Joe Rogan Experience #1299 - Annie Jacobsen

Joe Rogan 0:00 Now? We're live? Three, two, one. Boom. Hello, Annie.

Annie Jacobsen 0:04 Hello, Joe.

Joe Rogan 0:05 Very nice to meet you.

Annie Jacobsen 0:05 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:05 I'm excited to talk to you. I'm super excited to talk to you about several subjects, but this one, thank you very much for this, uh, first edition copy of your Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base book. (book slams) I'm super excited about this.

Annie Jacobsen 0:19 I heard through the grapevine you were a fan.

Joe Rogan 0:21 I'm a freak when it comes to this stuff.

Annie Jacobsen 0:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 0:23 Do you, what do you think is going on up there?

Annie Jacobsen 0:25 I mean, same thing that's going on all over the place when it comes to military secrets, which is stuff that you want to know about, very few people know about, and every now and then, a journalist gets a hint at it.

Joe Rogan 0:36 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 0:37 Right?

Joe Rogan 0:37 Yeah. Do you think there's any alien stuff up there?

Annie Jacobsen 0:41 I write in the book all about that.

Joe Rogan 0:42 Yeah?

Annie Jacobsen 0:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:43 Well, tell me.

Annie Jacobsen 0:43 Last 12 pages. You want me to-

Joe Rogan 0:45 Want me to go to the last 12 pages? (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 0:47 You wanna read it? (laughs) Um-

Joe Rogan 0:48 What do you think?

Annie Jacobsen 0:50 So Area 51 was this secret test base where the CIA was running s- uh, spy plane programs, right? So interestingly, my new book is about ground branch, guys on the ground. That's about air branch.

Joe Rogan 1:04 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:05 What we were doing in the air. And it was this idea that we should spy on the enemy, okay? And, but if you go back in time, why Area 51 really started, you learn that it was a base hidden inside of a base, nuclear weapons, and it was all about beating Stalin at his black propaganda campaign, this I write in the book-

Joe Rogan 1:30 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:31 ... to hoax Americans in a War of the Worlds type scenario, whereby little men who looked like aliens would get out of an aircraft and the government would go crazy about it. And then Stalin would say, "Look. We have, not only do we have technology b- better than you, but we have a better propaganda department than you."

Joe Rogan 1:55 Really?

Annie Jacobsen 1:56 That... Joe, you gotta read the whole book.

Joe Rogan 1:57 Oh, okay.

Annie Jacobsen 1:57 I mean, this is like a-

Joe Rogan 1:58 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 1:58 This is a tough opening. You got me on the spot.

Joe Rogan 2:00 It is a tough opener, but it's a good spot.

Annie Jacobsen 2:02 Right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:02 It's a good spot.

Annie Jacobsen 2:03 Right?

Joe Rogan 2:04 So Stalin, d- d- just hired short people?

Annie Jacobsen 2:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:08 Like, what did he do?

Annie Jacobsen 2:08 All right. I'm gonna make you save that. I'm gonna make you earn that.

Joe Rogan 2:11 Save it?

Annie Jacobsen 2:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:12 How's that?

Annie Jacobsen 2:12 Wha- I mean, you want me to talk about that right now, right off the bat?

Joe Rogan 2:15 Why does that-

Annie Jacobsen 2:15 I'm sweating. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:15 We're gonna get to-

Narrator 2:17 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 2:17 Uh.

Joe Rogan 2:17 We're gonna get to surprise, kill, vanish-

Annie Jacobsen 2:19 Uh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:19 ... as well, but I wanna, uh, just, yeah. Why does it make you sweat?

Annie Jacobsen 2:23 Oh, my God. It's such an incendiary topic. I mean, people, people want to believe there are aliens.

Joe Rogan 2:29 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 2:29 Right? Okay? I mean, I've spent five books dealing with the mythology of Area 51-

Joe Rogan 2:36 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 2:36 ... which is phenomenal in its own way, because it speaks so much to power, to morality, to information, to, you know, people's desire to know what's going on, and-

Joe Rogan 2:48 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 2:48 ... ha- and the government's desire to keep things hidden. So this topic is always coming up, because a lot of people want to believe that there were aliens in that craft, and my source, who I write about in the book, uh, told me otherwise, that they were genetically, you know, that they were-

Joe Rogan 3:07 Let me stop you right there.

Annie Jacobsen 3:08 Yeah. Okay.

Joe Rogan 3:08 ... 'cause when you say that craft, what you mean is the supposed UFO wreckage that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

Annie Jacobsen 3:15 Yes.

Joe Rogan 3:15 That's what you mean, right?

Annie Jacobsen 3:16 Yes.

Joe Rogan 3:17 But that was never supposedly taken to Area 51. It was supposed to be taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Annie Jacobsen 3:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:22 The legend has it that Truman flew there to meet them and... Right?

Annie Jacobsen 3:26 That's one legend.

Joe Rogan 3:27 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 3:27 So in my book, I interview a man who worked for the Atomic Energy Commission, who tells a different story, tells the story of receiving that craft at Area 51 in 1951, which is why the base is called Area 51.

Joe Rogan 3:45 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 3:45 And that inside the craft were humans who had been altered, surgically altered to look like aliens, in a plan for Stalin to sort of twist s- Truman's arm, because at that time, we had the atomic bomb. When Roswell happened, we had the atomic bomb, and the Soviets did not.

Joe Rogan 4:09 Can I stop you there?

Annie Jacobsen 4:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:10 When you say, "Humans that were surgically altered to look like aliens," d- does, do you mean... So this is 1951.

Annie Jacobsen 4:18 Yes.

Joe Rogan 4:18 So you're talking about four years after the supposed crash.

Annie Jacobsen 4:21 Yes.

Joe Rogan 4:22 So what, what was left-

Annie Jacobsen 4:23 They had the bodies. They kept the bodies. They brought them-

Joe Rogan 4:25 They kept the bodies.

Annie Jacobsen 4:26 And-

Joe Rogan 4:26 In what? Formaldehyde? Like, what did-

Annie Jacobsen 4:28 Ye- yes.

Joe Rogan 4:28 Huh?

Annie Jacobsen 4:28 And also because the idea was... And remember, or I can't say remember, 'cause you haven't read the book yet.

Joe Rogan 4:33 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 4:33 But, and I wrote this book eight years ago.

Joe Rogan 4:36 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 4:36 Um, but it did really impact a lot of my, a lot of my thinking and working on, on, you know, government secrecy projects, because it makes you really consider what a hoax means-

Joe Rogan 4:51 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 4:51 ... and what it means to a population of people, and how the government begins to work with disinformation versus cover stories and all of that. But going back to answer your question, that is what I was told by the source, that-

Joe Rogan 5:04 But how reliable is this source? This is a very incendiary idea-

Annie Jacobsen 5:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:10 ... to rely upon one individual's-

Annie Jacobsen 5:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:12 ... recollection of it.

Annie Jacobsen 5:13 Which is why the book went through the roof in terms of people being upset about it. I mean, I, y-

Joe Rogan 5:18 Were they?

Annie Jacobsen 5:18 Y- oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 5:19 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 5:19 I interviewed 79 CIA guys, Air Force guys, spy pilots, engineers. I mean, Tr-

Joe Rogan 5:25 Who was mad at you?

Annie Jacobsen 5:28 The conspiracy theorists were mad at me-

Joe Rogan 5:30 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 5:30 ... because they said, "This woman is bananas."

Joe Rogan 5:32 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 5:33 "They were aliens."

Joe Rogan 5:34 Well, even if they weren't aliens, right, there's also, there's accounts that it was some sort of a test vehicle and that there were actually just dummies inside there-

Annie Jacobsen 5:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:44 ... crash test dummies that they used. There's been a bunch of different versions of it, but the most compelling version of the Area 51 alien myth, to me, is Bob Lazar.

Annie Jacobsen 5:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:56 Did you get into that?

Annie Jacobsen 5:57 Yeah. He plays a huge role in Area 51. I mean-

Joe Rogan 5:59 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 6:00 ... before Bob Lazar went public, no one even knew about Area 51. People hadn't heard of it.

Joe Rogan 6:05 Well, people knew-... people, it was, it was common folklore.

Annie Jacobsen 6:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:09 But there was no definitive proof that there was something going on over there other than some weird VHS footage of things flying around in the desert-

Annie Jacobsen 6:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:18 ... that seemed to be behaving in a way that m- modern aircrafts are not totally capable of, at least modern piloted aircrafts are not totally capable of.

Annie Jacobsen 6:27 I mean, which brings me to another book I wrote called The Pentagon's Brain, which, you know, sort of off this idea was like, "Wait a minute, what kind of technology is the government capable of?" And-

Joe Rogan 6:36 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 6:36 ... we have a whole department for that reason called DARPA, which looks at weapon systems 25 years out. So-

Joe Rogan 6:43 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 6:43 ... the idea that you and I don't know what the military is capable of in the air, underwater, wherever it may be, is because we're not thinking 25 years out and they are, and they're developing weapon systems. The great weapon systems of the future, that's what they call them.

Joe Rogan 7:00 Right. Like how they developed the stealth bomber. Like, and that was all out in Area 51 and Groom Lake and-

Annie Jacobsen 7:06 Yes.

Joe Rogan 7:07 Um, what do you think of Bob Lazar's story? Because Bob Lazar's story, what's it- w- really, there's some fascinating aspects to it, but one of the most fascinating is some of the things that he's said that people said was horseshit is told- has been proven to be true. Like, one of the things, the, the biometric reader that measured the, the, n- length of the bones in your hand and that they're unique, as unique as a fingerprint. And people are like-

Annie Jacobsen 7:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:29 ... "What are you talking about?" And then they actually found out that this was something they really did have, and they have photos of this thing now. This is something that he talked about, and they claimed it was science fiction.

Annie Jacobsen 7:39 I mean, it's fascinating when someone touches upon a subject that the government does not want known about for any reason.

Joe Rogan 7:47 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 7:48 And there is a campaign to discredit that person.

Joe Rogan 7:51 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 7:51 And there's no doubt that that happened to him. I mean, it was remarkable, and I write about him in the book because if you follow the logic that my source told me, that these were, you know, modified human beings as part of a hoax, and the reason that I trust the source is because Joe, he told me that he also worked on the program.

Joe Rogan 8:08 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 8:08 So he had, like, a, a burden to unload, right?

Joe Rogan 8:13 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 8:13 And so if you follow that logic through, then the Bob Lazar story is that Bob, when Bob Lazar said, "I saw an alien. It looked like this. It was small. It had big eyes," it's, yes, those were the genet- genetically... I mean, those were the surgically modified humans that the government was doing experiments on.

Joe Rogan 8:30 I think Bob Lazar's exact quote was he walked by a window and he looked in and he saw two agents that were... it looked... they were looking down at something that was very small-

Annie Jacobsen 8:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:41 ... and looked humanoid. But he didn't know v- if it was a dummy or anything, and he wasn't even supposed to be looking in there. And it was a brief, like, one-second look that he has-

Annie Jacobsen 8:53 Yes.

Joe Rogan 8:53 ... bounced around in his head back and forth. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the guy who gave you that information did work there, but is also feeding you horseshit?

Annie Jacobsen 9:05 Well, the source was a major player in the Manhattan Project.

Joe Rogan 9:10 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 9:11 Um, he went on and worked in the Atomic Energy Commission. I mean, there's a wing of a museum named after him.

