Rick Doty with George Knapp, part 2: MJ-12, the FBI and UFO cover stories for secret aircraft (Mystery Wire, 2019 interview)

0:00 You had these battles with UFO people for years and they accused you of this and that and mentioned it in books. It caused actual harm in your life. Two investigations, right? Yes, in 1987 I was investigated by the FBI for the MJ-12 documents. They claimed, the UFO researchers, claimed I released them, I created them, I went to an investigation by the FBI, it was cleared, it took a polygraph, it was cleared. And again in '89, a different aspect of it came public. The FBI called me, the same agent that investigated me the first time and said I hate to do this again but I need to talk to you again about this. And I was cleared obviously on that one. And a third time it actually happened when Bob Collins wrote the book Exempt from a Disclosure. He put something in that book and they thought that information came from me. So the FBI showed up at my doorstep with a search warrant and took my hard drive from my computer. And they

1:02 looked at it, they told, they came back later and told me it was clear, it didn't contain anything and they paid me. They paid me $600 for another hard drive. They didn't give me my hard drive back but they, and they did find out who who released that to Robert Collins. That was somebody out of Los Alamos and they went after that guy. But I didn't do it. So there's serious ramifications. This is no game. Exactly. Absolutely. I've spent money on attorneys either suing or, or during the FBI investigations, I had to hire attorneys. I don't want to go in too much detail about MJ-12, but you've been a link to that story and Bill Moore for a long time. You mentioned that you made a comment in passing earlier today that you think there's legitimate information in there. Yes. I'm 90 percent sure that there's a legitimate information. Those documents were created based on actual documents. The documents who were released weren't. But because, and the Air Force

2:03 covered itself, the government covered itself by saying, these aren't legitimate documents. Not that the information contained it was not. Can you say whether there was an organization like that? Yes, there was. Do you think that still exists? I'm sure. I'm positive exists. If I, I know that when Project Blue Book and I was briefed into the program in 1979 and one of the things they, they, they mentioned in the report and one way in the briefing was that the Air Force ceased its investigation of UFOs in 1969 based on a condom report. But they continued a classified investigative program, which intelligence officers were involved in. And when they needed a depository for the information from Project Blue Book, they were looking for an agency that wanted it. And DIA was only 10 years old. They raised their hand and said, we'll take it. And, and, and at that time and during my time in, I know DIA had a repository

3:04 for that information, whether it still does today, I don't know. You just heard the presentation of our stuff about DIA having a study that was ongoing and there was a collection effort. It makes sense that they would collect that information when there's an encounter with national security implications or weapons or nukes or something like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Any threat to national security, the government's going to investigate and they're going to collect information. They're going to do thorough investigations. They're going to interview the people and they collect, collect all the data possible out there. And that has to go someplace to DIA. You of all people understand the arguments of ufologists and their, the passion that they make. Hey, we want to know what's going on. But you also understand the flip side of why that information would not be released. Can you, can you make the case of why, why there need to be secrets on that topic, topic, why the, the vault of secrets that you know exists should be kept closed? Well, one of the main reasons is research and development. We're, we're, we have a, a, a great research and development program

4:04 going on within the military today. And we have to fly, we eventually have to fly these crafts that they're, they're creating, they're making such as the 117, the F-22, the back, the SR-71. And people are going to see these things flying and they're classified. So that type of technology has to be kept out of the, at our adversaries hands. The Russians are still our adversaries today. They also the Chinese. So that's why there's a program that may be discredit or disinformed people that, Hey, what you're seeing is UFOs. It's not, it's not, uh, uh, U S craft. So you got to be careful when you get this information. Absolutely.