George Knapp Congressional Record submission

STATEMENT TO CONGRESS
by
George Knapp
Rep. Burchett and members of the committee,
Thank you for inviting me to share some information that hopefully will be useful to your pursuit
of UAP/UFO transparency. The public appreciates your courage in tackling this still-
controversial subject, especially in light of the inevitable pushback members of Congress have
already faced for daring to ask basic questions and for refusing to accept the stonewalling,
veiled threats, and overt ridicule that have characterized the position of our military and
intelligence agencies for the past 75 years.
My name is George Knapp. I am the chief investigative reporter for KLAS TV in Las Vegas.
KLAS is Nevada’s original television station and a CBS affiliate.
As a journalist, my interest in UFO secrecy began in 1987. In the years since then, I have
written hundreds of UFO-related news stories and series, probably more stories over a longer
period of time than any other mainstream journalist in the country. (For the past 22 years, I
have worked with photographer Matt Adams on these news reports.)
From the beginning, it was apparent the subject has a steep learning curve. Initially, I was far
more interested in the government’s response to UFO questions than I was in the larger
questions about intelligence life other than humans. The statements issued by various military
spokespersons and government agencies were directly at odds with what those same military
officials and intelligence agencies confided to each other behind the scenes. Since 1969, the
position of our military has been that UFOs pose no threat to national security and are not
worthy of further study. This dismissive attitude is directly at odds with what was revealed in
documents, reports, and internal memos. High ranking military officers considered the UFO
mystery to be “serious business.” The paper trail revealed via FOIA requests documents how
military leaders knew that UFOs were “real, not fictitious”, that they were metallic craft, capable
of incredible maneuvers far beyond any known technology on Earth, and that there were a
disturbing number of incidents wherein UFOs seemed to demonstrate an intense interest in our
military assets, in particular nuclear weapons. If this is not a matter of national security, what
is? Yet the public was assured, again and again, there is really nothing to the UFO subject.
In 1989, I started hearing seemingly-outlandish tidbits regarding crashed saucers, strange
materials, and reverse engineering programs being carried out in secrecy in the Nevada desert
by intelligence operatives and defense contractors. The first person I told about this—outside
of our newsroom - was U.S. Senator Harry Reid, then in his first term in the Senate. Reid said
he was interested in hearing more, and that began a private, two-way conversation that
continued for the next three decades. I kept Sen. Reid in the loop about UFO developments I
was pursuing as a journalist, and he helped me obtain information that I might otherwise be