Joe Rogan 9:17 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 9:18 Um, his accolades, his awards were so extraordinary. It would be-

Joe Rogan 9:22 What's his name? You can't give it up?

Annie Jacobsen 9:23 I've never said his name. Although, you know-

Joe Rogan 9:24 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 9:24 ... I will say this.

Joe Rogan 9:25 Well, you're giving it away.

Annie Jacobsen 9:26 He-

Joe Rogan 9:26 Like, you're giving away a lot of the stuff that he's-

Annie Jacobsen 9:28 He recently died.

Joe Rogan 9:29 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 9:29 And he did give me permission to tell his full story after he died, and-

Joe Rogan 9:33 Are you gonna do that?

Annie Jacobsen 9:33 ... I'm circling around that.

Joe Rogan 9:35 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 9:35 I'm circling around that. But he was absolutely a, you know, with a Q c- clearance, that's what you have when you have access to nuclear secrets.

Joe Rogan 9:46 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 9:47 So if someone has a Q clearance for decades and they're full of garbage, you really have to ask, "My God, should this guy have a Q clearance?" I mean, that's reverse engineering his credibility, but I think you should read the whole book.

Joe Rogan 10:01 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 10:01 Because, you know, it's shocking what he says, but it does make sense if you can get through 400 pages of, you know, the CIA's idea about information, disinformation, why we need to c- cover things up, why-

Joe Rogan 10:17 But that's why I'm asking-

Annie Jacobsen 10:18 Yes.

Joe Rogan 10:18 ... if you think that he's, he might've been lying to you.

Annie Jacobsen 10:20 I don't believe he was lying whatsoever.

Joe Rogan 10:21 That he's feeding you disinformation.

Annie Jacobsen 10:22 No. I don't believe.

Joe Rogan 10:23 No?

Annie Jacobsen 10:24 I don't believe.

Joe Rogan 10:24 So you think that the... Stalin, that the Russian government definitely-

Annie Jacobsen 10:28 I-

Joe Rogan 10:29 ... did surgically alter people to make them look like aliens?

Annie Jacobsen 10:32 I believe-

Joe Rogan 10:32 Were there images of these things?

Annie Jacobsen 10:33 I believe what he told me.

Joe Rogan 10:34 Did you see photos?

Annie Jacobsen 10:35 N- no, I did not see photos.

Joe Rogan 10:36 No.

Annie Jacobsen 10:36 But here's the rub. Ready?

Joe Rogan 10:38 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 10:39 When I was writing another book called Phenomena, which dealt with the CIA and the Pentagon's use of psychics, okay-

Joe Rogan 10:46 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 10:47 ... um, over decades. I mean, this goes back. Everything I write about-

Joe Rogan 10:50 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 10:50 ... pretty much goes back to post-World War when we-

Joe Rogan 10:52 All that remote viewing stuff.

Annie Jacobsen 10:54 Yes.

Joe Rogan 10:54 You know?

Annie Jacobsen 10:54 Yes, and it's all about government, US government takes pole position after World War II, and we now need to always be ahead of the curve. We must lead. We can never get beaten by the Russians. Now it's China, okay?

Joe Rogan 11:07 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 11:08 So the psychic program had a lot of people who really believe in aliens or, you know, other intel- intelligence from other worlds. And when I was writing the Phenomena book, I learned a whole bunch of new information about how upset they were with my story because they beli- and they all knew the source, by the way. They knew the source, and they believed that he was fed misinformation. So-

Joe Rogan 11:33 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 11:33 ... these are two sides of the coin, which are super interesting, I think, if you can look at them with your own bias turned off and not have a desired outcome.

Joe Rogan 11:46 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 11:47 "I wanna believe this."

Joe Rogan 11:48 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 11:48 "I don't wanna believe this." You know?

Joe Rogan 11:49 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 11:50 Um, speaking of I wanna believe, you know, I was working on a project with Chris Carter, the, who is the X-Files creator.

Joe Rogan 11:57 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 11:57 And the one person I took the source, um, that I wanted to meet the source was Chris Carter, and I... we went out there together and sat with him and met him.

Joe Rogan 12:05 Really?

Annie Jacobsen 12:05 And it was wild 'cause the source had never even heard of The X-Files. And it was like, "Ugh."

Joe Rogan 12:09 What?

Annie Jacobsen 12:10 I know.

Joe Rogan 12:10 How do you know her-

Annie Jacobsen 12:11 They talked about baseball, you know?

Joe Rogan 12:12 Really?

Annie Jacobsen 12:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:14 Um, see, I don't have a desired outcome. I mean, I would love it if aliens were real.

Annie Jacobsen 12:20 Okay.

Joe Rogan 12:21 But when someone starts talking about disinformation and propaganda campaigns, but they want you to believe them-

Annie Jacobsen 12:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:30 But don't ... Listen, I'm here telling you the truth. I'm here telling you the truth.

Annie Jacobsen 12:34 I'm not saying I'm telling you the truth at all. That's why I was like-

Joe Rogan 12:37 No, not you.

Annie Jacobsen 12:37 ... "Joe, let's wait-"

Joe Rogan 12:38 For sure not you.

Annie Jacobsen 12:38 "... till hour three."

Joe Rogan 12:39 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 12:39 Because it's too explosive. People have such a horse in the race-

Joe Rogan 12:44 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 12:44 ... already. They-

Joe Rogan 12:45 With h- with aliens, you think?

Annie Jacobsen 12:47 Well, of ... I mean, maybe you are neutral. I don't know. I know I'm neutral. You know?

Joe Rogan 12:52 Yeah, I, I ... Well, listen, I absolutely want aliens to be real, 100%.

Annie Jacobsen 12:56 Wouldn't it be interesting?

Joe Rogan 12:57 That's not ... I'm not neutral.

Annie Jacobsen 12:58 Okay.

Joe Rogan 12:58 But I am neutral-

Annie Jacobsen 13:00 Okay.

Joe Rogan 13:00 ... in my perceptions, and when I look at things, I go, I go, "Hmm, I don't know about that."

Annie Jacobsen 13:05 Me too.

Joe Rogan 13:06 I wanna see a picture.

Annie Jacobsen 13:07 (sighs) .

Joe Rogan 13:07 Like, what do these, what do these guys look like? I mean, what did they do to them?

Annie Jacobsen 13:10 (sighs) .

Joe Rogan 13:10 Did he describe-

Annie Jacobsen 13:11 Look-

Joe Rogan 13:11 ... what kinda surgical alterations?

Annie Jacobsen 13:12 I stayed with the source. I mean, after the book published, I would go and visit him. We'd sit in a Chinese restaurant and eat and talk, and I would try to get a droplet of information out of him. I mean-

Joe Rogan 13:25 And what was he doing?

Annie Jacobsen 13:26 Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 13:27 Avoiding it?

Annie Jacobsen 13:27 He avoided ... I mean, look, here's another thing. When the book came out, his wife of 65 years knew it was him, okay? And I went out to Las Vegas and sat there in a room with the source and his wife, and she said, "Tell me this isn't true. Tell me you made this all up," to her husband.

Joe Rogan 13:45 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 13:46 And he said, "It's the truth." (smacks lips) I mean, that's a triangular version of getting-

Joe Rogan 13:52 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 13:52 ... at the truth, but again, to reiterate, I believe he believes what he told me was the truth. That was the truth he was told.

Joe Rogan 14:00 I think there's certain agents that think it's fun to fuck with-

Annie Jacobsen 14:03 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 14:03 ... reporters and journalists and make things up. I really do, and I think especially when they're talking about secret information that they were sworn to protect, and then all of a sudden, they wanna talk to someone that they don't even know on the sneak tip. "Let's meet at a diner. I'm gonna tell you everything."

Annie Jacobsen 14:20 That's not how we met.

Joe Rogan 14:21 Well, I mean-

Annie Jacobsen 14:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:22 I mean, whe- however-

Annie Jacobsen 14:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 14:23 ... you met.

Annie Jacobsen 14:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:23 You know what I'm saying?

Annie Jacobsen 14:24 Well, we met because I was interviewing nuclear weapons engineers who were setting off nuclear bombs in Area 51, mushroom-

Joe Rogan 14:33 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 14:33 I mean, in the Nevada Test Site, Area 12, Area 23.

Joe Rogan 14:36 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 14:37 And they all said to me, "You've got to talk to the top engineer of all this weaponry." And they gave me his name, and we talked for days and hours about nuclear weapons, and then in one conversation, he began to cry and told me this story-

Joe Rogan 14:55 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 14:55 ... that I was like, "What? What?"

Joe Rogan 14:58 Why was he crying?

Annie Jacobsen 14:59 He was crying because he participated in our version of the human experiments, because what the Russians do, we do i-

Joe Rogan 15:09 So w-

Annie Jacobsen 15:09 Look, I've written five books about this.

Joe Rogan 15:10 We altered people to make them look like aliens?

Annie Jacobsen 15:13 According to him, we had a small program in 1951 where we wanted to see how the Russians did what they did, how they made human beings look like this.

Joe Rogan 15:23 So what'd they do? Take prisoners or something? Like what ... Uh, who did they alter?

Annie Jacobsen 15:27 He said they were handicapped children.

Joe Rogan 15:29 Oh, Jesus.

Annie Jacobsen 15:31 And he told me that he participated in this, so again, I mean, unless you have someone that lost their mind at age 90 and was willing to tell their wife of 65 years, "I lost my mind." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:40 So he's saying that he participated in something that altered handicapped children ... When you say handicapped-

Annie Jacobsen 15:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:47 ... do you mean like Down syndrome or something like that?

Annie Jacobsen 15:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:50 And they made them look like aliens and then killed them? Like what did ... Uh, how did they ... What did they-

Annie Jacobsen 15:57 (sighs) .

Joe Rogan 15:58 ... do with this?

Annie Jacobsen 15:58 This is where we get into drops of information coming out.

Joe Rogan 16:01 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 16:01 But what I can say is he had a grandchild that was born that way, and th- and the grandchild did not live long. The grandchild died, and it made him feel so guilty about what he had done-

Joe Rogan 16:13 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 16:13 ... that he felt compelled to con- to confess, if you will.

Joe Rogan 16:17 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 16:17 And I remember saying to him, "Why are you telling me this? Why don't you tell a priest?" And he said-

Joe Rogan 16:21 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 16:21 ... "A priest would judge me, and I can tell you won't."

Joe Rogan 16:25 Why wouldn't you judge him? I'd judge him.

Annie Jacobsen 16:28 Well, I guess that's why I'm a born journalist, Joe-

Joe Rogan 16:31 Mmm.

Annie Jacobsen 16:31 ... 'cause I really try not to judge people. I mean, my new book, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, it's about assassins. It's about people who work for the CIA who do what needs to be done on the ground, uh, in the name of national security. I don't judge them. This is why w- you know-

Joe Rogan 16:47 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 16:47 ... what's really at issue here is morality, right?

Joe Rogan 16:50 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 16:50 I mean, can I tell you how I got the idea for this book?

Joe Rogan 16:54 Sure, but let me-

Annie Jacobsen 16:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:55 Before we go any further, though. So d-

Annie Jacobsen 16:57 You wanna talk about the aliens.

Joe Rogan 16:59 ... was he saying ... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he saying that there have never been any encounters with, uh, alien spacecraft?

Annie Jacobsen 17:05 He was totally neutral about aliens. He had nothing to do with aliens. He could've cared less. He didn't watch The X-Files. All-

Joe Rogan 17:11 And what was his take on Bob Lazar?

