Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist, author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She was a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 2009 until 2012. Jacobsen writes about war, weapons, security, and secrets. Jacobsen is best known as the author of the 2011 non-fiction book, , which The New York Times called "cauldron-stirring." She is an internationally acclaimed and sometimes controversial author who, according to one critic, writes sensational books by addressing popular conspiracies.
Books
Her 2011 book, , addresses the Roswell UFO incident. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list for thirteen weeks and has been translated into six languages. Area 51 is being developed into an AMC Series with Gale Anne Hurd as executive producer. Jacobsen's 2014 book, Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America was called "perhaps the most comprehensive, up-to-date narrative available to the general public" in a review by Jay Watkins of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Operation Paperclip was included in a list of the best books of 2014 by The Boston Globe. Leading space historian Michael J. Neufeld gave a negative review of the book: “I cannot endorse Operation Paperclip because: it is error-ridden, it produces no fundamentally new information, it is unbalanced, and its notes are poor.” The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency, was chosen as finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in history. The Pulitzer committee described the book as "A brilliantly researched account of a small but powerful secret government agency whose military research profoundly affects world affairs." The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the Amazon Editors chose Pentagon's Brain as one of the best non-fiction books of 2015. Her next book was published in March 2017: Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. In May 2019, she released her newest book Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins. Apple audiobooks recorded SKV as one of the most popular audiobooks of 2019. The CIA reviewed SKV saying, "Jacobsen has a well-deserved reputation as a good writer and an excellent researcher.”
Television
Jacobsen co-wrote an episode of Tom Clancy's Jack RyanTV series for Amazon Studios. In 2017, Amblin Entertainment and Blumhouse TV bought the rights to her book Phenomena for a scripted TV series, with Jacobsen and X-Files writer/producer Glen Morgan co-writing the pilot script.
In 2004, Jacobsen wrote an article about an incident she witnessed with a group of thirteen foreign nationals on board a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles. Two air marshals came out of cover during flight. FBI and homeland security agents met the aircraft when it landed. In May 2007, the Department of Homeland Security declassified a report about the flight. The men were identified as twelve Syrians, members of a musical group, and a Lebanese, their promoter; all were traveling illegally on expired visas. Eight of the men had "positive hits" for past criminal records and suspicious behavior. They were involved in an earlier incident on an aircraft which had them on the FBI watch list. However, the report noted that the musicians were not terrorists and law enforcement assessments at the time were appropriate.
Her works
Terror in the Skies: Why 9/11 Could Happen Again. Spence Publishing Company, 2005,.
