The 25th anniversary of the Lazar saga...

a reply to: Guyfriday

George Knapp wasn't some green horned journalist at the time, and neither was the station decision makers. If they had smelled something funny, they would have passed on this piece.

Maybe they were looking to get in to something funny. According to George's WikiPedia entry he would have been a reporter for 7 years or so before the Lazar bit was aired.

The "Promise" where was it at the time, and where is it today?

Well,

At the same time that George Knapp and Bob Lazar were building up the "Promise” in 1989, Bill Moore, at a MUFON conference in another state of the Union, was taking a hammer to the "Promise" by detailing his direct involvement in a program carefully designed to feed disinformation to the American UFO community.



At the beginning of the decade, in 1980, Paul Bennewitz, the most noted recipient of Moore's disinformation, had begun insisting that he was witnessing an ongoing alien invasion from his backyard. It didn't help matters that Moore was passing Paul documents that Moore had received from his “government contact” (Doty) that confirmed the Air Force's interest in what Bennewitz was seeing and validated Paul's worst fears about the alien invasion.

The story regarding Paul Bennewitz' belief that there is an underground base full o' aliens at Dulce, NM (one can only guess where he may have heard that) began to get traction then, too, and spread throughout the rest of the eighties and on. 1980 was also the year that Bill Moore and Charles Berlitz released their book The Roswell Incident, which re-ignited interest in the long-dead subject of a government cover-up involvoing a crashed spaceship in the New Mexico desert.

Oddly, I think, it was also at the beginning of the 1980s when Area 51 began to develop in to the thing of legend and lore that we know it as today. Local archeologists reported in 1979 that the Air Force had begun to clamp down on anyone other than the military having access to Groom Lake. Hunters, hikers, everyone that once had access were told that they had to stay away, and they were told it was because “it was in the interest of public saftey and national defense”. Then in 1981 the Air Force requested from the government an additional 89,000 acres of the surrounding environs and was given it. By 1984 security was all over the place.

In 1983 Linda M. Howe was shown an “executive briefing” by a man she later fingered as Rick Doty, the AFOSI agent that was working with Moore. 18 months later Jaime Shandera received the same documents in the mail. Jaime would only allow Bill Moore and Stanton Freidman to see the documents, but in 1987 the three had their story “scooped” out from underneath them by British writer Timothy Good, after which the MJ-12 documents became part of the public mainstream and rocketed to notoriety. Our concept of “The Aviary” comes from Doty and Moore.

The Aquarius Briefings/MJ-12 Documents are the foundation for virtually all post-1979 UFO lore and I wonder sometimes how far the MJ-12 documents would have made it if it weren't, for instance, for folks like William Cooper, who was right there in 1988-89 to corroborate the story reflected in these documents just as Moore was revealing his involvement in passing the disinformation off to Bennewitz and others as real.

All of that and much more was what was happening at the time that George Knapp's series aired on KLAS.

I am also wondering just how “green” Mr. Knapp's “horn” might have been before stepping in to this rich, mulchy historical milieu.

originally posted by: mirageman
Did the people at A51 need to bring attention to the base for some reason? What reason?

Is Area 51 dominated by a particular aerospace company, like Northrup? Calling attention to it might throw a monkey wrench into their machinery there, squelch some of their R&D there and mess up some contracts that could go to other companies. Might have boiled down to nothing more than some corporate espionage. After all, there is only billions of dollars at stake.

Another scenario might have to do with what happened when Area 51 achieved its notoriety. It was allowed to expand its territory and grab a lot more of the local land. Same kind of thing happened with Vandenberg AFB after 9/11. They swooped in and claimed and closed several beaches to the north of the base supposedly in an effort to decrease the chance of spies hanging out there. It's just all part of an ongoing, long-game land acquisition plan.

a reply to: Bybyots

Yeah, when it's all laid out like that, it appears a grand Space Opera with a huge supporting cast. If it ties into Roswell or Aquarius or MJ12, then the tracking of the mythology is a matter of scholastics. Or armchair investigative journalism.

Could it all be based on nuggets of truth as some are convinced? Sure...I guess. Doesn't compute for me, however. It once did...then I researched Roswell and associates like I wanted to know the truth, because I did, and something far different than ET seemed to be at center. DOD disinfo related to national security? That one has good historical context. Social Engineering? Maybe. A grand experiment to change belief systems? That's an interesting area to research for a very good reason or two. A little sumthin' sumthin' in the cause of Globalism?