Annie Jacobsen 17:13 His take on Bob Lazar was that he probably saw something that the government had, an extension of the program. I mean, he didn't know. That was speculative. We didn't-

Joe Rogan 17:22 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 17:22 ... talk about that, I mean, you know, other than inference. He was very limited in his, in the information that he would get out, but, I mean, I used 79 sources in that book that all went on the record in name, and he was the one anonymous source because ... But like I said, you know, he told me after he died that I could tell the whole story about that.

Joe Rogan 17:44 Are you going to?

Annie Jacobsen 17:45 I wi- ... I might.

Joe Rogan 17:45 You might-

Annie Jacobsen 17:45 I might come back.

Joe Rogan 17:46 ... write another book?

Annie Jacobsen 17:47 Oink. If you give me a break and back off of this subject-

Joe Rogan 17:49 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 17:49 ... I might come back and tell you and your audience his name.

Joe Rogan 17:52 What are you saying, "Back off this subject"? This is your book. I wanna promote your book.

Annie Jacobsen 17:55 I know, uh-

Joe Rogan 17:55 I know you wanna promote your new book, but I wanna promote this book-

Annie Jacobsen 17:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:58 ... as well.

Annie Jacobsen 17:58 I mean, I'm teasing you, right?

Joe Rogan 17:59 I know you are.

Annie Jacobsen 18:00 But it's, it's like ... It's an astonishing story, and I think the best line of all is that people that read about that in the very end, of what we did, they go, "I wish they were aliens."

Joe Rogan 18:12 Mmm.

Annie Jacobsen 18:13 You know?

Joe Rogan 18:14 So Stalin created some sort of a craft?... that mimicked-

Annie Jacobsen 18:18 You're gonna read it.

Joe Rogan 18:19 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 18:19 That's what you're gonna do-

Joe Rogan 18:20 You're not gonna tell me?

Annie Jacobsen 18:20 ... the rest of the afternoon. Nope. I'm gonna come back on your show-

Joe Rogan 18:23 Well, this is a podcast-

Annie Jacobsen 18:24 ... after you read it.

Joe Rogan 18:24 ... and we're talking. I s- I s- think we should probably get into this-

Annie Jacobsen 18:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:27 ... a little bit.

Annie Jacobsen 18:27 Okay. Come on with the questions.

Joe Rogan 18:28 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 18:29 I'm used to asking the questions.

Joe Rogan 18:30 Are you? Oh, right, as a journalist.

Annie Jacobsen 18:32 Yes. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:32 Yeah. Now Stalin and the, the Russians created something that mimicked, um, a UFO, something that looked like it would be from another planet? Is that what they did?

Annie Jacobsen 18:41 Mothership.

Joe Rogan 18:42 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 18:42 In those days, drones were ... There was a mothership and a drone was attached to it and it was jettisoned off. Okay?

Joe Rogan 18:49 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 18:49 So according-

Joe Rogan 18:50 In the o- ... In those days?

Annie Jacobsen 18:51 Well, in 1947, '48, right?

Joe Rogan 18:55 What, what do you mean by... ?

Annie Jacobsen 18:56 Well, they didn't ... I mean, that was drone technology then.

Joe Rogan 18:58 Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 18:58 Right? So there's a motherc- a mothercraft, like a aircraft.

Joe Rogan 19:01 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 19:02 And then the drone is like a small aircraft under it and it gets jettisoned off. And that was what the craft was. It was jettisoned off so that ... So Stalin actually, and according to the source, invaded our airspace, which was the deep embarrassment to Truman.

Joe Rogan 19:18 So he-

Annie Jacobsen 19:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:18 ... invaded our airspace and then let this drone crash land on the ground with these things-

Annie Jacobsen 19:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:25 ... that turned out to be human.

Annie Jacobsen 19:27 Yes.

Joe Rogan 19:27 They looked like aliens, but they turned out to be humans that were manipulated-

Annie Jacobsen 19:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:30 ... surgically to look like aliens.

Annie Jacobsen 19:31 Yes, as a way to ... And remember, I mean, not remember, but where, where this was, was, you know, very close to a nuclear weapons base-

Joe Rogan 19:40 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 19:40 ... to our White Sands military base.

Joe Rogan 19:42 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 19:42 I mean, this is, like, not a place you want the Russians to be able to get near.

Joe Rogan 19:47 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 19:47 You know? I mean, what was interesting is at Area 51, we then went out and mimicked all of those. One of our early drones was a mimicry of that. It was the D2- ... There was a M21, which was the mothership, and a D21, which was the daughtership. So they'll-

Joe Rogan 20:01 How did they pilot them? Was it wirelessly like we do now?

Annie Jacobsen 20:05 No, no. Then it was like the ... There was a pilot in the mothership and they kind of let it go. Right?

Joe Rogan 20:09 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 20:10 And it flew off. I mean, there's incredible stories of what the CIA was able to do out there at Area 51 with their air branch. You know? Um, the technology, they're always ahead of technology. That's-

Joe Rogan 20:22 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 20:22 ... what's remarkable.

Joe Rogan 20:23 Well, what Bob Lazar did film that was really shocking was the film, the filming of these drones flying around and performing these really cra-

Annie Jacobsen 20:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:33 You, you've seen those videos, I'm sure.

Annie Jacobsen 20:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:34 Right?

Annie Jacobsen 20:34 That ... In the '80s, th- it gets really crazy with what they were able to do and what their ... But I mean, why I like looking at history is 'cause you can see the progression. You know?

Joe Rogan 20:42 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 20:43 You see how science evolves, you know, bit by bit. And then there's these great breakthroughs, because what the government is always looking for is called a revolution in military affairs.

Joe Rogan 20:55 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 20:55 Right? And that's certainly what drone technology did, um, later on as drones became developed after the Vietnam War.

Joe Rogan 21:02 So in the 1980s when Bob Lazar was filming all this stuff, you think this was similar to the technology that we see publicly described today in terms of, like, what drones are capable of?

Annie Jacobsen 21:14 Sure. I mean, that's al-

Joe Rogan 21:15 So they probably had-

Annie Jacobsen 21:15 That-

Joe Rogan 21:15 ... something like that back then?

Annie Jacobsen 21:17 Th- th- they're al- ... You know, when, when the F-117 was revealed during the first Gulf War, that aircraft was being developed for 20, 25 years out at Area 51.

Joe Rogan 21:30 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 21:30 Actually, at Area 52 was where they had it set up, um, to develop that stealth technology. Think about ... And th- and what was amazing, talk about keeping secrets, um, they had something like 10,000 people working on that.

Joe Rogan 21:44 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 21:45 No one knew about it. That story was never broken by the press, not by anyone. It just suddenly appeared in the Gulf War and took out Saddam Hussein's, you know, facilities.

Joe Rogan 21:55 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 21:56 That's a revolution in military affairs. What becomes interesting is then it becomes obsolete.

Joe Rogan 22:01 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 22:01 Because now everybody knows about it and everybody's gonna mimic that, and now you have to have a new weapon system. And that's the military industrial complex.

Joe Rogan 22:10 So was this drone aircraft that was released from the mothership, was this capable of autonomous flight? Or was it just, they just threw it out there and let it crash?

Annie Jacobsen 22:19 Thr- uh, the latter. Right?

Joe Rogan 22:20 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 22:21 And remember, that information I am very limited to. That's why it's-

Joe Rogan 22:24 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 22:24 ... 12 pages. It's like-

Joe Rogan 22:25 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 22:26 ... the source gave me these little bits of information, which I felt, I felt was important to include because it speaks to the big issue. Why is Area 51 classified? I mean, now it's not. President Obama was the first president to actually say Area 51 publicly. Some people say because of my book. Right? Meaning it was out, the secret was out. But before-

Joe Rogan 22:49 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 22:49 ... that, I went through 10,000 pages of documents from the National Archives, and every place you see, the word Area 51 was actually redacted. Right?

Joe Rogan 23:00 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 23:00 Why would you keep that so secret? I mean, all the guys that I was interviewing say they could call it, you know, Groom Lake. They could call it the Test Facility. They could call it Paradise Ranch, but they couldn't say Area 51. Why? And the source said, "Well, because we did this horrible program out there and the government doesn't want anyone to know about that ever." I mean, there's stories of, like, somebody asking Bill Clinton, you know, about Area 51, him going white. I mean, human experiments? Who wants to be part of that? That's horrible.

Joe Rogan 23:31 But the human experiments were, were they limited to this mimicry of the Russian experiments where they were trying to get people to look like aliens, or was there something else going on?

Annie Jacobsen 23:40 Well, my goodness, I mean, you read ... Now, the declassified documents tell us how many different human experiments were going on around nuclear weapons. Okay? Horrible experiments where they were subjecting people to radiation because they wanted to know. They felt, well, it's more important to know what happens to people than to not know. And so they would take groups of people that, say, had cancer or something and test them. So there's no doubt that the government has experimented on humans.

Joe Rogan 24:09 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 24:10 It's just, is that something that is wise to make public? And, you know, there's two sides of the coin on that. I mean, e- you, you ... When you reveal these kind of things, when you write about them, I mean, people get really upset and, you know, vilify the government.... partially with good reason, and partially it's like bad for national security. So I think that's the justification on the part of the De- fense Department to keep things secret.

Joe Rogan 24:34 That makes sense. Wow. That's, uh, that an interesting take that I never thought of before. But if I was Stalin and I was trying to, air quotes, "fuck with the Americans-"

Annie Jacobsen 24:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:44 ... that's maybe a way I would do it. "Hey man, you got a problem? There's aliens, they're coming." And there was, if people... It's hard for people that live in 2019, especially if you're young, to really imagine a world not only without the internet, but with two television channels-

Annie Jacobsen 25:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:01 ... right? And radio-

Annie Jacobsen 25:03 Yes. Yes.

Joe Rogan 25:03 ... which is where people got all their information from. I mean, was there two channels? How many channels were there in 1947? Joe? Maybe three? Maybe.

Annie Jacobsen 25:11 Maybe.

Joe Rogan 25:11 Maybe three. Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 25:12 I mean it was radio in World War II.

Joe Rogan 25:13 Maybe. Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 25:13 Right? Most people had radio.

Joe Rogan 25:15 Radio mostly. Yeah. Mostly radio and newspapers, and that's where people were getting their information.

Annie Jacobsen 25:19 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:19 And there was a mass hysteria where people were absolutely terrified that we were gonna be invaded, which is why when Orson Welles' War of Worlds, which when they released it, when they did it on the air, they were very clear that this is going to be a reading of Orson Welles' War of Worlds book. Or that, uh, H.G. Wells, excuse me. War of Wor- right? It was H.G. Wells' book-

Annie Jacobsen 25:44 Yes.

Joe Rogan 25:44 ... and Orson Welles read it.

Annie Jacobsen 25:46 Yes.

Joe Rogan 25:47 And when they were talking about this on the radio, a lot of people missed that part.

Annie Jacobsen 25:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 25:52 Right? And so as-

Annie Jacobsen 25:54 Yes.

Joe Rogan 25:54 ... the radio went on, as the broadcast went on and people were tuning in later in the day, it erupted in mass hysteria. People were freaking out. Hundreds of thousands of people really did think that-

Annie Jacobsen 26:04 Yes.

Joe Rogan 26:05 ... it was... And it was also something that was recreated in other countries. I don't know if you know that.

Annie Jacobsen 26:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:10 They did that in other countries in different languages when they th- saw how cute it worked in America. And, you know-

Annie Jacobsen 26:15 Well, so you see.

