[George Knapp is one of the only professional television newscasters in America who has extensively studied and reported on UFO phenomena. Knapp broke the story of "saucer mechanic" Bob Lazar in his award-winning 1989 news series, "UFOs: The Best Evidence." More recently, Knapp traveled to Russia to interview former Soviet military and KGB personnel on Russian UFO activities. On March 24, 1997, Knapp spoke to a public audience in Las Vegas, Nevada, concerning the UFO claims of Colonel Philip Corso, whose upcoming book, "The Day After Roswell," purports to confirm that alien artifacts were recovered near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. (CNI News first reported on Corso in issue 2.21, January 16, 1997.) CNI News thanks researcher Glenn Campbell of the Area 51 Research Center for permission to publish this story, which was originally posted in Errol Bruce-Knapp's UFO Updates. Campbell can be reached by email at campbell@ufomind.com]
by Glenn Campbell
George Knapp was the featured speaker at Las Vegas MUFON on March 24. He discussed claimed government insider Philip Corso and showed portions of a videotaped interview he made with Corso. The following is a brief summary, from memory, of what I heard Corso say on the tape and what Knapp recounted about him.
Knapp said he had been sitting on his Corso material for 5 or 6 years, but since Corso's book was due soon and Corso's claims were now being discussed on the internet, Knapp felt he could talk about it.
Knapp says he was first tipped about Corso by Mark Sauter, who is now a reporter for American Journal & Inside Edition. Sauter had interviewed Corso regarding POWs in the Korean War. When he happened to mention UFOs, Corso began to recount some stories.
Apparently, this is the first time that interviews with Corso regarding his UFO claims have been shown in public. The interviews showed a frail-looking man in his 70s. His speech is somewhat rambling and hard to follow. He had an unnerving tendency to mix things he had directly experienced with things he read later in the UFO literature. In the tape, Corso mentions cattle mutilations and talked about Zecharia Sitchin and the Sumerians -- things he does not claim to have had official access to.
Knapp said Corso's credentials are "impeccable," although the UFO claims themselves cannot be proven. Knapp gave a sequence of events in Corso's career: Among other things, he was an artillery officer in WWII, was trained by British Intelligence and was a battalion commander at White Sands Missile Range. Somewhere around 1960, he worked for "C.E. Jackson" at the White House.
Later, between 1961 and 1963, he worked for a General Trudeau in the Foreign Intelligence Division. Trudeau is apparently the only one who could verify this story, and Corso said he had been dead 2 to 3 years at the time of Knapp's interview.
The Foreign Technology Division had the responsibility of analyzing both "foreign" technology (i.e. Soviet) and "alien" technology, apparently from UFO crashes. Corso's role was the writing of "proposals" for how alien material should be handled -- typically sent to government and contractor labs for analysis. The contractors didn't know what they were getting and assumed it was "foreign," not "alien." The alien technology, Corso insists, was incorporated into human technology, including things like computer chips and night vision goggles.
An alien "ship" went to Bell Labs and from there to Rockwell [according to Corso]. Night vision technology came somehow from the covering over the alien eye.
While in his position with Trudeau, Corso was privy to information about at least one alien autopsy, which took place at Walter Reed Hospital. Corso has seen the Santilli alien autopsy, and says the alien was very similar.
Corso says the Roswell incident was real.
Corso apparently has never worked at Area 51, and he seemed to have no information about it when he was queried by Knapp.
Corso said on the tape that he didn't think there was a UFO cover-up. There didn't have to be, because the UFO buffs discredited themselves.
Corso left his position with Trudeau when Trudeau retired from the military to work for a defense contractor, and the office was dissolved.
Corso doesn't seem to know the "big picture," only his part of it. He made "proposals" to Trudeau, but it was Trudeau who implemented them.
Complicating Corso's story is his claim of direct alien encounters before he became involved in this program. (Knapp acknowledges that this coincidence is going to be fuel for critics.) Corso apparently had two encounters at White Sands Missile Range in the 1950s, both when he was alone.
In one, he was on assignment in a remote area of desert "past Trinity site." On the tape, Corso described standing in the desert as a craft appeared and disappeared repeatedly. He placed a rock and some sagebrush in the place where he thought the craft would reappear, and when the craft again appeared and disappeared, the rock and sagebrush were crushed. At one point, he put his hand on the side of the craft and found that it was cold. This was a great surprise to him, since it was 110 degrees in the desert around him. Corso got scared and tried to drive away. (He seemed to be concerned that the craft might reappear where he happened to be.) As he did, the compass he had started spinning, and the car motor died. When the craft lifted off, it turned on its side and then vanished.
In the other encounter, Corso was exploring a cave or mine, apparently in the White Sands complex. He went there, he said, because that's where animals went to drink, and you could watch them at the mouth of the cave. While inside the cave, Corso was approached by an alien. (Knapp showed a video clip in which Corso displayed a drawing of the alien, which appeared to be a standard "gray".) Corso asked, "Friend or Foe," and the alien replied, telepathically, "Neither." The alien had only one request for Corso, that he turn off his radar for 10 minutes. Corso asked why, and the alien replied with something cryptic. It wasn't clear to me what the radar was for or where it was in relation to the cave, but Corso complied with the request.
Corso's forthcoming book, "The Day After Roswell," is scheduled to be released in July to coincide with the Roswell 50th Anniversary. Knapp said the publisher was making claims for the book which didn't really match Corso's -- that it was going to reveal all about the Roswell case, for example -- and this was being used as ammunition by critics.
Original file name: CNI - Corso.Knapp.Campbell
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