarks. Tell us now if you would, start the
story from the fact that the gentleman has revealed that there
are nine of these things. We're listening and so is America.
GEORGE KNAPP
Well, we wanted to try to confirm as much of his story as
possible from other sources of course, so we started looking for
other people who might have knowledge of what's going on up
there...as I mentioned, I found a former security guard who said
that he had seen the saucers up there, I found a former
technician who said that he had walked into a room inadvertently
and saw one under a tarp, we found a Nellis airman who had worked
in radar and said that basically he and his fellow airman has
seen these things flying over the Groom Mountains at speeds up to
7,000 miles per hour on radar...these things would stop on a
dime, so the guy knew that this is not your average airplane
that's doing this. We also interviewed the other people who went
with Lazar up on two consecutive weeks, they test them on
Wednesdays for some reason, and videotaped the tests, saw these
things flying over the mountains and confirmed his story as well.
We put these questions to the Navy, who Lazar says he worked for
up there -- we made Freedom of Information Act requests for
information about the various specific programs he mentioned, of
course the Navy denied having any information on the programs.
Of course in those requests we also asked for other information
about UFOs, stuff the Navy has already released and they denied
having that information as well -- so I don't put a lot of faith
in the FOIA requests.
CHUCK HARDER
In other words, what you're saying is that your organization
which is KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, plus many other UFO research
groups have uncovered many UFO documents that the government
says, 'Yeah, we got them and yeah it's true'...but then when you
ask them again they say, 'No, we don't have them!'
GEORGE KNAPP
Exactly...that's exactly correct!
CHUCK HARDER
I understand from MUFON and many other groups that there are
somewhere from four to seven thousand documents that prove
that...yes these things exist, copies of the documents are in
private hands, then you go and ask the government and they say,
'Well, er, no we don't remember...'
GEORGE KNAPP
The government says that they have done these studies that say
that UFOs are no threat to national security, they're either
psychological aberrations, which means that people are nuts when
they see them, that's what they feed the public...but behind the
scenes they are very concerned about the national security
implications of UFOs that land at nuclear missile bases and can't
be caught, things of that nature. So the government from what
I've read is very concerned about the phenomena and doesn't
really understand it. The government on the other hand has
outright lied concerning what information it does have...the CIA
for example says it doesn't collect any information on
UFOs...well that's just patently not true. We have documents
from the CIA, a lot of it is blacked out, which mentions UFO
studies by the CIA, UFO research, CIA-UFO experts, agency
personnel who are monitoring the phenomenon, so they have lied to
us all along. I didn't expect to get any confirmation regarding
what Lazar has to say, but had to give it a try anyway.
CHUCK HARDER
Before we went to the half-hour break you said that when he
looked inside one of these discs there were little furniture,
give me some information...
GEORGE KNAPP
Well he feels that they were bringing him along, giving him a
piece at a time. He would see a saucer one day, the next he
would see the hanger doors open and see all nine of them...after
that he got to see the inside of the thing. He also got to see a
demonstration of it. He was told to stand back and watch
this...and the thing lights up real bright...I guess the power
that's produced is incredible, you need to produce your own
gravitational field and it raised up, he wasn't sure who was
flying it or was it remotely or what. He watched it raise up,
did a couple of maneuvers and sat back down. Part of the reason
he came forward, not to spill the secrets of the universe or the
government, but because the research that's being done up there
is being handled in a clumsy fashion. If they have had these for
as long as forty years, which is what he believes, they haven't
come to far in trying to understand them. Some of the discs he
said he saw up there were being taken apart, kind of a reverse
archaeology process to figure out how they worked. Some of the
research going on up there is aimed at trying to duplicate the
things that these machines can do using earth technologies and
earth materials and he says it just can't be done. The key to
the flying of the things is something he calls 'Element 115'...it
does not exist on our periodic charts, he believes that wherever
it came from its a naturally occurring element, he says we have
500 pounds of this stuff up there, just a little tiny sliver of
it produces incredible amounts of power. Its the '115' that we
will not be able to duplicate so he thinks...one of the reasons
that he came forward is because scientists all over the world are
working, putting their energy into trying to master the secrets
of gravity and the secrets of anti-matter technology and here
we've got it up there and they're not doing a very good job with
it -- this little batch of scientists hidden out in the desert
are trying to figure it out and not doing a very good job...
CHUCK HARDER
But this is kind of common with the United States government...I
read a tremendous amount of material...I read a tremendous amount
of material...I read five newspapers a day and I'll find where
one group in one part of the country is working on a project and
I'll get a clipping where another group is working on the same
project, I've contacted them and they don't know of each other!
GEORGE KNAPP
Yeah, Yeah -- that's exactly right...he said the
compartmentalization up there was very severe as well so that
nobody had the full picture -- I guess so nobody could spill the
beans as he has been trying to do.