Joe Rogan 26:16 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 26:16 You can see the logic. I mean, at first it sounds absurd and it sounds ridiculous.

Joe Rogan 26:20 It does. Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 26:20 And that's why I was sweating, because it's like-

Joe Rogan 26:22 I know.

Annie Jacobsen 26:22 ... right?

Joe Rogan 26:23 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 26:23 But when you think it through, and I challenge you to read the whole book because you start piecing together these various ideas, and disinformation becomes less vague and more specific, and you go, "Ah, that's how it works."

Joe Rogan 26:35 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 26:36 And you begin to see how people's perception and how they're easily manipulated factors into national security.

Joe Rogan 26:43 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 26:43 Just like you just described. Stalin knew about that. He was a master, he was the master of propaganda. He invented it.

Joe Rogan 26:50 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 26:50 I mean he didn't invent it, but he invented it in a, you know, on the political stage to be used to mess with another country's perception of things.

Joe Rogan 27:01 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 27:01 Think of what he did with brainwashing, right? Okay. So like in the '50s, and this is journalists, you know, said... So there was a journalist who was putting out stories about brainwashing and there was this idea, which is well taken, that totalitarian governments brainwash people, and this became a big code word. It was introduced into the American lexicon in 1950. Well, then we're in the Korean War. Our pilots start getting shot down. They're put on TV by the communists saying terrible things about America, the, uh, American pilots.

Joe Rogan 27:32 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 27:32 And suddenly it was like they've been brainwashed. It was very convenient to have that story.

Joe Rogan 27:37 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 27:38 So these things work part and parcel, and you've got all kinds of smart people behind the scenes knowing this, looking at it, examining it, and using it to their advantage. To stay where? In the pole position. That's the goal of the US government.

Joe Rogan 27:54 So the propaganda that we did that sort of copied Stalin's, we're kind of playing catch up in that sense.

Annie Jacobsen 28:02 I mean, we're playing catch up, then we're ahead-

Joe Rogan 28:03 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 28:03 ... then we're behind.

Joe Rogan 28:04 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 28:04 It's a- it's always a- it's a game. It's... I mean, you're a competitor. You know this. How do you-

Joe Rogan 28:09 But that's a crazy thing to do, to make a fake spaceship and just let it slam into the ground with a bunch of people that you cut up to look like aliens. Did he say specifically what kind of modifications they made to people that made them look like aliens?

Annie Jacobsen 28:24 I got drips.

Joe Rogan 28:25 Drips?

Annie Jacobsen 28:25 And you'll read it in those 12 pages.

Joe Rogan 28:26 Come on with this 12 pages, uh-

Annie Jacobsen 28:28 I'm telling you that because you're asking me these questions-

Joe Rogan 28:30 No, but it's-

Annie Jacobsen 28:31 ... as if I spent... I mean, look, I did spend literally hundreds of hours with this source.

Joe Rogan 28:35 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 28:35 We sat there and talked about everything, and I would try to squeeze out, just like you're trying to squeeze out of me. And that's why I'm saying read it, because I literally tell you everything that there is. I think what's most interesting about the source and why I might come back and talk to you about it and tell you who he is on your show-

Joe Rogan 28:52 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 28:53 ... is because-

Joe Rogan 28:55 Teasing.

Annie Jacobsen 28:55 ... because of his backstory.

Joe Rogan 28:57 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 28:57 Right? Why he did what he did. How he wound up in the Manhattan Project.

Joe Rogan 29:02 Sounds like he was probably Jewish from Germany. No?

Annie Jacobsen 29:06 No. No.

Joe Rogan 29:06 All right. I'm trying. (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 29:08 (laughs) Okay.

Joe Rogan 29:09 I'm trying, trying to get you. (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 29:11 Morality. Talk to me.

Joe Rogan 29:12 Yes. Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 29:12 I want to talk about morality. I want to talk about why we can't talk about certain things.

Joe Rogan 29:16 Well-

Annie Jacobsen 29:16 Right?

Joe Rogan 29:16 ... while we're... What, what you were saying before about being a competitor.

Annie Jacobsen 29:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:20 The United States is competitive-

Annie Jacobsen 29:22 Yes.

Joe Rogan 29:22 ... obviously. And when you're playing the ultimate game, which is war-

Annie Jacobsen 29:26 Yes.

Joe Rogan 29:27 ... you have to be very careful about what you reveal and what you don't reveal. And this is where the conversation about Surprise, Kill, Vanish comes in, because the CIA using these covert operations-

Annie Jacobsen 29:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:39 ... to assassinate people and whether or not that should be allowed or not allowed, whether it's good or bad-

Annie Jacobsen 29:45 Yes.

Joe Rogan 29:45 ... whether it's necessary, whether it's like if you want people to be safe over here, there's certain people you gotta take out, and sometimes you just can't follow the rules.

Annie Jacobsen 29:53 And why, why are we not supposed to know about that?

Joe Rogan 29:56 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 29:57 Should we know about that? The way the story started for me, I'm at my house in 2009. A source is, you know, calls me up. He says, "I'm on my way back from the Middle East. Gonna pop by the house and say hi." Um, he brings me a challenge coin that says Kabul, Afghanistan State Department. And I'm thinking, "Okay, he is not a diplomat." I mean he's weapons trained. Um, at the time, my boys were young. There were lots of GI Joes in the garden, and they had little weapons, right? And the source is showing them about the weapons and they're like so into it 'cause they know he's military trained. And then he says, "If it's okay with your mom and dad, I'll show you some weapons." The boys are like, "Please." So he sets up this sniper rifle in the living room and I live up in the hills and you can...... look across the canyon through this scope he set up, and I can see the veins on a leaf across the canyon. And I thought, "Okay, so now I know what he was doing in Kabul, Afghanistan. He's taking out Al-Qaeda with this."

Joe Rogan 30:56 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 30:57 There's another case on the ground that he never opens, and when the boys go off, I say to him, "What's in that?" And he said... He opens it up, and inside there's a knife, and it's serrated. And I said, "What's that for?" Immediately realizing, you know, my naivete. And he says to me, "Sometimes a job requires quiet." So why that became interesting to me was because of my own thoughts and perceptions about what he had told me. In other words, I could, I could deal with him with a sniper rifle. I could be like, "Okay, that's what he does." But the knife gave me pause. I was like, "Is he slitting someone's throat? Is it in the ribs?" And I thought, "Why is it that I am willing to accept sort of the clinical nature of a, uh, uh, of a sniper rifle, but I can't... I'm uncomfortable with that closeup hand-to-hand killing?"

Joe Rogan 31:52 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 31:52 And that led me to Surprise, Kill, Vanish because that was the motto of the precursor agency of the CIA. It was called the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. Their motto was Surprise, Kill, Vanish because they would jump out of aircraft, land, work with their French partners, and kill Nazis-

Joe Rogan 32:13 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 32:14 ... with a, you know, a knife to the throat. And I thought, "Okay, that's considered okay because they were Nazis, right?" But we can't, we're not supposed to do that anymore in this world we live in. Why? And I spent the whole, this whole book researching and reporting is about that sort of conundrum, if you will.

Joe Rogan 32:34 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 32:34 That moral puzzle, you know? Why do we, why do we differentiate?

Joe Rogan 32:41 Yeah, and who are they willing to do that to? Where do they-

Annie Jacobsen 32:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:44 ... draw that line? Like I'm sure you're aware of the story of Jamal Khashoggi-

Annie Jacobsen 32:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:50 ... the, uh, journalist who was assassinated by someone.

Annie Jacobsen 32:55 Yes.

Joe Rogan 32:55 Some group of people and that they, he entered into the Turkish Embassy, and, um, they, they whacked him and chopped him up.

Annie Jacobsen 33:02 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:02 And carried him out in boxes, and it's a, an international... Uh, well, it's a huge incident, right?

Annie Jacobsen 33:11 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:11 This supposedly was ordered by... Who was it supposedly ordered by? The head of Saudi Arabia

Jamie Vernon 33:18 Yeah, MBS.

Joe Rogan 33:19 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 33:19 Mohammed bin Salman.

Joe Rogan 33:20 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 33:20 I mean-

Joe Rogan 33:20 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 33:20 ... that's the idea is that their head of state wanted him killed because he was a threat, because he was a reporter, because he was writing-

Joe Rogan 33:27 Because he was saying some things.

Annie Jacobsen 33:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:28 Yeah, and that they... this is how they did it.

Annie Jacobsen 33:32 Yeah, I mean, and there's, that's a great question because what you're saying is, like, okay, so, but we all think of that as reprehensible, right?

Joe Rogan 33:39 Right. Right.

Annie Jacobsen 33:39 Why, you know, 'cause-

Joe Rogan 33:40 'Cause he's a journalist.

Annie Jacobsen 33:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 33:41 And he's on our side. He's delivering-

Annie Jacobsen 33:43 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:43 ... information to people, but the government of Saudi Arabia disagreed. They're like, "That information is our information. He's a threat by releasing it."

Annie Jacobsen 33:53 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:53 "He's a threat to our livelihood."

Annie Jacobsen 33:56 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:56 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 33:57 And who decides who's a threat? I mean, a lot of this book is about who's on the kill list-

Joe Rogan 34:01 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 34:01 ... and why. I mean, there is an actual kill list. There always has been.

Joe Rogan 34:03 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 34:04 And the euphemisms involved, I mean, I write history, as I said. So Eisenhower called his assassination program health alteration. I mean, literally in the declassified documents, you see that.

Joe Rogan 34:16 That's hilarious.

Annie Jacobsen 34:17 Okay.

Joe Rogan 34:17 Health alteration.

Annie Jacobsen 34:18 He had a health alteration committee.

Joe Rogan 34:20 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 34:21 Kennedy had an executive action committee, right?

Joe Rogan 34:25 Hmm, that sounds cleaner.

Annie Jacobsen 34:26 Right? Guess what Reagan's was called?

Joe Rogan 34:28 Uh, Super Wonder Boy Power-Up...

Annie Jacobsen 34:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:32 I don't know. What?

Annie Jacobsen 34:32 Close. Preemptive neutralization.

Joe Rogan 34:36 Preemptive neutralization?

Annie Jacobsen 34:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:38 Wow. Why do they keep switching the names for it?

Annie Jacobsen 34:40 They're burying the information.

Joe Rogan 34:43 Oh, the data. Right, right, right.

Annie Jacobsen 34:44 Right? And they keep switching around the... They switch around who has authority to, you know, say, "Yes, let's go ahead and put this guy on the kill list." I mean, that was fascinating. I mean, I interviewed a guy named John Rizzo, who's a decades-long CIA attorney. I was stunned that he was willing to talk to me, um, and he explained to me how a presidential finding, also called a memorandum of notification, works that gives the president the authority to put an individual on the kill list. That job is then given to the CIA's paramilitary army, an operator or their assassins because the CIA works under a code called Title 50 of... So it makes it legal, whereas the Defense Department works under what's called Title 10. So, in other words, and they can't... Their rules of engagement are totally different. So the misnomer-

Joe Rogan 35:41 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 35:41 ... is like, "Oh, the SEALs killed bin Laden." Well, they were SEALs trained, but that was a CIA mission.

Joe Rogan 35:49 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 35:50 Because Pakistan is a sovereign nation, and the military can't kill people in countries we're not at war with. So those guys all became essentially CIA operators for the night.

