Joe Rogan Experience #1299 - Annie Jacobsen

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Now? We're live? Three,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Now? We're live? Three, two, one. Boom. Hello, Annie.

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:04

      Hello, Joe.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      Very nice to meet you.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:05

      Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      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.

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:19

      I heard through the grapevine you were a fan.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      I'm a freak when it comes to this stuff.

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:22

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      Do you, what do you think is going on up there?

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:25

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:36

       Hmm.

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:37

       Right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Yeah. Do you think there's any alien stuff up there?

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:41

       I write in the book all about that.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Yeah?

   16. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:42

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Well, tell me.

   18. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:43

       Last 12 pages. You want me to-

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Want me to go to the last 12 pages? (laughs)

   20. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:47

       You wanna read it? (laughs) Um-

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       What do you think?

   22. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:50

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:05

       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-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:30

       Hmm.

   26. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:31

       ... 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."

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:55

       Really?

   28. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:56

       That... Joe, you gotta read the whole book.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:57

       Oh, okay.

   30. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:57

       I mean, this is like a-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So w- …

   1. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:00

      because he participated in our version of the human experiments, because what the Russians do, we do i-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      So w-

   3. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:09

      Look, I've written five books about this.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:10

      We altered people to make them look like aliens?

   5. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:13

      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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      So what'd they do? Take prisoners or something? Like what ... Uh, who did they alter?

   7. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:27

      He said they were handicapped children.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:29

      Oh, Jesus.

   9. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:31

      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)

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:40

       So he's saying that he participated in something that altered handicapped children ... When you say handicapped-

   11. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:47

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       ... do you mean like Down syndrome or something like that?

   13. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:49

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:50

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

   15. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:57

       (sighs) .

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       ... do with this?

   17. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:58

       This is where we get into drops of information coming out.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:01

       Mm-hmm.

   19. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:01

       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-

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       Mm.

   21. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:13

       ... that he felt compelled to con- to confess, if you will.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Mm-hmm.

   23. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:17

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

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:21

       Right.

   25. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:21

       ... "A priest would judge me, and I can tell you won't."

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       Why wouldn't you judge him? I'd judge him.

   27. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:28

       Well, I guess that's why I'm a born journalist, Joe-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       Mmm.

   29. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:31

       ... '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-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:47

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. AJAnnie Jacobsen30:00

      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."

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:56

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AJAnnie Jacobsen30:57

      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?"

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:52

      Mm.

   5. AJAnnie Jacobsen31:52

      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-

   6. JRJoe Rogan32:13

      Mm.

   7. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:14

      ... 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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan32:34

      Mm.

   9. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:34

      That moral puzzle, you know? Why do we, why do we differentiate?

   10. JRJoe Rogan32:41

       Yeah, and who are they willing to do that to? Where do they-

   11. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:44

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:44

       ... draw that line? Like I'm sure you're aware of the story of Jamal Khashoggi-

   13. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:50

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:50

       ... the, uh, journalist who was assassinated by someone.

   15. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:55

       Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:55

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

   17. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:02

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan33:02

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

   19. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:11

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan33:11

       This supposedly was ordered by... Who was it supposedly ordered by? The head of Saudi Arabia

   21. JVJamie Vernon33:18

       Yeah, MBS.

   22. JRJoe Rogan33:19

       Yeah.

   23. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:19

       Mohammed bin Salman.

   24. JRJoe Rogan33:20

       Yeah.

   25. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:20

       I mean-

   26. JRJoe Rogan33:20

       Yeah.

   27. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:20

       ... 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-

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:27

       Because he was saying some things.

   29. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:28

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:28

       Yeah, and that they... this is how they did it.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. AJAnnie Jacobsen45:00

      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?

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:21

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AJAnnie Jacobsen45:21

      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?

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:05

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AJAnnie Jacobsen46:05

      I mean, we have these wars. We keep having these wars. Is it necessary?

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:13

      D- yeah. What do you think?

   7. AJAnnie Jacobsen46:15

      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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:36

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AJAnnie Jacobsen46:36

      And there's a lot built into that, and there's a lot to be said about that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:40

       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-

   11. AJAnnie Jacobsen46:52

       Yes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:52

       ... 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.

   13. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:04

       A- a- a- a- absolutely. I mean when I was-

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:06

       Yeah.

   15. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:06

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

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       Whoa.

   17. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:13

       Right? Or working-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:14

       Really?

   19. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:14

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:15

       What are they doing?

   21. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:16

       Oh my God, they have these little salamanders. I mean, they're showing that-

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:18

       Oh.

   23. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:19

       ... 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.

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       Hmm.

   25. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:40

       Well, that's the same science that allows for cloning.

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:43

       Right.

   27. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:44

       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?'"

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:09

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AJAnnie Jacobsen48:10

       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.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:17

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Then you're desperate and…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      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.

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:30

      Then you're desperate and you're quiet.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

      Yeah.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:32

      But I do think there is something to be said for fate and circumstance.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

      Sure.

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:38

      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-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

      Yep.

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:49

      ... they too can even get complacent, you know?

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:52

       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-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:03

       Yeah.

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:04

       ... in people, you know?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

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

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:12

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:12

       Some children get shot in drive-bys.

   16. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:14

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

       You know, that's just horrible, horrible luck and unfortunate circumstance.

   18. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:19

       Well, h-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       There's a lot of, a lot of it is fortune and fate.

   20. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:22

       How about people getting lost?... right? I'll tell you-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

       Lost Housewife.

   22. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:24

       Okay. So, the book that I told you I wrote on the psychics.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:28

       Phénoménom. One-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       What do you believe about that?

   26. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:31

       Again, I'm neutral, right?

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:33

       I'm not.

   28. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:34

       You're not? Tell me.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

       No.

   30. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:01:34

       I wanna hear what you believe.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:17:31

   I mean, one of…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      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.

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:15:46

      I mean, one of the great perils of, you know, living on your laurels is exactly-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:52

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:15:52

      ... that.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:52

      Yeah.

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:15:52

      And it's why, I mean, like, a guy like Billy Waugh, I was so intrigued by, that he was constantly reinventing-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:16:00

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:00

      ... 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?

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:16:09

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:09

       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-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16:36

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:37

       ... if you're a five-foot-eight old white guy who's 72?" (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:16:41

       (laughs)

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:41

       You know, supposed to get reconnaissance photographs-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:16:43

       Right.

   16. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:43

       ... of bin Laden, right?

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:16:44

       What did he do, like, wear golf shirts and wander around?

   18. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:46

       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-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:16:52

       Uh-huh.

   20. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:52

       ... to your sh- mid-shin.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:16:53

       Oh, he dressed like a dork, yeah.

   22. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:54

       Yes, and little shorts-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:56

       Oh.

   24. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:56

       ... and a sweatband over his head.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:16:57

       Oh. (laughs)

   26. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:16:57

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:17:13

       What?

   28. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:17:13

       And he would whack the dogs on the nose, and he said-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:17:15

       Jesus.

   30. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:17:15

       ... "They stopped coming after me."

Episode duration: 2:37:32