George Knapp News: A Navy Witness, a Summer of UFO Claims and a Rebuilt S-4
One week it's a Navy senior chief describing four Tic Tacs rising out of the Pacific. The next it's a Canadian businessman rebuilding Bob Lazar's secret hangar in virtual reality.
That's a fairly normal stretch in George Knapp's world.
Knapp is the Las Vegas television reporter who put Lazar on air in 1989, and these days he co-hosts the podcast WEAPONIZED with filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, where the UFO story never quite sits still.
A new episode might revisit an older encounter, add what happened to the witness after he went public, or roll a whole summer of claims into one conversation.
Knowing which kind of update you're opening makes catching up a lot easier.
Three episodes cover the ground as of September 8, 2026, and one of them is the right place to start. First, the two hosts.
Who Are Knapp and Corbell?
Knapp joined KLAS-TV in Las Vegas in 1981 and is still reporting there, with two Peabody Awards on the shelf. His UFO reputation dates to May 1989, when he interviewed a man who said he'd worked on alien craft near Area 51; by that November the man had a name, Bob Lazar.
Our George Knapp profile covers that career in full. The short version is that witnesses talk to him, and they've been doing it for decades.
Corbell describes himself as a contemporary artist and investigative filmmaker, and he calls Knapp his mentor in journalism. Together they host WEAPONIZED, a show that promises to "pull back the veil on the world of the known, to explore the unexplained."
The newest episode shows how a story keeps going long after the witness has said his piece.
September 8: Alex Wiggins on What Happened After He Spoke
Alex Wiggins is an active-duty Navy senior chief with about 23 years of service. On the evening of February 15, 2023, he was aboard USS Jackson in a warning area off the Southern California coast when the ship's sensors picked up something odd.
According to his account, he went outside to look and saw a glowing Tic Tac-shaped object rise out of the ocean, join three similar objects, and depart with them in a tight, synchronized formation. He says the objects showed up on radar and other sensors, and that video was recorded on the ship's infrared camera.
Wiggins told the story publicly on WEAPONIZED and then, on September 9, 2025, at a House Oversight hearing on UAP transparency. He was the first active-duty member of the Navy to testify publicly before Congress about a UAP encounter, and Knapp sat on the same witness panel.
That's the sighting story. WEAPONIZED episode 122 is about what came next.
It's a previously unreleased conversation recorded live at Contact in the Desert, which bills itself as the world's largest UFO conference and sets up each year at a resort in Indian Wells, California. Knapp and Corbell return to the encounter, then let Wiggins describe the reporting process that followed.
Enter AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which the Pentagon set up in July 2022 to investigate UAP reports.
- Read Luis Elizondo's account of his involvement in the Pentagon's UAP work
- Explore the institutional tensions behind the push for greater disclosure
- Compare a former official's perspective with hearings, interviews, and public statements
Wiggins says that after he declined to repeat his account inside a classified facility, the office contacted his chain of command. In the words of the episode description, it "eventually raised the possibility of escalating the matter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in order to compel his participation."
That's Wiggins's description of events as presented in the conversation. The episode page doesn't independently establish coercion, and it doesn't settle what the four objects were.
If you've already heard the sighting, the aftermath is the reason to listen. It turns the question from what a witness saw to how he says he was treated once his account was out in public.
If that sounds like the deep end for a first listen, the episode before it is the shallow end.
September 2: Catch Up on a Busy Summer
Episode 121 is the show's return from a summer break, and it's built as a catch-up. Knapp and Corbell work through a season of government file and video releases alongside claims about secret programs, presidential briefings and whistleblowers.
The menu is wide. Alleged alien bodies, reverse-engineering programs, reported military operations to "lure" UFOs, and a public tug-of-war between AARO, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI all get their turn.
- Get a broad introduction to the cases and debates that shape UFO research
- Connect historic sightings with more recent questions about secrecy and disclosure
- Choose subjects for deeper reading from a guide covering the wider UFO mystery
It's the sort of conversation that helps when you've seen the headlines but lost track of how they connect. You get the hosts' reactions and interpretations together, instead of piecing them together from scattered clips.
Keep the format in mind as you listen. Discussing a claim in a recap doesn't turn it into a new finding established by the presenters.
This episode gives you the wide shot. For something you can actually look at, scroll back to April.
April 14: A Closer Look at Lazar's Alleged Workplace
Lazar's claim, in one line, is that he worked on recovered flying saucers at a site called S-4 near Area 51, in hangars where he says nine craft were being reverse-engineered. It's the most famous insider story in UFO lore, and it has never come with a floor plan.
A familiar name returns in episode 115, published April 14. The guest is Luigi Venditelli, a Canadian businessman who, by the show's account, fell down the Lazar rabbit hole during the COVID shutdown.
It started with a die-cast model of the craft Lazar nicknamed the Sport Model. It grew into a virtual recreation of the S-4 hangars, and finally into a documentary, S4: The Bob Lazar Story.
- Read Bob Lazar's account of S-4 and his alleged work on unusual propulsion
- Go beyond interview clips with a book-length version of his story
- Compare the memoir with reporting, disputed details, and later retellings
You can see why that would interest people who've spent years hearing about those rooms. A model lets you picture how the descriptions are supposed to fit together, and the episode page says the film shot to the top of the charts on release.
It remains a reconstruction of the account, though, rather than independent documentation of the original installation. Our Bob Lazar and Area 51 article follows the underlying story, and the element 115 timeline covers the scientific comparison attached to it.
Three episodes, three very different kinds of story. Here's how to pick.
Which Episode Should You Try First?
Choose the subject you're trying to catch up on. The newest release isn't necessarily the one that gives you the background you need.
| You're Interested In… | Start With… |
|---|---|
| What Wiggins says happened after going public | September 8, episode 122. |
| The wider summer UFO conversation | September 2, episode 121. |
| The visual reconstruction of Lazar's account | April 14, episode 115. |
If you've been away from the subject for a while, the summer recap is the easiest overview. Then you can spend more time with whichever story catches your attention.
Where Can You Follow the Original Reporting?
The official WEAPONIZED index lists every episode with its date and description. It's the fix for a repost that gives you a dramatic excerpt but leaves out where the conversation came from.
Knapp's Investigation Alien is a separate project: a six-part Netflix docuseries from November 2024 in which, as Netflix puts it, he "investigates new evidence, interviews an array of experts and meets with emerging witnesses who are finally willing to go on the record."
Netflix's official series page is the place to check access in your region.
What Should You Watch for Next?
Much of the September coverage concerns public claims and the treatment of witnesses. None of it settles what the reported objects were.
Wiggins's account leaves one specific development to watch: how his description of AARO's conduct is answered or documented. That's where the next useful update could add something beyond another replay of the sighting.
The episode page signs off with a line that doubles as the show's mission statement: "The witnesses are talking." Your job is easier than Knapp's: pick an episode and start listening.
George Knapp: UFO Reporter, Bob Lazar, Area 51, and Skinwalker Ranch
Jeremy Corbell: UFO Filmmaker, Bob Lazar, Skinwalker Ranch, and UAP Leaks