Joe Rogan 36:06 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 36:07 Right? And if you look at photographs, as I have seen, you'll notice that they have no markings on their outfits so that if the job went south, they'd be like, "I don't know who these guys are."

Joe Rogan 36:20 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 36:21 And if you look back at Vietnam photos of the MACV-SOG teams, which I also write about in Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 'cause that's the precursor of that, you see no markings, right?

Joe Rogan 36:31 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 36:32 That's... That way you can go into... You can go behind enemy lines. You can go into Laos, you know-

Joe Rogan 36:37 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 36:37 ... in the Vietnam War. You can go i- uh, now you can go into Pakistan. What I learned reporting this book is we're in 134 countries.... doing Title 50 operations.

Joe Rogan 36:48 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 36:48 Think about that. Government wants that to be kept secret.

Joe Rogan 36:52 So, in all those countries, they're doing things that don't fall under the normal letter of the law.

Annie Jacobsen 37:01 Not ... Yes, not under the rules of engagement of the military.

Joe Rogan 37:03 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 37:03 But the CIA works at the president's behest. That, that was one thing that really blew my mind. To report, to research, to understand. I talked to 42 guys who have direct access to this, who are in this world. You know, from the knuckle-draggers on the ground, as they call themselves, to the lawyer at CIA, senior intelligence staff, that's the equivalent of a general at the CIA. Those guys explaining to me, "Annie, this is how it works." You know? And again, to your question, well, why, why does someone get to know that and why does the government want ... Why do they allow that information out is super interesting, and I believe that has to do with a certain climate we're in right now about military might, right?

Joe Rogan 37:49 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 37:49 In other words, what the CIA does is called Tertia Optio. It's the third option. You've got ... The first option is diplomacy, second option is war. So if diplomacy's not working and war is unwise, you go to the third option, which is the CIA's paramilitary.

Joe Rogan 38:09 And they're in a hundred in how many countries?

Annie Jacobsen 38:11 134.

Joe Rogan 38:13 Damn. Well, if you wonder why the military budget's so big, that's what it is, folks. Gotta feed those folks. A lot of work.

Annie Jacobsen 38:19 I mean-

Joe Rogan 38:19 A lot happening. (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 38:21 And you as a competitor would be fascinated by the kind of training they do and what they do. I mean, so many of these infiltration techniques are mind-boggling, you know?

Joe Rogan 38:28 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 38:29 They've got HALO jumping, which you know about, right?

Joe Rogan 38:31 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 38:31 Where they g- ... High altitude, low opening, so they jump out. They, you know, free fall down, terminal velocity, pull the rip cord really low so they're not detected by radar, and then they meet up with a team on the ground and go do what they do.

Joe Rogan 38:45 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 38:45 And they also have HAHO, which is high altitude, high opening, and that way you can fly over airspace where we're allowed and float into, let's say, a country like Iran and land, gather your team, and do what you have to do.

Joe Rogan 39:03 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 39:04 But like so much of what I report, I get information like that, and then I ask a million questions like you've asking me, and it's like, "Can't talk about that. That's classified."

Joe Rogan 39:12 Hmm. You don't ... You're, you're a journalist, so you're trying not to judge.

Annie Jacobsen 39:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:19 But is it your belief that this is a good thing for America?

Annie Jacobsen 39:27 Meaning h-

Joe Rogan 39:27 Meaning having these op-

Annie Jacobsen 39:28 ... the president having-

Joe Rogan 39:29 Yes.

Annie Jacobsen 39:29 ... a third option? Well, uh, I mean, I write in the book that that's ... In the prologue after I tell that story about the source with a knife-

Joe Rogan 39:37 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 39:37 ... I say I wanted to know in that exact question. Like, is this a good thing? And my answer at the end after it's complex, not to be vague, but it is really complex, is also that, well, if you're gonna take that pole position, you must accept rivalry, right?

Joe Rogan 40:03 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 40:04 And also after talk- ... Do I think it's a good thing? After talking to a lot of 20-year-old soldiers who come back from the war theater missing a limb or with intense PTSD, and who essentially serve as cannon fodder, I would say, my opinion, right, for the Pentagon. That's the second option, war. The 42 guys that I interviewed, you know, they're like, "Send me." They are professional. They are tier-one operators. They're Green Berets, they're SEALs, they're Delta.

Joe Rogan 40:40 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 40:41 They retire, they join the CIA.

Joe Rogan 40:44 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 40:44 So they're, like, professionals at what they do, and they're saying, "I want ... Someone has to do this job. We've been doing this since the end of World War II. I wanna do it." So do I think it's better? I mean, I think that that concept speaks to choice, right, because I'm not so sure that the 20-year-olds know what they're in for, and the 40-year-olds know what they're in for and are willing-

Joe Rogan 41:13 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 41:15 ... to do it.

Joe Rogan 41:15 So the d- well, also the difference between a specialized, trained individual with a very specific task versus someone who is sort of following orders and-

Annie Jacobsen 41:24 Oh, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 41:24 ... at the front of the line.

Annie Jacobsen 41:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:26 You know?

Annie Jacobsen 41:26 Right. I mean, and also has a ... You know, a lot of times I talk to these young kids who go to war and they tell me ... Uh, one of ... Fascinating detail is that they talk about movies that they see-

Joe Rogan 41:39 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 41:39 ... and whether it's Saving Private Ryan or, um, Black Hawk Down even, right, w- where the outcome is not necessarily great, but they talk about the romanticization of war and of camaraderie and of brotherhood that comes from that. And then they have their experience, and some of that does give them that sense, but not always.

Joe Rogan 42:01 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 42:02 Whereas the operators are much more about, um, you know, getting the job done. That's what I was fascinated by. I mean, these guys are really clear. They're, they're competitors. They're like top-tier competitors. They have a job, they do it, they get it done, and they ask for the next job.

Joe Rogan 42:20 So is the oversight when it comes to choosing whether or not this operation takes place or not, is it ... Do they have v- moral guidelines? Do they have ethical or moral guidelines where they say, like, "This is ... Th- the president is requesting that this person ge- get-"

Annie Jacobsen 42:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:39 "... taken out, the chief's of staff, whoever it is." Is th- ... I mean, do they have to make a, an ethical distinction?

Annie Jacobsen 42:46 You mean are they like, "Kill him nicely." Like, "Don't make it hurt." Or-

Joe Rogan 42:49 No, no, no. Are they just-

Annie Jacobsen 42:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:49 Do they decide, like, "Does this make sense?"

Annie Jacobsen 42:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:52 Or, like, what if the president's like, "Rosie O'Donnell, she's been talking shit."

Annie Jacobsen 42:55 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:55 "Take her out." Like, you know what I'm saying?

Annie Jacobsen 42:57 Well, I mean, that's ... You know, that's a big issue, but-What I try to write in Surp- what I try to report in Surprise, Kill, Vanish is the idea that the people we take out maybe are bad guys, right?

Joe Rogan 43:11 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 43:11 One, one guy I write about is Che Guevara, okay?

Joe Rogan 43:13 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 43:13 Because Che is often portrayed in the press as, you know, this amazing hero, and that he... And we, you know, I don't know if you know, but he was k-... He was killed by the Bolivian Rangers, but it was a CIA operation, and I interview the man in charge of that operation in Surprise, Kill, Vanish. His name was Felix Rodriguez, okay? Long-serving CIA paramilitary officer. So, but I also report why the president, to your question, wanted Che Guevara dead, you know? He was really advocating for nuclear war, and I, and I show that.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Che Guevara was?

Annie Jacobsen 43:55 Yes, I mean, he spoke publicly about, you know, "If, if we have to have an atomic war, the Cuban..." I'm paraphrasing, "The Cuban people will be happy to have sacrificed themselves for that." I mean Che was also... Che killed anyone who betrayed him, he killed. He writes about it in his diaries, as I write in the book, right? So but, on the morality question, who decides? I don't have that answer, but I will tell you what I did. I went with my main source, Billy Waugh, who he's, uh, 89 now and he was s-... He's been with the CIA for 60 years, okay? I mean, he went... And he and I went to Cuba for him to do a HALO jump with Che Guevara's son.

Joe Rogan 44:37 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 44:37 So we were a guest of the man whose father was killed by the CIA.

Joe Rogan 44:44 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 44:45 Okay? And we had this really interesting discussion in the cigar club where Che and Castro, you know, smoked cigars and plotted the downfall of the United States. And that's what I try to give readers a sense of, the long lens of history, how time changes all things, and maybe leave with them, them with this idea which they can come to their own conclusions about what you asked me of is it right or is it wrong? Because really what you might ask is, is it necessary?

Joe Rogan 45:21 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 45:21 Right? I mean, I could moralize right, wrong, but it would just be my opinion. But when you see... Uh, I, I went... Uh, Billy Waugh and I also trav- traveled to Vietnam because he was supposed to kill... He was tasked to kill the top commander of the North Vietnamese Army, a guy named General Giap. And e-... Waugh didn't kill Giap and we had this incredibly... this terrible mission that went awry that I write about in the book, in the Vietnam War. So 50 years later, Waugh and I go to visit the son of General Giap, are sitting there in Giap's home talking about these same issues, right? And my conclusion of that, again, is not is it right or wrong, but is it necessary?

Joe Rogan 46:05 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 46:05 I mean, we have these wars. We keep having these wars. Is it necessary?

Joe Rogan 46:13 D- yeah. What do you think?

Annie Jacobsen 46:15 Well, I mean, my opinion is that the Defense Department is far too concerned with vast weapon systems of the future, which is its mission statement of its Science Department. And so you create what some at the Pentagon call a self-licking ice cream cone, or the military-industrial complex.

Joe Rogan 46:36 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 46:36 And there's a lot built into that, and there's a lot to be said about that.

Joe Rogan 46:40 And there's also probably some concern about other countries getting ahead of us. So you have to do what you have to do if your, if your job is to protect the American people and to keep the military strong-

Annie Jacobsen 46:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:52 ... you just have to operate with that premise that there's a bunch of other people out there that are doing the same thing for their country and trying to take down the United States, and we gotta stay ahead of the curve and make human-eating robots that can shoot missiles.

Annie Jacobsen 47:04 A- a- a- a- absolutely. I mean when I was-

Joe Rogan 47:06 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 47:06 ... reporting The Pentagon's Brain, which is about DARPA, and I was sitting there with scientists who were working on limb regeneration, right? Or-

Joe Rogan 47:13 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 47:13 Right? Or working-

Joe Rogan 47:14 Really?

Annie Jacobsen 47:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:15 What are they doing?

Annie Jacobsen 47:16 Oh my God, they have these little salamanders. I mean, they're showing that-

Joe Rogan 47:18 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 47:19 ... salamanders can regenerate their limbs. And so human... Their idea, they're down at UC Irvine, they have this incredible lab, and they're funded by DARPA 'cause that's where the money comes from, right? And their idea is that humans should be able to regenerate their limbs and, you know, 50 years out, we'll be doing that, and they're working on the science for that.

Joe Rogan 47:40 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 47:40 Well, that's the same science that allows for cloning.

Joe Rogan 47:43 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 47:44 And so in our discussions, 'cause that's how I try to report is, like, really ask people what they think about future consequences, and they said to me your exact question, which is, "Well, Annie, what if one day we wake up and we find out that China has cloned the first human? Or a dark horse like Saudi Arabia? You know, the American people are gonna freak out and go, 'Where the hell was DARPA? Why aren't we ahead of the curve?'"

Joe Rogan 48:09 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 48:10 So it's that... there's a chicken and the egg problem with that of, like, well, we have to stay ahead. We're, we're on top.

