Annie jacobsen live on in depth for the next three hours start now. Host Annie Jacobsen, lets start with some definitions. What is area 51 . Guest area 51 is that secret base out in nevada where all kinds of mysterious things happen, that you and i can talk about and maybe we know whats going on out there, maybe we dont. Host why is it called area 51 . Guest big debate. I believe its called area 51 because of the original project that went on out there in 1951. Information given to me by some of the sources that i interviewed at length for that book but, of course, everything about area 51 is kind of a puzzle inside of the puzzle. Thats even debated. The actual origins, the original date, the original story of area 51. Host what was going on . Guest the Atomic Energy commission was doing lots of Nuclear Testing out there in the middle of the desert, and they wanted to keep what youre doing secret. And the cia was kind of come into existence with its programs. The two merged in this idea of if you have a secret base and sight of a secret place you can do secret programs. Host this is not a military operation necessarily . Guest area 51 has every organization you can imagine there over the decades, military, Intelligence Community, Atomic Energy commission. So everybody has their foot in area 51 i think. Host what is operation paperclip . Guest i get the idea of my books of the books ive written before. And when i was finishing up area 51, i learned quite a bit about nazi scientist scientist who are working on programs. I found this fascinating, in particular by the name of siegfried. He was a very important air force Technical Intelligence person. And when he retired in the 70s he was given a Defense Departments distinguished civilian Service Award pixel thats kind of its incredible high honor to get from the pentagon. When i looked into his past i learned he had been, during the war, world war ii, he had been one of the most important Technical Intelligence officers for during and he was given the highest award and i thought how does this happen . How do you work for one side and did work for the other side . That is what i wrote operation paperclip. That was the Supreme Court of the journey into narrative story. Host but what was operation paperclip . It was to bring nazi scientist to the u. S. . Guest yes. After the war we brought as many as 1600 nazi scientists to create our Weapons Program. And this is something that really brings up a lot of moral questions and what i found most intriguing about writing the book as a journalist, perhaps with all my books is trying to maintain the neutral position and looking at both sides of the argument. Because many people will tell you paperclip was imperative. We had to bring those nazi scientist to the United States in order to beat back the russians. Others will tell you how could we possibly brought these nazis here . Theres dod weapons policy for you. In a nutshell, i. E. Extremely collocated and always two sides of the argument. Host what is the pentagons brain . Guest the pentagons brain, book number three for me, okay, so that idea came from paperclip when my editor, i was finishing up with paperclip and brown, probably the most famous operation paperclip scientist created our Rocket Program and then really responsible for the Apollo Program in many regards. Host and using nazi scientist . Guest he had been hitlers rocket builder. And my editor at little, brown asking was finishing up paperclip, what went on with brown in such and such year . I looked into it and found out that, this was in 1957, that this new agency was emerging at the pentagon and it was called darpa, the advanced Research Projects agency. We now know as darpa with the d4 defense. But when your beginning this organization, the query was whos the best scientists in america to lead this program . Delete all of americans, military technology and was called blue sky research. They chose von browned. He was interviewed for the job but his caveat to take the jump was just out but i need to bring 12 of my colleagues on the Rocket Program. They were all former nazis. So that was the dividing line for the pentagon. They said no. And they passed on him being darpa is first director. But the way that it came about calling it the pentagons brain was really realizing that the Defense Department is looking at the great mind. Thats what they are concerned with. They want to know who will lead us in technology of the future. Host what are some of things that come out of darpa . Guest i mean, you name it. The most famous is of course the internet which was originally called the arpa net, but technologies like gps, laser weapons, you know. Theres no end to what the pentagon produces. Theres reason say that Artificial Intelligence is a darpa product. Biotechnology. So there is, the idea that, this is important to think about. Darpa is the most powerful and most productive military Science Agency in the world. And so few people know about it. Thats pretty much what i wrote the book in a nutshell because it was like how can this agency be so significant, kind of changing and shaping our world if you will. And yet and yet its public perception, its close to zero. Host psychokinesis, what is it, Annie Jacobsen . Guest book number four, for me, that i just published last week, is the idea of, the book is called phenomena and its about the government investigations into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Extrasensory perception, gaining knowledge through means other than the five known senses. Psychokinesis, the alleged ability to move matter with the mind. These are very controversial subjects, and subjects that many scientist will tell you is pseudoscience. Why i pursue prayers in writing about this is, having come off of this very shortsighted book, the pentagons brain, on the other side of the spectrum was sometimes