CHUCK HARDER
Alright, what does he feel the public should know and what does
he feel should be done?
GEORGE KNAPP
Well, he's not on a campaign, what he really wanted to do was to
save his own life. He started having some problems when it
became obvious to his employers that he was telling someone else
about this.
CHUCK HARDER
We're talking about Bob Lazar now...
GEORGE KNAPP
Bob Lazar...his phone being tapped, people visiting him, calling
him up with a single word message -- DEAD -- then they hang up!
He tried to arrange meetings with his former supervisor and the
meetings didn't come off, he says somebody took a shot at him on
the freeway...obviously he realizes that if they really wanted to
kill him, they could. Maybe perhaps they were just trying to
shut him up. He feels that what is going on up there is a crime
against the entire scientific community...not only the American
people because we don't know what's going on and we haven't been
told alien technology exists, but also against the scientific
community. So, what else can I tell ya?
CHUCK HARDER
What does he say about the aliens?
GEORGE KNAPP
He's reluctant to talk about that, apparently he did see some
aliens up there...
CHUCK HARDER
Excuse me, are you telling me there were live aliens?
GEORGE KNAPP
Yeah, he's kind of sketchy on the details of that, and I don't
think I should go much further on that...part of the discussion
until I can talk to him, but he has indications that there are
aliens up there, at least one...
CHUCK HARDER
Live?
GEORGE KNAPP
Yeah, it's pretty wild, I know and I didn't include that in our
reports because I couldn't confirm any thing of that nature, I
couldn't find anyone else who had seen them up there so...
CHUCK HARDER
What did they look like?
GEORGE KNAPP
Your classic Grey...the little big-headed almond eyed-grey
skinned being...the same ones in the classic descriptions of the
UFO literature...he's kind of squeamish talking about it as well
because it sounds so crazy...
CHUCK HARDER
I don't think it's crazy at all, there was an article, let me
digress for a moment, there was an article yesterday on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal where the FDA that stopped all of
the grapes from Chile last March...apparently somebody laced two
of the grapes with cyanide a couple of hours before the FDA,
stumbled on them and it was an inside job apparently while the
grapes were in the inspection station...and it was not done on
the way, so somebody's lying there -- we're talking of two little
grapes that almost bankrupted the country of Chile! If two
little grapes...and such a story hits the front page of The Wall
Street Journal about the questions about the truthfulness and
what happened with the FDA, what about this...how would this ever
get out if they would cover up a story about TWO LITTLE GRAPES?!
GEORGE KNAPP
Well, I tell you we asked the question, the obvious question, if
this is true; how can the government keep this a secret all this
time? A story this big -- the government leaks like a sieve on
other things, how could the coverup exist?
CHUCK HARDER
Oh, I'll tell you...
GEORGE KNAPP
To which Lazar responds, this is the easiest...and he asked the
question to his superiors up there, it's the easiest thing in the
world to keep a secret because if it does come out, little bits
and pieces, who's going to believe it?
CHUCK HARDER
Exactly...let me, you remember the Condon Report, do you not?
GEORGE KNAPP
Yes...
CHUCK HARDER
For those who are listening, I got into this investigation
because I kept getting letters from our listeners who said, Chuck
you ought to investigate this...we've investigated many things in
the past such as the GM Diesel coverup, we're working on a pay
phone coverup, we've done things with Ralph Nader...and so on.
So we started buying the books and contacting UFO organizations.
I then found that there was a guy named Phil Klass who was always
there...somehow he as always there and he said that everything
was bunk! And of course, he works for the Aviation Week magazine
which is of course is the mouthpiece for the Military/Industrial
complex and they certainly wouldn't want this technology to be
out! I was also amazed when I saw the stealth bomber (tests)
live on CNN one Saturday and a small plane landed at the same
place, (runway) do you remember that...?
GEORGE KNAPP
Yes...
CHUCK HARDER
My question is: If the Stealth Bomber was so super-secret, how
could a man and his children land their little tiny plane on the
same runway at a super-secret airforce base? How could he have
pierced the radar and fighter jets and so forth? My feeling was,
probably the Stealth Bomber was obsolete and nobody was watching!
GEORGE KNAPP
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you, because the security up
there...the only thing that comes out of that place is what they
want out of it.
CHUCK HARDER
So what your talking about then, since the Condon Committee, Phil
Klass and all the of the spokespeople who are supposed to know
everything, what your saying is the ridicule factor...if Billy
Bob sees a flying saucer and even has a photo of it and takes it
to the paper, everybody laughs at him!
