#1510 - George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell

**Joe Rogan** (0:00)
First of all, George, pleasure to meet you.

**George Knapp** (0:03)
Joe, great to talk to you, great to see you in person.

**Joe Rogan** (0:05)
Great to see you, too. And Jeremy, good to see you again, my friend. Hey, Joe, good to see you, man. We're doing this often, this is becoming a thing.
George, I think that you're probably one of the most important figures when it comes to journalism and UFOs, and when you broke the Bogg Bazaar story, was that, is that 89, when was that?

**George Knapp** (0:26)
1989

**Joe Rogan** (0:27)
1989, I remember reading about it, I remember hearing about it, I remember watching clips on television and watching countless Bob Bazaar interviews.
It all came out of you. Did you think at that time, what was your thoughts about UFOs before you had met Bob Bazaar, and how much did it change while you got to know him and hear his story?

**George Knapp** (0:50)
It changed quite a bit. I had not really given it much thought at all. You know, probably the same level of curiosity as most people. You go about your life, you pay your bills, you go to work, you love your family, and it's always out there somewhere. Hey, I wonder what the deal is on that. But I had not really dwelled on it until it was a day in 1987 Into the studio comes a guy named John Lear.
And I had heard sort of a little bit about him. His family was famous. His dad developed the Learjet, the eight-track tape. John had run for the state senate, and he had a certain amount of credibility with our news organization, Klas Tv, because he had helped us break a really big story. And the story was The Stealth Fighter, the F-117. He had told my boss, Ned Day, managing editor, about this amazing plane that was invisible to radar flying up in Tonopah in Area 51 We had an interest in Area 51, not UFO-related, but Ned broke that story. It went national. So John Lear comes into the station one day with a stack of what turned out to be UFO documents. He plops them on Ned's desk and says, Ned, this is going to be the next biggest story, the biggest story in history. It's a UFO cover-up. Aliens are here. Technology has been recovered. Ned takes a look at it and says, I'm not doing this story.
If it was true, I'd already know about it. This is crazy. I'm eavesdropping, as I tend to do.
I'm a curious person. So as he's going out, I said, Lear, let me take a look at this material. And I looked at it, I thought, well, this is kind of interesting. At the time, I was producing and hosting this little public affairs show, 30-minute interview show. It would air Sunday morning at 6 o'clock. Nobody watches it. It would be interviewing a city councilman, a county commissioner. What the heck? I'll put Lear on there. And I let him go. And he told me this big scenario about secret treaties with aliens and recovered technology and a giant cover-up. Some of the information sounded outrageous. Some of it seemed like it would be worth checking out.
Suddenly, the phone starts ringing off the hook. I'm getting calls about people. Who was that guy? What was the deal on that UFO stuff? Is it real? I had him on again.
Six months later, the response was bigger. I had him on a third time with a guy named Bill Cooper.
I regret that.
And he told him an even more elaborate conspiracy.

**Joe Rogan** (3:04)
He's the Behold the Pale Horse guy?

**George Knapp** (3:06)
Yes.

**Joe Rogan** (3:06)
Yeah, I read that book. And halfway through, I was like, what in the fuck is this?

**George Knapp** (3:10)
Yeah, he tied in the JFK assassination and everything.

**Joe Rogan** (3:14)
Bases on the moon. Aliens are there right now.

**George Knapp** (3:16)
Yeah, he had this scenario where he had seen these documents when he was in the Navy, and he's going to tell the world about it, then he's going to go away. Well, every time he told the story, the documents got bigger and bigger, and anybody who criticized Bill Cooper became part of the secret government, including me. So we do this third show with Lear, and he hints that he knows a guy who might be going to work out at Area 51 and know something about alien technology. That guy turns out to be Bob Lazar, but Lear didn't give me the name at that time. A couple months later, I am anchoring the 5 o'clock news on KLAS, and we have a nightly or evening interview segment, five-minute segment, live interview. Our guest doesn't show up, and we're scrambling to find somebody to fill that hole, and I thought about Lear, so I called him up, not knowing what had been going on in Lazar's life or Lear's life, and I said, hey, is that UFO guy you told me about, is he around? Would he do an interview?