called squishy science. But the pentagon, the Defense Department, Intelligence Community are interested in both of these subjects, and so i. Host so taxpayer dollars are spent studying psychokinesis and esp . Guest yes yes. I mean, this goes back by the way, look, all roads lead back to the nazis. I find so when im investigating and reporting on Defense DepartmentWeapons Programs and Intelligence Community, intelligence collection program. And esp, psychokinesis, this whole idea of the phenomena leads back to the nazis as well. So were talking decades of research in this area still going on today, but the original programs came from the idea that after the war we had an intelligence collection unit called operation actually begin when the war was still going on, and we sent our sort of finest scientists to try to capture nazi technology. And we did and this is the link between all of my books. So one of the cache of documents that we found, this leads up to the book phenomena, was part of heinrich hitlers organization which was called and within that organization himmel or was investigating extrasensory perception, psychokinesis. And when we got these documents they became very interesting to a lot of individuals in the military Intelligence Community. Particularly because guess about the other half of the documents. The russians. So anything that we knew they had as well we were worried about who would win the race and that is how the psychic arms race really began. Same way, you know, or in the hard Science Department you had the rocket arms race, that it did get a man space began with captured nazi documents and scientists, literary von braun. Host was your career guest not at all. Date and circumstance intervened in ones own life. I think thats why its such an interesting concept for me to write about, about how circumstance has a role in the path that one is on. I wanted to be a novelist when i was younger. And it went away to boarding school with a typewriter when i was 15 and is going to be the Great American novelist. Decades past and that was not the case, and one of my mentors said to me, stop making things up. Pursue the truth to its the truth that matters. She also point out that i had a bit difficulty following direction, and that if it worked with an editor at a newspaper or a magazine, i would, you know, learn how to follow direction. That is exactly what i did. It was extraordinarily helpful for me and i tell anyone whos interested, struggling with writing to do that. Because if you are willing to take criticism about your work and work with a very smart individuals who can help you streamline your ideas and pull out whats really important and send you on other paths and suggest you interview different people, that becomes i think an enormously powerful journey. When you bring of the great minds the mix to kind of direct you. And then you kind of wind up where youre headed, at least thats my experience. Host how did you get started on area 51 . Guest that was fake and circumstance intervening. I also think luck comes into play. What was interesting writing the book on extrasensory perception and psychokinesis is a lot of the scientists who lean toward lets say the supernatural. Talk about luck and they talk about coincidence, and they say these are these, these fall into that category, believe it or not extrasensory perception. Its a very squishy science concept to think about what i like thinking about it particularly because of this question that you brought up. So how does one get a lucky break, okay, you could see fortune favors the prepared mind. If you were always reading and writing and thinking and working on subjects that are of interest to you, then circumstance intervenes and youre on your way. What specifically with area 51 i was at a dinner party with, seated next to a gentleman who i had no 45, six, seven, eight, nine years. He was sort of a distant family member, always under the impression that he was an aircraft designer because i knew he worked for lockheed. And he leaned over to me one day, mustve been 2007 or eight and he said, boy, have i got an interesting story for you. At the time i was reporting on terrorism. He said he was reading what i wrote and enjoyed reading it. So what was his interesting story . He said the cia just declassified my life work. I invented stealth technology, or rather i was 15, the physicist who led the team. This goes back to when eisenhower was president. So as you can see this is a remarkable lead for a reporter to get. I mean, i went to the cia and lo and behold they had just declassified this Aircraft Program called oxcart that took place at it. 51. So then i begin to work with lubbock talking to him about his role in the science and Technology Role in building this incredible aircraft. I learned very quickly, aha, theres a back story to this back story and theres a lot of tangents that are super interesting and they will all fall under axis of the entry fee to it and thats i got the idea for the book. Host when did the larger public become aware of area 51 . Guest well, thats a great question. I mean, its very interesting terms of u. S. National security because when you think about what a powerful and potent site area 51 is come as a report in the book, the fact that it remains almost unknown to the general population until the early 1990s is astonishing. Talk about being able to keep a secret. I make the analogy in the book about the Manhattan Project, same idea. Vice president harry truman did not know about or congress. The once funded program did did not know about the program. So i think secret keeping is very interesting. I write about in all of my books, but to your question, it wasnt until an individual named robert lazar squeaked this bit of news out which landed on the edge of conspiracy. And then area 51 became known. I think that is the origins