Joe Rogan 48:17 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 48:17 We wanna be on top.

Joe Rogan 48:20 It's kind of terrifying.

Annie Jacobsen 48:21 I mean, everything I write about is terrifying, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:25 (laughs) How do you sleep? Do you sleep well? Do you have to take Ambien?

Annie Jacobsen 48:27 I'm more worried... No, God no. I'm, I'm more worried about coming on your show and being asked tough questions-

Joe Rogan 48:32 Why?

Annie Jacobsen 48:32 ... than I am about... No, I'm teasing you, but than I am about... I mean, this stuff is informative, you know?

Joe Rogan 48:37 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 48:37 It's informative and it's a longer conversation. It's why I think what you do with your podcast is awesome because people can really get into the thinking about things, right? They can really... And they can move away from their own preconceptions, their own biases they're bringing into it, and they're stopping for a minute and they're going, "What do I really think about that?" And to really think about something, you need information.

Joe Rogan 49:04 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 49:04 And information can be boring unless it's interestingly presented.... through conversation, through, you know, uncomfortable conversation. Right?

Joe Rogan 49:14 Well, also uncompromised conversation where you don't have a certain time period that you have to-

Annie Jacobsen 49:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:18 ... smush something into.

Annie Jacobsen 49:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Like a four-minute segment on CNN or something.

Annie Jacobsen 49:21 Right. I mean, that's impossible, right?

Joe Rogan 49:22 Well, it's so difficult. I see people have these conversations about books or something that they're trying to... A complex, very nuanced subject that they're trying to discuss. And, uh, you know, and there's another person on the other side-

Annie Jacobsen 49:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:33 ... that's like, "That's not true," and they're shouting over each other. And like, boy, the... Just the pressure. The... People have to understand that, uh, ev- People do understand, but you have to re- reiterate it and it has to be r- kind of drilled into your head. You're... When you're pressuring someone and, and you're, uh, yelling back and forth, you're not even gonna get a good version of whatever this person's argument is. Like, you should have the best version. I want... Like-

Annie Jacobsen 49:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:58 ... if I'm gonna have a disagreement with someone, I want the best version of their, their point. And I want them to get it out, uh, with no pressure. I wanna help them get it out. I'd like to reiterate it with them. I like to give them plenty of time. I... I wanna know how you think.

Annie Jacobsen 50:14 Yes.

Joe Rogan 50:14 I wanna know what you're thinking about. I would love to talk to these guys. I would love to- loved to... But the thing is, like, you... They can't tell you a lot of this. There's a r-... I mean, for national security reasons.

Annie Jacobsen 50:27 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:27 There's a lot of reasons.

Annie Jacobsen 50:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:29 I'm sure. If they wanna keep their job and stay alive, they have to, they have to shut the fuck up. They can't just talk about what they do and how they do it and how... and decisions that maybe they made that were uncomfortable, where they killed somebody they didn't think-

Annie Jacobsen 50:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:41 ... maybe needed to die.

Annie Jacobsen 50:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:43 But...

Annie Jacobsen 50:44 But th- that's the reporter's job.

Joe Rogan 50:46 Yes.

Annie Jacobsen 50:46 Or at least my job. So, in other words... Okay, so I go to visit Billy Waugh at his home and I knew... I heard stories about he's this legendary operator, right? And he's also what's called a singleton, so he works alone. And when I was at-

Joe Rogan 50:58 That's what they call them, a singleton?

Annie Jacobsen 50:59 A singleton, right?

Joe Rogan 51:00 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 51:00 Which is like he's got one guy giving him orders.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Whoa.

Annie Jacobsen 51:03 Right?

Joe Rogan 51:04 And he's out there lonely?

Annie Jacobsen 51:05 Oh my god. I mean, Billy Waugh is... Right? I mean, back... Can we back up for a second?

Joe Rogan 51:09 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 51:09 I'm gonna give you the story of him.

Joe Rogan 51:10 Please, please.

Annie Jacobsen 51:10 Okay, so he... Here's this guy. He's in, he's in Vietnam. And he's part of what was called MACV-SOG, right? And they're doing cross-border missions into Laos. And it's so dangerous. It's like... It's t- It's a CIA program that... SOG stands for Studies and Observations Group.

Joe Rogan 51:29 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 51:29 I mean, it's supposed to sound like a bunch of guys in an Ivy League tower with bow ties, right?

Joe Rogan 51:34 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 51:34 But the guys on the ground called it suicide on the ground, that's how dangerous it was.

Joe Rogan 51:37 Jesus.

Annie Jacobsen 51:38 100% of the people had casualties, right? Billy Waugh has nine Purple Hearts from the work he did. Nine, okay? I mean, they get shot. They bandage themselves up. They're... You know, they're up in an aircraft because they're limping instead of on the ground, you know, v- viewing th- the missions. Um, the war ends. Everybody's furious with the government, with the military. There's no room for special operators. I mean, everything... It's called the time of troubles by then. Billy Waugh is working in the post office and he gets this knock, you know, and it's like he's back in the CIA now, in 1977.

Joe Rogan 52:20 So he was out for a while?

Annie Jacobsen 52:21 He was out. It was over. Vietnam, I mean, he was, he was... You know, it was over. That was it. The-

Joe Rogan 52:25 And he was working in the post office?

Annie Jacobsen 52:26 He was working in the post office.

Joe Rogan 52:27 It seems like a Stallone movie.

Annie Jacobsen 52:28 It's... He was working in the-

Joe Rogan 52:29 We need you.

Annie Jacobsen 52:30 Right?

Joe Rogan 52:31 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 52:31 I mean, and-

Joe Rogan 52:31 The team needs you (groans) .

Annie Jacobsen 52:34 I mean-

Joe Rogan 52:34 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 52:34 ... but he said the most incredible thing to me because he said, "I..." And he doesn't ever talk about fear and he said, "There was only one time my whole life I've ever been afraid and that was in the post office."

Joe Rogan 52:43 Whoa, 'cause he was getting back into it. Probably-

Annie Jacobsen 52:45 He's-

Joe Rogan 52:45 ... had like recycled his mind and put himself in a place, "I'm just-"

Annie Jacobsen 52:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:49 "... a civilian now."

Annie Jacobsen 52:50 And he said, "I'm gonna wind up being one of those old guys drinking beer at the end of the bar talking about the war."

Joe Rogan 52:55 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 52:56 Right? And instead, he gets called up by the CIA and they send him to Libya in 1977. And his cover is that he's training Gaddafi's paramilitary guys in paramilitary tactics. I mean, that's the beginning of his career and it goes on all the way until we were in Cuba. I think was actually some kind of a mission 'cause it was like, "What are we doing here in Cuba doing infiltration and exfiltration techniques?"

Joe Rogan 53:23 Mm.

Annie Jacobsen 53:23 Allegedly with Che Guevara's son. But in any event, you know, when I went to visit Billy Waugh the first time, he's got this... You know, he's got cer- certificates and awards and medals all over the walls of his home, but there's one framed item that I'm looking at and it's a knife. And there is a seal from the CIA and it says, "In appreciation to the assassin."

Joe Rogan 53:51 Boom.

Annie Jacobsen 53:54 And I said, "Billy, tell me about that." And he said, "You know I can't talk about that." So, I, you know, stayed with him for two years. No, I mean stayed... We conversed, we traveled, uh, interviewed him, you know, hundreds of hours. And I kept asking him about that award and he kept saying, "You know I can't talk about that." But as I write in the book, he couldn't talk about it, but others did. So, that's how a reporter works. You get introduced to enough of his friends, enough of the others who are involved. You make sure they're a legitimate source and you begin to find out what he can't talk about. And that's what I report in the book and that is very explosive because President Bush, right after 9/11, created what was called a stalker team. And ironically, you know, people have this idea that we've been, you know, sending a team of assassins around the world, um, in NATO partner countries and that, what I learned, had never happened until right after 9/11 with the stalker team. Twelve men and, uh, actually one or two women, the femme fatale, and they would go after bad guys. And they adopted the term, uh, from the Reagan era, so it was called preemptive neutralization.

Joe Rogan 55:13 W- Who was... Who were the women?

Annie Jacobsen 55:15 There's always one woman on the team, that's what I was told by the guy who was in charge of the stalker team. And-

Joe Rogan 55:21 Why is that?

Annie Jacobsen 55:21 Well, I mean, he, he gave me this great example, I don't report it in the book, but I'll tell you, right? He said, "So women have a different presentation."

Joe Rogan 55:33 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 55:34 And this, like, he told me this story of a woman sitting on a bench, you know, em- embracing a man, right? And no one thought anything of it, and it allowed her to spy on someone in a manner that would, a man would, it would've drawn attention.

Joe Rogan 55:54 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 55:55 And then the stalker team could go. So what their job would be to, is to conduct surveillance of a target and they call it making book, they have to make book on that individual so they know exactly where the guy is, and they're waiting on the president's orders whether or not they should take action. And you know, that's where the, that's where the information stops, right?

Joe Rogan 56:18 Right, well-

Annie Jacobsen 56:18 They say, "Well, then what happens?" "Well, that's all we can say, Annie."

Joe Rogan 56:21 That must be so exciting.

Annie Jacobsen 56:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:23 Like, to live like that, like all cloak and dagger, that's gotta be so exciting. Like, it's, I would take that over a cubicle every day of the week.

Annie Jacobsen 56:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:33 I really would. "Well, you might get killed." I might die in that damn cubicle too.

Annie Jacobsen 56:38 I think it's why so many of these operators stay in it long-term.

Joe Rogan 56:42 Oh, yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 56:42 Right? Well-

Joe Rogan 56:43 Did you ever see the television show, the Showtime show, what the hell's it called? With, um, the fuck's that show called? That, the, the, uh, Homeland, do you ever watch that?

Annie Jacobsen 56:52 Yes.

Joe Rogan 56:52 Yes. Well, that's, like, the whole premise.

Annie Jacobsen 56:55 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 56:55 Like, she's completely addicted to being in that world.

Annie Jacobsen 56:59 Adrenaline, I mean-

Joe Rogan 57:00 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 57:00 ... that's what that is. Imagine jumping-

Joe Rogan 57:02 Excitement.

Annie Jacobsen 57:02 ... out of an aircraft, landing in, you know, behind enemy lines-

Joe Rogan 57:08 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 57:08 ... and then your work begins.

Joe Rogan 57:10 How about-

Annie Jacobsen 57:10 And then you have to get out, that's why surprise, kill, vanish. I mean-

Joe Rogan 57:13 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 57:13 ... you gotta surprise your way in, kill them, and then get out.

Joe Rogan 57:17 And if you do a good job-

Annie Jacobsen 57:18 Getting out is-

Joe Rogan 57:19 ... they frame your knife-

Annie Jacobsen 57:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:21 ... and give you a plaque.

Annie Jacobsen 57:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:22 "Jamie, I'm gonna get you a knife as appreciation of the assassin."

Annie Jacobsen 57:26 That's sweet.

Joe Rogan 57:26 "You're a killer." (laughs) It's just such a crazy-

Annie Jacobsen 57:29 I-

Joe Rogan 57:29 ... way to live your life, but, you know, uh, uh, I'll take that over a boring life. I would take that over a boring life ev- every day of the week.

Annie Jacobsen 57:37 Well, it's like the Pink Floyd line, you know, "living life of quiet desperation." I mean, that just terrifies me.

