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Home » Joe Rogan Podcast: #2479 – Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli (Transcript)

Joe Rogan Podcast: #2479 – Bob Lazar & Luigi Vendittelli (Transcript)

Editor’s Notes: In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience #2479, Joe Rogan reunites with Bob Lazar and filmmaker Luigi Vendittelli to discuss their new film that meticulously recreates the classified S4 facility. Using a combination of handmade CGI and de-aging technology, the film brings Lazar’s 1989 accounts of reverse-engineering alien “sport model” craft to life in stunning detail. The conversation explores the technical challenges of working with alien propulsion systems, the extreme secrecy of the project, and how modern footage of unidentified aerial phenomena continues to validate Lazar’s decades-old descriptions. It is a deep dive into one of the most fascinating stories in UFO history, offering a visual and narrative return to the desert facility that changed Lazar’s life forever. (April 3, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction and The New Film

JOE ROGAN: We’re up, gentlemen.

BOB LAZAR: Hey, Joe.

JOE ROGAN: Great to see you again, Bob.

BOB LAZAR: Same here. Long time.

LUIGI VENDITTELLI: Joe.

JOE ROGAN: You are still to this day the most watched ever podcast we have ever done. That’s on YouTube.

BOB LAZAR: That’s just unreal. It’s unreal.

JOE ROGAN: 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 S-4 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?

Recreating S-4: The Technology Behind the Film

LUIGI VENDITTELLI: 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. So everything you see is all handmade. 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 Papoose 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 — 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.”

JOE ROGAN: So does he look anything like Barry?

BOB LAZAR: Actually, he does. He does.

LUIGI VENDITTELLI: That’s why we chose him.

BOB LAZAR: Yeah. Yeah.

JOE ROGAN: Where is the actual Barry now?

BOB LAZAR: I don’t 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 the initial release of all the information.

JOE ROGAN: Yeah, it seems like — well, 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’re holding on to a secret for 20, 30, 40 years.

BOB LAZAR: I guess these guys were lifers though. I mean, they spent most of their time there. They spent at least 2 weeks at a time and had 1 week off. So they stayed at the base. I mean, these guys were hardcore. I had just come in on the project, so I don’t know what happened to them. I’d love to know.

I suspect that Dennis Mariani, my supervisor, died. I’ve seen people track him down, all the way 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 at least they were able to track him down, but I’ve never heard of any leads on Barry or Rene or anybody like that.

Watching the Recreation: An Emotional Experience

JOE ROGAN: What is it like seeing the recreation of it in a film? Because 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?

BOB LAZAR: 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 can describe something 100 times, and until you actually make a picture, it doesn’t become clear.

But this took years. I think it was like 5 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 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 how that made me feel, but it felt like I was teleported back there.

And that’s when I really developed an admiration for Luigi’s talent. I said, I’m buying this, and flew out to Canada a couple of times. I didn’t have much to do with the film other than, I guess, a couple of 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 3 years working on it.