of an extraordinary amount of Conspiracy Theory that grew out of that base and still exist about that base. There are still things going on there now. Host who is robert lazar . Guest he was an interesting melissa engineer. And he was out there at the base according to him and he saw things that he believed were host he was working there. Guest despicable people tell you he never worked there. The myths inside the puzzle inside the conundrum. But he stood by his position that he said he saw an alien. And then you get into these come as i reporting historical all these realms of black propaganda directed to address some enough to make them look like an alien . This idea of mythology and misinformation and disinformation is part and parcel to area 51. And really to all of the books that ive written, the subjects are conducive to the. Host you talk about yet to sign an oath if you are working at area 51. Is it called area 51 by people who work there as well or is that just our guest yes and no. Originally when i was anything the scientist who worked there and the spies and the pilots, they would call it the ranch. There are all kinds of code names for it. But, and, of course, was fastening was to me when i was writing the book is the actual word area 51, the name area 51 was classified one is writing the book. It has since been declassified because president obama referred to it publicly. Thats a quick way to declassify something. But when its looking at those documents we were talking about earlier, the oxcart documents, you would be reading along and then it would be a small word redacted like black over. If you look at it up to a light, at area 51. And out of Something Like 7000 pages of documents that i reviewed, i found two places where someone forgot to black out area 51. You would see it and it was an aha moment. Host robert lazar, las vegas television. What happened . Guest well, he went on tv and made this claim host and local gym in las vegas ass yes. And said that, that there was a lead technology and that there was an alien out there, and people have been fascinated with u. S. Owes for millennial. So this was like setting off a match in dry grass and the people went, the story built and it became kind of a firestorm. And i think that that has since become a great point of contention and what area 51 is on such a lock that issued it because people will not move off of the idea that there are aliens a other. Many people believe that. Still do. Host what kind of cooperation did you get from the various Government Agencies that you worked with on this, or tried to work with . Guest every book is different. I mean every book is different. Theres kind of a dance i think thats done with the journalists because remember, just basic job of a journalist is to inform the public. I mean, in spirit youre really not supposed to have an opinion. Someone would think you would want to work with transparent elements of the government who also make things known. But i find and my experience that current lets say like the pr office of the of these agencies, they only want to present a certain message. And thats not, thats a message not a fact, lets say. So where i do most of my reporting is interviewing scientists who are retired who worked on very significant programs for these individual agencies, and are acutely aware of what they can speak out and what they cannot because it still classified. Because i also write about a lot of cold war programs, things that were incredibly interesting and involve extraordinary classification measures decades ago, everyone wanted to know about them then but could not pick when they become declassified sort of the public has moved on. I find in my experience by tracking down the scientists, the supermen of science if you will, they are willing and happy to share their stories about these incredible programs. People have lost interest and its this idea that its important to know that passed to safeguard the future. And thats the greatest joy i think with working with defense scientists, who are dedicated patriots who believe in what they did, but are also especially as they get older willing to share the pitfalls, the failures and the press office of any given military or Intelligence Agency does not want to talk about failure, purity. They only want to talk about success. I think theres a danger in that. Thats a team going to all of my books. Its not to ridicule of failure, but rather to demonstrate that failure is part of success. But we must be very careful and, about trying to cover up failures. Host how much of what goes on or did go on at area 51 is still classified . Guest i mean, if i host or dont you know . Guest this is the analogy. Its sometimes that i wrote the book on area 51, but if you imagine an iceberg and you think of how much of the iceberg you see and then how much is below the surface, i mean, i probably come on guessing but it probably, if you plant the flag at the top of the iceberg, thats probably what i reported in a 450 page book. What has gone on there and will continue to go on boggles the mind. We could talk about Title Technology for three more hours. When you think you lots going on at area 51, a lot of tunnel system at that base, things that are going on, when will those be declassified . These of the great mysteries. I cant wait to write area 52. Host have you become a freedom of information request expert . Guest most definitely. My kids, i file so many foia request that sometimes, you know, they often come in the mail and theyre usually eight by ten envelopes and this in the corner, nsa or dod or cia, and they are the ten envelopes because that means you open up one sheet of paper and is as request nonresponsive, meaning sorry, we couldnt find any information. Every now and then you get a bigger envelope, and that is sort of a great moment of joy. Thats what happened wit