In Brief: Pentagon Calls George Knapp’s Russian UFO Files “Disinformation”

​For the past thirty years, Las Vegas TV reporter and UFO advocate George Knapp has teased a cache of Russian KGB UFO files that he claims to have removed from the country in 1993. He has told different stories about obtaining Russian files. In 1993 Knapp and in 1994 ABC News Primetime Live both claimed to have purchased the files after the fall of the Soviet Union from former KGB operative Boris Sokolov. More recently, he claimed to have “commandeered” the newly posted files, which may or may not be from the same original set (the files previously made public covered 1978-1988, while the new set also covers 1989-1993), and absconded with them. Last month he quietly released the files online on his local news channel’s website, leading to a glowing report in the New York Post this weekend. However, according to New York Post reporter Steven Greenstreet, who did not participating in the writing of the Post’s Knapp article, a senior source in the Pentagon confirmed that the documents are part of a known Russian disinformation campaign and that Congress received a classified briefing on the documents and their Russian disinformation. Naturally, Knapp’s supporters, including podcast partner Jeremy Corbell, have promoted the Post story without acknowledging the disinformation. Interestingly, the files contained a description of a real 1953 Moscow Radio broadcast, which said that “American imperialists had invented a stupid tale for stirring up a war, for intimidating taxpayers and the Congress in order to confirm an excessively high budget.” Some things never change.