Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2479 - Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli
Uploaded: 2026-04-03T17:00:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2479 - Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-04-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2479 - Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-04-03. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2479 - Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
We're up, gentlemen.
Hey, Joe.
Great to see you again, Bob.
Same here, long time.
Luigi.
Joe.
You are still to this day the most watched ever podcast we have ever done that's
on YouTube.
That's just unreal.
It's unreal.
It is unreal because it shows you how many people are just absolutely
fascinated by the story.
And what you guys have done in this new film is essentially recreate S4 and
using AI recreate you as a young man in these experiences that you had.
And it was really excellent.
Luigi, you're the one who put the film together.
You figured it all out.
And first of all, what was the technology that you guys used to recreate
everything that we did?
Yeah, I just want to say there's about 10% AI in the film, but there's 90% Blender.
And that's actually handmade CGI.
And even the de-aging of Bob Lazar, we scanned Bob, we went over to his house,
scanned his face, took a process of de-aging him through that, then creating a
digital model of Bob in different ages, and then placing him in the environment.
And then in some instances at the very end, we perfected or kind of put a bow
on it with a little touch of AI.
But the whole thing is handmade.
So the craft, the environment, the papoos lake, the facility, the equipment,
and the people were all made.
And some of the people are actually real actors that we put in there.
So it's not, it's, it's a, there's one of the guys that is Barry in the film is
a guy called Luis Martinez that's been working with me for the past 10 years.
And he laughs at it because he goes, I can't believe I'm Barry.
You know, so.
Does he look anything like Barry?
Actually, he does.
He does.
That's why we chose him.
Yeah, yeah.
Where's Barry, the actual Barry now?
I don't know.
You know, I kind of thought at one point after all this happened, we would at
least hear from one of those guys.
But I never heard from anybody after, you know, after the, the initial release
of all the information.
Yeah.
It seems like, wow, I don't know.
If people are able to keep secrets for this long, it's got to be very difficult
to just blurt it out.
Like, you know, you're holding on to a secret for 20, 30, 40 years.
It's like.
I guess these guys were lifers, though.
Yeah.
I mean, they spent most of their time there.
They spent at least two weeks at a time and had one week off.
So they stayed at the base.
I mean, these guys were hardcore.
I had just come in on the project, you know.
So I don't know.
I don't know what happened to him.
I'd love to know.
I suspect that Dennis Mariani, my supervisor, died.
I've seen people track him down, you know, all the way to point to speaking to
his family.
And they said, yeah, he had some classified job out in the desert or something.
And they showed me his gravestone and stuff.
So, you know, at least they were able to track him down.
But I've never heard of any leads on Barry or Renee or anybody like that.
What is it like seeing the recreation of it in a film?
Because, I mean, essentially it was your direction, for lack of a better word,
your description of it, you telling them exactly how everything was laid out.
And then once they recreated it, what is that feeling like when you watch it?
Well, the final product is absolutely mind-blowing.
Because, as I've said to Luigi, it looks like you guys downloaded that out of
my brain.
I mean, you know, you can describe something a hundred times.
And until you actually make a picture, it doesn't become clear.
But, you know, this took years.
I think it was like five and a half years from when I first met Luigi.
And he said, yeah, I can do this.
And the quality kept improving to where he started showing me pictures.
And I went, Jesus, that's really it.
It's not really it.
It's really it.
And, I mean, it blew me away.
Later on, he showed me a 3D environment where I could put goggles on and move
around inside.
I mean, that made the hair stand up on my arms.
It was unbelievable.
So, I don't know if I could really describe how that made me feel.
But it felt like I was teleported back there.
And that's, you know, that's when really I developed an admiration for Luigi's
talent.
I said, you know, I'm behind this.
And flew out to Canada a couple times.
I didn't have much to do with the film other than, I guess, a couple times
going out there and going,
no, that's right.
That's the wrong color.
Move this here.
Do that.
But those guys spent over three years working on it.
And, you know, what they, and they never showed me anything.
You know, I speak to Luigi, you know, a couple times a month.
And, you know, he'd always say, oh, my God, you won't believe this.
I said, show me.
No, it's not, it's not done yet.
So, I really didn't get it to see anything until close to the end.
But when I did, really, without trying to sound dramatic, it really put tears
in my eyes going that, that's it.
That's it.
You did it.
Just stop.
It's perfect.
Well, I had the pleasure of watching the movie with you and sitting there with
you.
There was a bunch of times in the movie you were like.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, you could tell.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I swear I could feel that place.
I could feel it watching that movie.
It just, it really freaks me out because, as I've said before, it's not like
what I saw.
It's exactly what I saw.
It's perfect.
It's just like Luigi was at S4 with a camera.
So, it worked.
It's very unique.
It worked.
It's a very unique documentary in that regard.
And watching it with you, seeing you experience this thing.
And then me trying to imagine what it's like for you.
You're this young scientist who gets brought in on this thing without much
explanation.
And then, all of a sudden, you're confronted by this craft.
And, you know, the way it's broken down in the film.
And you get to actually see you viewing this thing and being in the presence of
this thing for the first time.