Joe Rogan 57:42 Well, that's Thoreau's quote, that most men live lives of quiet desperation. It's one of my favorite quotes ever because it's true.

Annie Jacobsen 57:49 It's so true.

Joe Rogan 57:49 And I've been that guy.

Annie Jacobsen 57:50 Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 57:51 You just li- you're just in this world where you just can't wait to just run away.

Annie Jacobsen 57:57 And how do people get stuck there?

Joe Rogan 57:59 They-

Annie Jacobsen 57:59 How do you think they get stuck there?

Joe Rogan 58:00 Bills.

Annie Jacobsen 58:01 Bills, like financial bills?

Joe Rogan 58:02 Yeah, mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 58:03 Right? I think-

Joe Rogan 58:03 Yeah. Bills and commitment. You, you have an apartment you have to pay for. You have a car you leased. You have a wife that you have to feed. You have a child you have to raise. You have to-

Annie Jacobsen 58:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:12 You have your mortgage, you have your this, you have your that, and that's where it all comes from.

Annie Jacobsen 58:16 Where do you think opportunity plays into that?

Joe Rogan 58:19 Well, the opportunity takes place usually when you're young and you don't have any responsibility. Th- that's when-

Annie Jacobsen 58:24 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 58:24 ... you have your options. Well, your options are severely limited the more you gather-

Annie Jacobsen 58:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 58:30 ... responsibilities. Like, if I had to, as a 51-year-old father of three, married man, pays taxes, has a house and a mortgage and a business and all that jazz, if I had to quit everything now and struggle the way I struggled as a standup comedian, it would never work. But the only way I could be this person now is if I took that chance when I was 21, when I was dead broke and had my cars repossessed and all that stuff. That's the only way you, you ever get where you wanna go. You have to, you have to take a path that's dangerous, and most people wanna take the safe path. And the safe path leaves you stuck in quiet desperation-

Annie Jacobsen 59:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:14 ... almost every time. It's hell. It's hell. You're selling insurance or some other shit that you care zero about.

Annie Jacobsen 59:23 But can people just make that change? I mean, look-

Joe Rogan 59:26 Yes, you can.

Annie Jacobsen 59:26 ... I believe they can.

Joe Rogan 59:26 But you have to plan it out. The way you can change is you have to put aside enough money to give yourself a window, and then you have to have a plan, and you have to spend all your waking hours outside of whatever shit job you do-

Annie Jacobsen 59:38 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:38 ... planning your escape. And you have to come to the realization very clearly that you fucked up and you got yourself stuck, so whatever you're doing, you have to do it like your life depends on it.

Annie Jacobsen 59:51 Yes.

Joe Rogan 59:51 And whether it is you're trying to be an author and you're gonna, well, you're gonna, if, if you're gonna try to be an author and you're working eight hours a day, plus commuting, plus family responsibilities or whatever else you have, whatever time that you have, you have to attack like you're trying to save the world. You're trying to save your life. You don't wanna drown. That one and a half hours a day that you have to write, goddamn, you better be caffeinated and motivated. You gotta go, you gotta get after it, and you gotta have, have discipline. That's, most people don't have those things. Most people don't understand what it's like to, to really go for something and to know that the consequences of not doing that are horrific.

Annie Jacobsen 1:00:30 Then you're desperate and you're quiet.

Joe Rogan 1:00:32 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:00:32 But I do think there is something to be said for fate and circumstance.

Joe Rogan 1:00:37 Sure.

Annie Jacobsen 1:00:38 And I always write, I mean, people in these military environments that I write about and in these intelligence world environments, fate and circumstance plays a big part because-

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 Yep.

Annie Jacobsen 1:00:49 ... they too can even get complacent, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:00:51 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:00:52 But when your life is on the line, right? A lot of times they have these experiences where they're like, "I must change." And that's what I find really interesting-

Joe Rogan 1:01:03 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:04 ... in people, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:01:05 Sure. Desperation. Yeah, the, um, I think, uh, fate and circumstance are giant, fortune is giant, there's no question about it.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:12 Some children get shot in drive-bys.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 You know, that's just horrible, horrible luck and unfortunate circumstance.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:19 Well, h-

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 There's a lot of, a lot of it is fortune and fate.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:22 How about people getting lost?... right? I'll tell you-

Joe Rogan 1:01:24 Lost Housewife.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:24 Okay. So, the book that I told you I wrote on the psychics.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:28 Phénoménom. One-

Joe Rogan 1:01:29 What do you believe about that?

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:31 Again, I'm neutral, right?

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 I'm not.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:34 You're not? Tell me.

Joe Rogan 1:01:34 No.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:34 I wanna hear what you believe.

Joe Rogan 1:01:35 I think there's a lot of people that are full of shit.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:37 Absolutely. My God.

Joe Rogan 1:01:38 I think it's almost all people that are talking about being psychic are full of shit.

Annie Jacobsen 1:01:43 (sighs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 But I do think that there's a strange connection that we have with each other that's intangible, and I think that some people have better connections than others. Just like some people are more intelligent. Like, we were talking before the podcast about Elon Musk, and it's painfully aware when you talk to him what a chimp you are.

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 Th- th- he's so fucking smart.

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:03 Brain.

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 And his brain is... It just, it's built different. Just like some people have defective hearts-

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:08 ... some people have a heart like Lance Armstrong's. Incredible, huge, with, of, uh, an anomaly. Some people have giant hands. Some-

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:15 He has a big heart, literally?

Joe Rogan 1:02:17 Yes. Yes.

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:17 Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 1:02:17 He has literally a, th- and they don't know whether or not that's from training, or steroids-

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:22 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:22 ... and EPO, and, or whether or not it's something he was born with. They really don't know. But, uh, yeah, he has an unusually sized heart. Unusually large. Um, but what was my point?

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:34 Fate, circumstance, getting lost.

Joe Rogan 1:02:36 Oh, psychics.

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:37 Psychics.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 That's what it is. I don't... I think that most of the people that can tell you the future are full of shit. Most of the people that are t-... I think people get feelings. I think-

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 ... sometimes you think about someone when they call you, and I don't know what that is. I don't know if that's just complete fortune. Like, how many times you thinking about a person when they don't call you?

Annie Jacobsen 1:02:55 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:55 That's the argument against it. But how many times are you thinking about that person when they don't call you, but they're thinking about you as well? How many-

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 I mean, how, how often is that with star-crossed lovers? They find each other-

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:03:06 ... years later-

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:07 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 ... and they tell each other they've been thinking about each other all the time, and they can't believe it.

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:03:10 That's, that's ... And when you get that text from someone, maybe that's just someone prone to action, but maybe there is some sort of a connection. Some sort of quantum entanglement-

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:18 ... between you and someone you spent time with or shared energy with. It's possible. It's possible. But the problem is, you have these mediums and psychics, and those people are just assholes. And I've, I have a friend, his name's Banachek, and he runs a Las Vegas mentalist show where he shows you how he does these tricks.

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:37 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:37 But he'll tell you absolutely, these are tr-... He's been on the podcast. He's a brilliant, brilliant man.

Annie Jacobsen 1:03:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 But he'll tell you, "These are tricks. I'm showing you how I do this. This... I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you that's a trick. I'm not gonna give you the, how I do it, but I'm gonna tell you while I'm doing it, this is a trick." But he's pulling all this information out of people about their past, their childhood. He's guessing people's ages. He's guessing where they grew up. I mean, and it's, it's all little sneaky shit. You know? It's... The way they do it, it's, it's a skill as much as anything. And so when you see these people that are channelers or, you know, psychics, that are t- telling you about someone in your past that's trying to contact you, they're con artists, almost exclusively.

Annie Jacobsen 1:04:21 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:04:21 I mean, the- maybe there's like one lady in Tibet that has a, a broken gene and she can tune into the next dimension and, and p- pull some, extract some information from it. But, in my experience, the vast majority of those people that I've talked to that claimed to have psychic ability were also, at least partially, full of shit. Th- they had weird ego problems that were glaring that they didn't notice.

Annie Jacobsen 1:04:46 Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 1:04:46 You know, like, I could see it, that this is a gross way to behave, and they don't see it. Their interpersonal relationships, the way they communicate with people was like an agent, like a fake Hollywood person or something. There's something bullshit-y about them.

Annie Jacobsen 1:04:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 And people who lie a lot... I think if you lie a lot it's very difficult for you to tell what a lie is.

Annie Jacobsen 1:05:06 Oh, that's interesting.

Joe Rogan 1:05:07 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:05:07 That's interesting.

Joe Rogan 1:05:07 I think you lose your connection. I think when you, when you bullshit, I think you also bullshit yourself. I mean, I don't think these psychics are 100% honest, even with themselves. I don't think there's like, "I'm gonna fuck this lady over. She thinks she's gonna talk to her husband, yeah, I'm gonna tell her some nonsense and take her money." I think some of 'em actually believe they're getting information, you know?

Annie Jacobsen 1:05:28 Th-

Joe Rogan 1:05:28 My grandmother used to believe that. My grandmother was a... She was a, a very eccentric lady, an, uh, old Sicilian lady, and she would-

Annie Jacobsen 1:05:37 (gasps)

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 ... tell you about the... Like, all Italian ladies all, like, wanna play the lottery, they all have numbers. Their... And she was playing the numbers. Wasn't even a lottery. It was like the organized crime numbers racket. And she would always say, "I was gonna pick this number, and I just, at, uh, the last minute I changed the number, and wouldn't you know it, the first one came in." And she was so mad. But it was always that, that "I had a dream of this," and "I had a vision of that." And it was all visions and dreams and psychics.

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:05 But everything worked out horribly for her. It always did. Like, if like you were really psychic, you would have better instincts. Like, this is just this inclination that people have that there's something special about their perceptions-

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:16 ... and that they're psychic. And it's always these really wacky people that believe they're psychics, in my-

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:21 ... in my experience.

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:22 Which, I mean, it's... You're... I think you're talking also about the, what some scientists would call the self-fulfilling prophecy, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:06:30 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:30 That if you believe this, y- things happen, manifest themselves, and you can convince yourself that you believe this. But for me, I'm super interested in people who really believe in psychics, right?

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:44 Like, that's what... And the military, for example. And, you know, the most interes-

Joe Rogan 1:06:48 Do you ever talk to Ed Daines? Do you ever talk to those guys-

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:50 I-

Joe Rogan 1:06:50 ... the remote viewing guys?

Annie Jacobsen 1:06:51 I, I talk to a lot of the scientists who taught the remote viewing, and I talk to a number of remote viewers in- for the book. But the most interesting of all was the astronaut Ed Mitchell, right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:00 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:01 And he was so... So I'm interested in like the psychology behind, what are you looking for in that? And I saw the... I was doing some research in an archive and I came across a photo of what turned out to be Ed Mitchell on the moon reading a piece of paper. Okay? It's this extraordinary image, 'cause you're like, "Wait a minute. He's on the moon and he's reading a document. What is that document?" I found out the document was a map of the moon.... okay? Mitchell got lost on the moon and literally pulled a map out of like, okay, got... I mean, he was trying to get to a certain crater and they had a very limited amount of time to get there.

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 There it is right there.

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:38 Right? Okay, there he is.

Joe Rogan 1:07:40 Wow.

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:41 I mean, think about that.

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 He's lost.

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:42 It's like the- the most advanced technology of the time-

Joe Rogan 1:07:46 Why doesn't the-

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:46 ... and an artifact.

Joe Rogan 1:07:46 ... guy with the camera tell him where to go?

