Interview with George Knapp of KLAS-TV
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
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(C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information Service
All Rights Reserved unless copyrighted by Author.
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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...
