#2327 - AJ Gentile

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

Shrain by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

We're doing this?

AJ Gentile (0:15)

Yes. I'm glad you brought it.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

You did not have to do that. I appreciate it.

AJ Gentile (0:22)

I fucking love your channel, dude. I've spent countless hours watching your hilarious videos.

Joe Rogan (0:28)

So cool that you've even found it.

AJ Gentile (0:31)

Well, you know, Gino told me about it. Your brother Gino, who I've been friends with for years, told me about it a long time ago that you guys were doing this. And I was like, really? All right. Interesting. And then I watched him like, this is fucking great. It's right up my alley.

Joe Rogan (0:45)

You would show clips all the time and it would drive Gino nuts. And then finally, it got named. Reggie Watts was here. And he's like, you ever hear of The Why Files? You guys are talking about moon landing shit. And you're like, what's that? And I don't know, a week or two later Gino gets a text, are you The Why Files?

AJ Gentile (1:03)

He didn't tell me the name of it.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

He was so excited.

AJ Gentile (1:05)

Yeah, it's a great show, dude. It's like everything I'm fascinated by. Anunnaki, Aliens, Secret Bases. How did you get involved with making a show like this? Is this something you've always been interested in?

Joe Rogan (1:21)

I mean, like, grew up Art Bell.

AJ Gentile (1:22)

Yes, there he is.

Joe Rogan (1:24)

There he is. I mean, the GOAT, the GOAT. Dad was an overnight cop, so always overnight radio. And so it was always Dr. Demento.

AJ Gentile (1:33)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (1:34)

You remember him? And Art Bell. So I kind of grew up with the weird stories and it just got in the Twilight Zone. We watched as kids. It was like required watching from dad in the old black and whites, the classics. So that was always in there. So I'll skip 20 years. We had a podcasting studio in LA on Sunset. We were doing pretty well. We were hosting a lot of shows, guys you knew, like when COVID hit, Kill Tony came and worked out of our studio, Jeremiah, Metzger, all the guys. Didn't make any money, but it was a cool setup. But then they locked down the city, impossibly. And we didn't really know what to do. Then they set fire to the city somehow. And the wife and I are racing down Hollywood Boulevard, being chased by people with bats and boxes of Adidas. And we were like, this is too much. And we just started packing. That's it, we got out. And I didn't know what to do. So I had been working in showbiz, not super successfully, like on the cusp, but I've been a professional host, editor, producer, writer for TV. So I was like, YouTube, easy. I'm a natural. So I started the channel talking about science and weird stuff. And it was the hardest thing I ever did.

But it was like impossible to do. And I started out like following all the consultants. High energy, smash the like, be a YouTuber, top 10 list. And I did that for a little while. It's like, no one's watching. This feels stupid. And then I just, I said, fuck it, let me just talk about the shit I want to talk about. So I think the first like good one was Operation Highjump. You know, Admiral Byrd goes down to Antarctica with an armed fleet, supposedly looking for a Nazi UFOs. And it's a six month mission. And in like a few days, they have to turn back and it's crazy stuff. So I did that story and got a, you know, I think I got 50,000 views.

AJ Gentile (3:27)

I don't think I saw that one.

Joe Rogan (3:28)

It's an old one.

AJ Gentile (3:29)

What happened in Operation Highjump?

Joe Rogan (3:31)

All right. Admiral Byrd goes down. This is just after the war. Remember, the Nazis were fleeing to South America. So mostly Argentina. So the Nazis had established or tried to establish a base in Antarctica. That's true. It's a new Schwabenland. Now people say they were trying to build a Nazi base and all that stuff. They were really just looking for a whaling station to get oil. So Hitler didn't want to rely on outside sources. So anyway, after the war, they go down there. We still don't really know specifically why. It was supposed to be just to see how our aircraft would operate in cold weather. That was what they said. But this was a fleet that was armed to the teeth, like super, like armed. The first helicopters were there, destroyers. So they go down there. It's supposed to be a multi-month mission, maybe six months. They get down there and in a matter of weeks, maybe even fewer, they just bail.