Person

George Knapp

Also known as Knapp

Chief Investigative Reporter, KLAS-TV Las Vegas

George Knapp is the chief investigative reporter at KLAS-TV in Las Vegas and a Peabody Award winner who has covered UFOs since 1987. He calls it "likely the biggest story I will ever cover". He is a reporter rather than a witness, and says belief has nothing to do with it. What drew him in, he says, was the FOIA paper trail of officials admitting "these things are real".

In 1989 he broke the story of Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked on alien craft at S4 near Area 51. Knapp reported the gaps in Lazar's records along with the evidence that he had worked at Los Alamos, and says he believes him. In the 1990s he reported from the former Soviet Union, obtaining military files on cases such as the 1982 Usovo missile-base incident. Through Robert Bigelow and the DIA's AAWSAP program he became the public chronicler of the Skinwalker Ranch research. He co-wrote Hunt for the Skinwalker, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon and Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program with James Lacatski and Colm Kelleher. With filmmaker Jeremy Corbell he runs the WEAPONIZED podcast, which released Jay Stratton's first interview.

Testifying to Luna's task force on September 9, 2025, he called AAWSAP the largest acknowledged UFO program and said Lockheed held material "not made here". He named Lockheed's James Ryder and the CIA's Glenn Gaffney as gatekeepers, and accused AARO of acting like a counterintelligence operation against witnesses. Those claims rest on his sources. AARO says the named companies denied on the record ever holding such technology, and no documents have been made public. Rep. Tim Burchett credits Knapp's reporting for what he knows of Area 51.

Sources: written testimony and transcript, September 9, 2025 hearing · KLAS 1989 Lazar report · WEAPONIZED (October 2026) · AARO historical report (2024) · Wikipedia

Facts and claims

claimed In his written testimony he describes himself as KLAS-TV's chief investigative reporter, “not a whistleblower, and not a UFO witness”, who began pursuing the UFO story in 1987, and says what hooked him was the paper trail of government documents obtained under FOIA. — George Knapp Source: George Knapp, written testimony to the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, 9 September 2025
claimed His 1989 KLAS reports introduced Bob Lazar, who claimed he had worked on reverse-engineering alien craft at a site called S4 near Area 51. Knapp reported that the schools Lazar named had no record of him and Los Alamos denied employing him, but that a 1982 Los Alamos phone book listed him; asked whether he believed Lazar, he said “Yeah, I do.” — George Knapp Source: Bob Lazar 1989 interview with George Knapp at 5:40
claimed Testifying to Congress in September 2025, Knapp described reporting on Bob Lazar in 1989 and called AAWSAP “the largest acknowledged UFO program ever funded by the U.S. Government”, saying the DIA has not released 95 percent of what it produced. — George Knapp Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 48:50
claimed He testified that he had confirmed on the record that Robert Bigelow and an AAWSAP colleague negotiated with Lockheed Martin executives for BAASS to receive material stored at a facility in California: “That material was not made here.” — George Knapp Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 50:08
claimed Asked which contractors hold recovered material, he said “one of them is Lockheed”, and named James Ryder of Lockheed and Glenn Gaffney of the CIA as gatekeepers. — George Knapp Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 1:36:15
documented AARO's 2024 report says the executives, scientists and chief technology officers of the companies named by interviewees met its director and “denied on the record that they have ever recovered, possessed, or engaged in reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology”. Source: AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1
claimed He testified that James Lacatski told him the U.S. had got inside a craft with no wings, rotor, tail or fuel, and that it took 14 months of Pentagon pre-publication review to clear two sentences on it. — George Knapp Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 1:48:03
claimed He gave the task force Soviet military witness statements on an October 1982 incident at an ICBM base in Ukraine, writing that “something or someone entered the correct launch codes for the missiles” during hours of UFO activity. — George Knapp Source: George Knapp, written testimony to the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, 9 September 2025
claimed He said AARO dismissed witnesses such as Bob Jacobs and Bob Salas: “It almost looks like AARO operated as a counterintelligence operation.” — George Knapp Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 2:15:30
claimed Reviewing Jay Stratton's memoir in October 2026, he said Stratton acknowledges being “Axelrod”, the intelligence official in Knapp's book *Skinwalkers at the Pentagon* whose family experienced phenomena at home. — George Knapp Source: Jay Stratton's first on-camera interview, recorded 2022 (WEAPONIZED, released October 2026) at 12:15

Connected files

Books

Dreamland: An Autobiography (wrote foreword for)
Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah (authored)
Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (authored)
Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (authored)

Claims

Documents

Documentaries

Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers (appears in)
S4: The Bob Lazar Story (appears in)

Incidents

Yemen MQ-9 “Hellfire” orb video (discusses)
Usovo / Byelokorovichi missile-base lights (Soviet Ukraine, 1982) (reported on) — The case became famous through Knapp, who told Congress “something or someone entered the correct launch codes”

People

Robert Jacobs (statement about)
Bob Lazar (interviewed) — Knapp broke Lazar's story on KLAS-TV in 1989, reported the gaps in his records, and says he believes him
Robert Salas (statement about)
Dan Isbell (related to)
James Lacatski (co-author of) — Co-authors, with Colm Kelleher, of Skinwalkers at the Pentagon and the books that followed
Robert Bigelow (chronicled) — Through Bigelow and AAWSAP he became the public chronicler of the Skinwalker Ranch research
Jay Stratton (interviewed) — His WEAPONIZED podcast released Stratton's first interview; Knapp says Stratton is “Axelrod” in his book
Glenn Gaffney (statement about)
Harry Reid (statement about)
James T. Ryder (named) — Knapp named Ryder as a gatekeeper of recovered material at Lockheed
Jeremy Corbell (works with)
Richard Doty (interviewed) — George Knapp interviewed Doty for Mystery Wire (recorded 2019, published 2020)
Tim Burchett (credited by) — He credits Knapp's reporting for what he knows, and entered Knapp's statement into the 2023 hearing record

Places

Skinwalker Ranch (chronicled) — He became the public chronicler of the Skinwalker Ranch research

Hearings & briefings

Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection (testified at)

Programs

Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (chronicled) — He called AAWSAP the largest acknowledged UFO program and co-wrote the books on it

Organizations

Lockheed Martin (claims about) — He testified Lockheed held material “not made here” and named its James Ryder as a gatekeeper

George Knapp

Facts and claims

Connected files

Books

Claims

Documents

Documentaries

Incidents

People

Places

Hearings & briefings

Programs

Organizations

Videos

Mentioned in videos

Mentioned in documents and records

More people

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Claims

Documentaries