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:49 (laughs) Different story.

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 The guy that's taking the pictures of him.

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:52 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 He'd be like, "Hey, bro, this way."

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:53 "Move left."

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 Be like, "Look at, let's just follow our footprints. We're the only ones walking. What are you, stupid? Turn around."

Annie Jacobsen 1:07:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:59 "Look at the ground. See those things? That's where you walked."

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:01 That's what happened.

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 "Let's go that way." Jesus Christ. I'd be so mad at him. I'd be like, "Bro, you pulling out a map? Who wrote that map? Who's- who's-"

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:08 But-

Joe Rogan 1:08:08 "No one's even been here. Come on, man."

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:10 They had-

Joe Rogan 1:08:10 This is nonsense.

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:10 ... little maps folded up in their, in their pockets in case they got lost. They were on the way to this crater.

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:16 And in that crater, they were gonna find, allegedly, rocks that were gonna solve the mystery of the moon's creation, the origin story, right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 Ah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:23 So they had, like, all this pressure. They couldn't find it. The heart rate's up. The guys at Houston are like, "You gotta turn back. Your heart rate's going crazy."

Joe Rogan 1:08:30 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:30 And think about it, Mitchell tells me, I went to interview him at his house, when I think it was his last interview before he died, and he said, "There we had gotten 240,000 miles to only, to get lost." They missed the crater by like, you know, 900 feet or something.

Joe Rogan 1:08:45 Really?

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 So he never got-

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 ... to the crater?

Annie Jacobsen 1:08:47 Never got to it. He was devastated. And on the way back from the moon, he has this, what he told me was a psychic change, right? He, his- his consciousness flipped and he became convinced that psychic powers were real, and that is really the beginning of his foray. I mean, Mitchell became a huge proponent of psychic warfare, of, you know, the- the- the idea behind what you're talking about, what we spoke of as being sort of charlatanism.

Joe Rogan 1:09:17 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:18 And he dedicated the rest of his life to it.

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 Well, he- he had some-

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:20 And he was ridiculed.

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 ... wacky beliefs.

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:21 He was ridiculed!

Joe Rogan 1:09:22 But he had some wacky beliefs.

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:23 Yes!

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 He had some wacky beliefs about aliens as well.

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:26 And I think that comes-

Joe Rogan 1:09:27 He- he thought that we were definitely in contact with aliens and...

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:29 And that comes from, like, he was so vilified by the scientists and by the astronauts and by the kind of-

Joe Rogan 1:09:35 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:09:35 ... military men because this was just... He told me this story of when they were in quarantine after they came back from the moon, right? He and Shepard were sitting there, you know, eating breakfast, waiting, and Shepard... The- the stories, a story broke that Mitchell had done some ESP experiments on the way back from the moon. And Shepard said to him, like, "Look at this nonsense. The newspapers will do anything to sell, make a buck." And Mitchell said, "I- I did that. I actually did that." And-

Joe Rogan 1:10:03 Well, what experiments?

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:05 He, so he was doing ESP experiments on the way back from the moon. He had a psychic in Chicago, a Swedish psychic, that he was sending messages to, like-

Joe Rogan 1:10:14 Was she hot? (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:16 (laughs) It was an old Swedish man.

Joe Rogan 1:10:17 Oh, okay.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:17 Right? I don't think... Named Olaf, right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:20 (laughs) When I hear Swedish psychic-

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:21 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:21 ... I go, "Yeah, yeah."

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:21 "I gotta get to my psychic."

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:10:23 "I can't wait to take my clothes off." Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:26 No.

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 No?

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:26 I'll introduce you to Olaf, right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 Okay. Okay.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:29 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:10:29 I saw the movie Frozen.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:31 I didn't see that one.

Joe Rogan 1:10:31 Oh, Olaf's the little snowman.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:33 I didn't... Oh, you're, you got younger kids.

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:36 I missed that one. Mine are older.

Joe Rogan 1:10:39 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:39 Anyway, sorry. So Ed Mitchell was talking to this hot chick in... No.

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:43 The- the hot old man.

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:44 And, uh, and- and- and the story broke because the- the- the Swedish psychic could not resist telling, you know, leaking to the press that he had done these experiments.

Joe Rogan 1:10:53 What experiments were they?

Annie Jacobsen 1:10:54 Well, psychics train on these little cards called Zener cards, right? So, like, you have a s- different symbols on them and, you know, one- one person... That's how they decide whether or not they're being psychic. Like, there would be a- a veil between us and I would say, "What are you seeing?" Right? And you would call it out. So it's like a control system. And Mitchell had these items with him on the way to the moon and did these experiments to try to see whether you could have a psychic connection with someone back on Earth.

Joe Rogan 1:11:26 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:11:27 I mean, he, that was, you know...

Joe Rogan 1:11:29 Did it work?

Annie Jacobsen 1:11:30 Well, no, and he took notes. He showed me the notes. It was so wild to be at his house in Florida and he pulls out this old spiral notebook with, like, water stains on it that actually went to the moon.

Joe Rogan 1:11:41 Hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:11:42 I was like, "Wow, this is really something else." I mean, it was one of those moments in time where you're just like... I don't know, there was a feel- there was a feeling of sadness around all of it.

Joe Rogan 1:11:55 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:11:56 With Ed Mitchell sitting there in his, um, you know, his chair and, uh, talking to me about what it was like to be an Apollo astronaut. On the walls, and with a lot of these sources with, like, incredible amounts of awards on the walls, but what does that mean after time passes, right?

Joe Rogan 1:12:13 So his experiments didn't work, but he still believed in psychic powers.

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:17 Yes. I mean, and that's, and he... Okay, so what were we saying? He was ridiculed, you know? And he had such a tough time with it, and so the people who propped him up and the people who gave him a lot of encouragement had sort of more radical ideas as he grew older, and I think they-

Joe Rogan 1:12:36 Who were these people?

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:37 You know, conspiracy theorists who-

Joe Rogan 1:12:38 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:38 ... really kind of used him because he was an Apollo astronaut, and so he was so much more famous than any of them would ever be, and they really took advantage of him, I think.

Joe Rogan 1:12:49 So you think they manipulated him with information and tried to get him more and more enthusiastic about their-

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:55 I mean, it's speculation-

Joe Rogan 1:12:56 ... obsessions?

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:56 ... on my part, but you kind of go where the love is.

Joe Rogan 1:12:58 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:58 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:12:58 He was an older guy too.

Annie Jacobsen 1:12:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:59 And I- I'd seen some interviews with him, uh, a- as he was getting older and older, and he seemed to be having some difficulties-

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:08 ... like, thinking about things clearly. And-

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:10 And people take advantage of that.

Joe Rogan 1:13:12 Yeah, he was really obsessed with, uh, extraterrestrial life. It was really interesting-

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:17 ... because didn't he claim that he had seen something while he was, uh, up in space?

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:24 I think people helped him make that claim.

Joe Rogan 1:13:27 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:27 That was my understanding of it, of reporting it. I mean, I stayed away from some of the crazier-... uh, speculative things about him 'cause I, what I was really interested in when I was writing that book was how his authority and power allowed the program to get funding, right?

Joe Rogan 1:13:43 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:43 'Cause so much of this is, it's like, "Who's funding this stuff and why?" And it really does come down to authority, which is always-

Joe Rogan 1:13:52 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:52 ... a, which is always a narrative that I find fascinating, right? How do people get the authority to say go on these programs-

Joe Rogan 1:13:59 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:13:59 ... or, you know, "We should do the..." Y- I mean, the question you asked of, like, "How does... who's in charge?" Right?

Joe Rogan 1:14:07 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:07 And in all of this, uh, what I learned more than anything is that the Office of the President has a lot more power than I think any of us are aware.

Joe Rogan 1:14:17 Oh, I'm sure. What... Did you find anything about Ed Mitchell? Did he say anything about, um... See if he said anything about seeing a UFO or seeing-

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:25 ... extraterrestrial life.

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:27 But the problem is, if he believes that, boy, you know, if, if he was talked into-

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:14:32 ... saying that, you gotta wonder about a lot of the other things that he said as well. The other thing is, as these guys get older, that becomes their career.

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:41 Their career becomes discussing their experiences. And the more outrageous those experiences are, the better the career is.

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:49 It's, it's absolutely true.

Joe Rogan 1:14:50 They change their stories, you know.

Annie Jacobsen 1:14:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:51 Like Michael Collins changed his story. His story when he just got back from the moon, (clears throat) excuse me, when he just got back from the moon, his story was that they couldn't see any stars. But then as he got older, he wrote in depth in his book in, I think it was in the '90s, you know, decades later, how vivid the stars were and how incredible it was out there with no atmosphere. But there's a press conference r- when he came back from the moon, right after the Apollo 11 m- moon launch, he was talking about he couldn't see any stars. So everybody's like, "Well, what, what is it?" The, you know, they, uh, there's c-... They get lost, right? They're older. It's been so many years since whatever they did when they were working with NASA. And really, it becomes... That's their focal point of attention, like what the, where they get their attention from and where they make their career is from their attention. And so they start telling these inconsistent stories.

Annie Jacobsen 1:15:46 I mean, one of the great perils of, you know, living on your laurels is exactly-

Joe Rogan 1:15:52 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:15:52 ... that.

Joe Rogan 1:15:52 Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:15:52 And it's why, I mean, like, a guy like Billy Waugh, I was so intrigued by, that he was constantly reinventing-

Joe Rogan 1:16:00 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:00 ... his own role within the CIA, as he talked to me about at length, because he never wanted to just become one of those has-beens, right?

Joe Rogan 1:16:09 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:09 So his cover later became just another old man, which is, like, super interesting. Like, he was in Sudan in the '90s, and he actually took the first reconnaissance photographs of Osama bin Laden before bin Laden was on anybody's radar, except for the CIA's. And his, I mean, how do you run a... He, he said to me, "How do you run around Sudan, which is a country made up of, like, really tall, Black Dinka tribesmen-

Joe Rogan 1:16:36 Mm-hmm.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:37 ... if you're a five-foot-eight old white guy who's 72?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:16:41 (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:41 You know, supposed to get reconnaissance photographs-

Joe Rogan 1:16:43 Right.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:43 ... of bin Laden, right?

Joe Rogan 1:16:44 What did he do, like, wear golf shirts and wander around?

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:46 He, uh, you, no, he w- I have a photograph of him. He wore, like, you know those socks, like, that go all the way up-

Joe Rogan 1:16:52 Uh-huh.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:52 ... to your sh- mid-shin.

Joe Rogan 1:16:53 Oh, he dressed like a dork, yeah.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:54 Yes, and little shorts-

Joe Rogan 1:16:56 Oh.

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:56 ... and a sweatband over his head.

Joe Rogan 1:16:57 Oh. (laughs)

Annie Jacobsen 1:16:57 And he said, "My cover was that I was an old man on a fitness craze." And there he is, running around Sudan. I mean, there's no sidewalks, right? And he's just jogging away. And he said bin Laden's dogs used to come after him and so he would have to run with a lead pipe.

Joe Rogan 1:17:13 What?

Annie Jacobsen 1:17:13 And he would whack the dogs on the nose, and he said-

Joe Rogan 1:17:15 Jesus.

Annie Jacobsen 1:17:15 ... "They stopped coming after me."

Joe Rogan 1:17:17 Wow. Jesus.

Jamie Vernon 1:17:21 I can't find any evidence that he says that he saw aliens, but there's evi- I'm seeing different reports that based off of his conversations