Bob could be singular and his story may have nothing to do with the overall ufo-myth-ology. He may have just appropriated bits of it for his own tale. But seeing as how John Lear straddles the stories of both Bennewitz and Bob...well, to a detective, or a journalist, connections and coincidence are of particular note. Doesn't that make sense, George?

I like you and the way you've handled yourself here, Mr. Knapp, so I hope you understand that I'm looking for answers just like you, and I hope to have some of mine answered by you. I'm also trying to figure out how good you are at framing questions. That is, not only the questions you ask those you interview, but THOSE you ask yourself about the history of modern "ufology" and some of the folk that you have met and worked with over the years.

How do you rate Jacques Vallee's integrity? Have you read Vallee's Forbidden Science, Journal II? Maybe some of the things he relates there is pertinent to this discussion.

Now, having said all that, I also admit to having an affinity for Bob and his tale. I'm in the, "I wanna believe," category, too. I'll certainly tune in to the upcoming special.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Is Area 51 dominated by a particular aerospace company, like Northrup? Calling attention to it might throw a monkey wrench into their machinery there, squelch some of their R&D there and mess up some contracts that could go to other companies. Might have boiled down to nothing more than some corporate espionage. After all, there is only billions of dollars at stake.

That is another interesting theory. Was Bob Lazar actually part of a corporate espionage plot? Either knowingly or unknowingly. The times they were a changing in 1989 too as the Warsaw Pact began to collapse. With it the need for certain types of mass produced military hardware would reduce significantly.

Bob Lazar could well have 'completed his mission' and that may explain why he doesn't often involve himself in the whole murky world of UFOs very often.

Another scenario might have to do with what happened when Area 51 achieved its notoriety. It was allowed to expand its territory and grab a lot more of the local land. Same kind of thing happened with Vandenberg AFB after 9/11. They swooped in and claimed and closed several beaches to the north of the base supposedly in an effort to decrease the chance of spies hanging out there. It's just all part of an ongoing, long-game land acquisition plan.

Could be an attempted 'land grab'. But then it seems to be a rather long winded and strange way to go about it all. But this is a strange topic as well. So never rule anything out.

I think the guys Lazar associated himself with may be significant to this story as others have alluded to in the thread. In fact this is actually a "UFO" story where the UFOs play a very minor role.

a reply to: The GUT

Bob could be singular and his story may have nothing to do with the overall ufo-myth-ology. He may have just appropriated bits of it for his own tale.

Hi TG,

It might be helpful here to realize how something else changed as the 70s turned in to the 80s. A new genre of science fiction was born called Cyberpunk.

One of the defining elements of Cyberpunk is that its proponents (such as Rucker, Sterling and Gibson) did away with a feature that had always plagued science fiction: narrative exposition, otherwise known as the "Infodump".

Here take a look at an example from William Gibson's Count Zero from 1986:

They sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni ...

-Count Zero by William Gibson

See there? No infodump. You are just left to figure out what a SLAMHOUND is and what it has to do with pheromones on your own. You have to fill in the blanks.

What Lazar does is try to baffle people with a huge dump of pseudo-information while only lightly tapping the nodes that relate him to the rest of the whole mess. Like his I.D. badge with MAJ printed on it.



We are left to fill in the blanks on our own, and you know what powerful blank-fillers UFOologists are, even just the armchair ones.

originally posted by: Bybyots
a reply to: The GUT


What Lazar does is try to baffle people with a huge dump of pseudo-information while only lightly tapping the nodes that relate him to the rest of the whole mess. Like his I.D. badge with MAJ printed on it.

What's this badge then?

a reply to: zazzafrazz

Lazar's "MAJ Badge"




S4 allegedly is the location Bob worked at.

DS possibly "Disc Storage"

ETL Extra Terrestrial Laboratory

WX Work Transfer










Of course there is a problem in that a US Department of Naval intelligence is not known to exist whilst there is the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence).

Also the badge is supposedly a fake

But I think bybots made his point well about ufologists filling in the blanks

Hmmm
I'll read up on the badge part.

If he was telling porkie pies, 25 years is a looooong time to keep it going, what an exhausting existence.