GEORGE KNAPP
There are actual documents the government has released (Under
Freedom of Information Act) that show it has an active program
that started back in the fifties...the CIA even used the term
DEBUNKING, there were discussions about using Walt Disney to
produce cartoons that made fun of people who had seen flying
saucers...they were going to bring Arthur Godfrey in as their
spokesperson. Phil Klass as you mentioned, he's explained away
UFO sightings seen by thousands of people as the constellation
ORION, when you can only see ORION from the other side of the
planet.
CHUCK HARDER
Uh huh...
GEORGE KNAPP
He uses things like Ball Lightning, plasma balls to explain the
sightings where plasma balls only last for a few seconds and the
examples that he is trying to explain occur in cloudless skies
where there is no lightning around. You mention the Condon
report, that's a perfect example of the kinds of things that the
government has done in the past, they commission a study, it's
supposed to be THE STUDY, but the guy they hire to run the thing,
Edward Condon had before he even started, that there was nothing
to UFOs, the government should get out of it, and he also said at
one point that the authors of UFO books should be HORSEWHIPPED!
One of the explanations that came from the Condon Committee
witnessed by several people, they described it as, a natural
phenomena so rare that it has never been seen before or since! I
don't think this kind of a thing is an accident!
CHUCK HARDER
Ok, the Soviet Union and Tass gave their report (of a UFO) and
from what I have heard there are different kinds of aliens, some
have been coming here for years and years and it's nothing new...
GEORGE KNAPP
Right...
CHUCK HARDER
Why is it in some parts of the world (now) they report other
types of humanoids and other types of vehicles...I happen to have
beautiful photos of some, and as I told you off-the-air, we're
going to be releasing them in our upcoming magazine if someone
doesn't stick a dagger through my heart...
GEORGE KNAPP
You're talking about the Billy Meier case, if you want to touch
on that, we also did some investigation on that...
CHUCK HARDER
Ok, go ahead.
GEORGE KNAPP
Billy Meier, I've always been intrigued by that, and wanted to
check them out. Its been pretty much written-off by the UFO
community but when we put questions to them about the case they
can't explain exactly why so we traveled to Phoenix and talked to
Lee Elders one of the lead investigators on the Billy Meier case
and started going over the evidence. The photos had been
analyzed by independent experts, the film footage and video had
been analyzed, the metal sample had been confirmed as something
we don't have -- technology of cold fusion was used to produce
this metal, the landing sites, the strange circular patterns in
the grass that are now only gaining attention in Britain and
other countries, all of this stuff had never been pretty much
discounted by the UFO community because Elders and Wendelle
Stevens had gone outside of the UFO community to get
confirmation. The UFO people were kept out of it, the Billy
Meier case I think exemplifies the biggest weakness in UFOLOGY
and that's the jealousy that permeates the field...everybody
wants to be the only one with the real story of UFOs, so they
kind of written this guy off only because he didn't cooperate
with them.
CHUCK HARDER
We have been able to get some photos from a source who has some
negatives that were just recently located...some from ten feet
away, I used to be in the motion picture business. If they are
models they cost thousands of dollars and I doubt if a simple
Swiss farmer could have done it...
GEORGE KNAPP
I'd agree with ya, the reason we got interested in Billy Meier,
it goes back to Lazar, was because Bob Lazar says, the saucer
that he saw fly, he dubbed it the sport model, was the same
saucer in the Meier photos, exactly the same.
CHUCK HARDER
The new ones or the old ones?
GEORGE KNAPP
The new one.
CHUCK HARDER
Ok, that's the one we've got.
GEORGE KNAPP
Going back to the things he saw (Lazar) at S-4, he saw the nine
saucers, he said all nine of them were different, like we got the
variety pack, but the one he saw fly was like the one in the
Meier photo. (There are Three types photographed by Billy
Meier.)
That's why we decided to check out the Meier part of the (UFO)
story.
>>>>At this point Chuck Harder tells George Knapp that there is a
break coming up and after the break would he please tell Mr. and
Mrs. America what they should do to get the truth.<<<<
CHUCK HARDER
I hope that Mr. and Mrs. America make note of the name George
Knapp and Bob Lazar so that if anything ever happens to them, you
know why.
GEORGE KNAPP
Someone should tell us what's going on...TV and movies have
conditioned us...we won't panic...Jimmy Carter when he ran for
President promised that if he was elected that he vowed to open
all the UFO files and he didn't -- we wrote to him asking why and
he didn't respond. We want the government to come clean. If
that takes a Congressional Investigation...that's something that
should be looked at. If it is launched we have to make sure that
there are no CIA, contractors and the like involved otherwise
people aren't going to believe it. We've seen enough of this
whitewash stuff over the years. If there's nothing to the story,
then open up the files and prove it to us!
CHUCK HARDER
OK, have the government let the press into these areas and don't
first clean them out...
Go back to Area 51 and Robert Lazar index page