It's just very, I could just only imagine what that must have been like for you.
And it's so weird to watch you watch it again and see your wheels spin.
Yeah, yeah.
What the fuck happened to my life, man?
What did they do to me?
What did they make me experience?
Like, what the hell?
Yeah.
I really can't fill in the blanks there.
I want to just say that there was a time when Bob got angry at me a lot because
I wouldn't show him.
And he was like, come on, show me.
And I said, it's not ready yet.
I don't want to show you something.
But at a certain point, we had to.
And Bob started remembering more stuff when you saw it.
Yeah, that's true.
It really made a big difference when he showed me some things and, you know,
walking down the corridor here in turn.
Oh, stop.
Wait, there's another door there.
I mean, it was like I was going back into the facility and really brought, I
mean, actually seeing it again, really brought some things back that I had
completely forgotten about.
So, that, you know.
Well, what's really fascinating is for people that don't know your story, you
came up with a story, you talked to George Knapp.
And was it 89?
88.
88?
88, 89.
So, late 80s, you've essentially told the exact same story all these years.
And then, within the last, you know, 9, 10 years, we've started to get all
these reports.
There was the New York Times story.
There was the Go Fast video and the FLIR video.
And all these videos that show a craft that's moving the way you described this
sport model moving.
Right.
Which kind of freaked a lot of people out with the way it rotated and turned.
Rotate.
Yeah.
It does the belly roll, faces at the bottom towards where it's going to go, and
then it takes off.
And, yeah.
It's exactly how you described all those years ago, which is really fucking
crazy.
Well, that's, I mean, that's the way it was.
But it's just, it's crazy because you had this story way, way, way back then.
And everybody's like, this guy's just making things up.
This is all cockamamie bullshit.
And then you see those videos from these fighter jets.
And you're like, wait a minute.
It's moving the exact same way he described.
It's doing what he described in 1989.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's time to take a drink.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Because it's so weird.
I can't, I mean, I've had so many conversations with people.
And, you know, one of the things that comes up is, do you think Bob Lazar is
telling the truth?
And I say, look, I don't know.
There's no way I can know.
But he doesn't seem like he's lying.
I've been around a lot of liars.
Look, nobody can know unless you're there.
You know, I'm the biggest skeptic of all.
Although if you look at Wikipedia, it says I'm a conspiracy theorist or
something.
Yeah, I think it says I'm a far-right podcaster.
Yeah, all right.
I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
But, uh, shit, I'll ask my train of thought now.
Well, they, that, that if, if you, like, basically, are you a conspiracy theorist?
No, you don't even look at this stuff.
Well, you've had, if you have a lie, you have one lie.
And it's amazing because you've told the same one for all these years.
Well, it's got, it's a pretty detailed lie.
It's also not normal.
Like, normally when people lie, they get bored with the same lie and then they
come up with another lie.
And then there's some other story.
There's some, you catch them.
Eventually you catch them.
There's some cockamamie new thing that they come up with.
And it's the type of people that are that deceptive.
I mean, it's just, it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't fit the standard model of someone.
Well, there are other people involved with it.
I mean, this is for the first time Gene Huff finally is on film, you know,
because when I had the, you know, the test flight information, um, it was one
of the, not one of the, he was the first person I told about that.
And, uh, you know, we were all able to go out and, and see it.
And so everybody knew that I wasn't crazy.
Um, it was.
And then also all the confirmation that you were being fucked with that, you
know, when you're in the gym, they would show up and open up your locked car
doors and open up your trunk and leave it there.
So you'd go out there and see it.
They'd go to your house when you weren't there.
Yeah.
They were even, right.
They were even following George Knapp and, and, uh, I mean, all of us, anybody
that had anything to do with it at that time, uh, they were keeping eyes on.
It was, uh.
Not just eyes, but a lot of intimidation tactics, just letting you know,
letting you know that they could touch you.
Yeah.
So I, I've really worked for decades to push this out of my mind.
So it's always tough to bring it back, you know, and, and talk about it.
And it's, yeah, although it might be funny now, it wasn't funny then at all.
Um, it was a really stressful time and still is a very stressful thing for me.
I know it's so many years ago, but do you remember the thought that came in
your mind when you realized that it wasn't ours?
Do I remember the thought?
Do you remember the experience?
Yeah, I remember the feeling.
Of recognizing, because initially you saw the American flag sticker.
Yeah, when I saw the American flag, when I first went in, the first time I went
in through the hangar door instead of around the back, um, you know,
I slid my hand across and saw the American flag and I thought, oh my God, you
know, this explains the UFO nuts, you know?
Um, it's ours.
Yeah, this is ours.
This is a new top secret fighter.
We came up with a new propulsion system and, uh, you know, it explains
everything because I never believed in flying saucers.
I thought people were nuts.
Um, but when they started reviewing everything with me, they were trying, I was
trying to replace somebody or they were trying to,
use me to replace somebody as quick as possible.
And, um, they had two directives.
One was to, directive one was to duplicate the technology with available
material at any cost, which is exact verbatim what it was.
And directive two was to be able to disable this technology at a distance at
an