I think Bob Lazar is still living in the dreamland created for him, having watched a few of his descriptions of events years apart which are told pretty much word for word the same and lacking in any detail it all comes across as recalling suggestion and false memory, he suspected as much early on and should have stayed with that.

He contacted hypnotherapist Layne Keck of Serenus Clinical Hypnosis in Las Vegas because there were a couple of days where he remembered only going out in a plane and coming back, but nothing in between. He suspected mind-control had been performed on him.

Under hypnosis, Lazar recalled intense drilling, threatening actions taken against him, and his drinking of “pine” which the hypnotherapist said was similar to the “Orion Method” of regimented hypnosis used by the military.

Lazar PDF

To take him out of his false reality would require persistent and challenging demand for detail outside of the usual script, but all interviewers only seem to pander to the delusion, and thus to some extent are part of the problematic propagation.

a reply to: Kantzveldt
How utterly fascinating, K. Has me thinking.

Also, do I recall some pretty convincing testimony--maybe even documentation--of UFO 'mock-ups' supposedly used to 'spring" on unsuspecting trainees for a brief time and then evaluate their recall, reactions, etc.?

Bob Lazar: A Manchurian Candidate of sorts? It would explain a lot of the catch-22's that have so many of us that know we should/Do know better still scratching our heads.

a reply to: The GUT

Yes another fun story brought to you by 'The Orion Method', but like i said i watched him a few times and he is clearly in some sort of comfort zone when narrating the story exactly as scripted, anything challenging would cause mental confusion and in latter interviews he has a handler to step in and avoid such.

It looks like he was given the same ancient alien script to read that others were, but if you watch his own 40 minute presentation he only gives a few minutes to it, his enthusiasm lies in theories of gravity and propulsion, and he was purposely targeted to provide misinformation in those areas and be credible whilst doing so. We should recognize the pattern were he is not only directed to go to the perimeter and observe a staged event thus reinforcing his own delusion but propagating it in others.

Zeta Reticula and the Grays then not his main area of interest but still showing through as part of his conditioning, in the featureless interior of the craft he supposedly entered he does at least note the honeycomb/hexagonal flooring, the same concern with interlocking hexagonals occurs in the more recent Orion meme we saw propagated here, and relates to Reticulum, a second chamber of an animal such as a sheep's stomach being honeycomb in terms of internal lining, or interlocked hexagonal patterning, in conditioning the concern is obviously more with creating a second chamber of the mind as it were, decorated with the honeycomb, information is then refined within this second chamber, sort of how the reticulum works.

A somewhat sinister 'sheeple' programme then were the Gray is promoted as the balance between the light of our most advanced scientific knowledge and the manipulation of our deepest darkest fears and we are just expected to keep chewing the cud...at least that's my take on things.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Looking through that Lazar PDF transcription Lazar appears to be incorporating elements of the Dulce story. (For those that don't know this involves an alleged 'firefight' in a secret underground base at Dulce, NM in 1979 between US Special Forces and aliens).

There is more...

His main role was to further define the Element 115 which was the primary “fuel” in the reactor and also whose strong nuclear force extended beyond the perimeter of the nucleus (unlike any other element in the Periodic Table) and was used to counter gravity.

My knowledge of Element 115 is fairly sparse but this seems like pseudo-science.

Lazar said he and other scientists read briefings which alleged that the alien vehicles he saw close up in the camouflaged hangers came from “another world: the 4th planet out from the Zeta Reticulum binary star system”

Where have we heard that one before?

There are various memes weaved into Lazar's story that were around during the 1980s and slowly infused themselves into the folklore.

Given the social circles he moved in then would it be stretching it to say that Bob was involved with the Aviary. Perhaps the one member wanting to be forgotten about - maybe he was "Dodo".?


Finally ask yourself would you buy uranium from this guy?

a reply to: Kantzveldt

I guess it's possible and it's not an idea that I'm averse to. Then again, if he was part of an organised hoax, would it be hard to mislead a hypnotherapist?

Bill Cooper is quoted in the linked article and the guy was a committed liar. I found the hazy claim of being shot at rather dramatic too. The 'Q clearance' relates to the Department of Energy and doesn't have '34 levels.' The wiki notes a popular novel that was released in 1986.

There's a reference to Huff apparently saying that the 'the military were amazed that the drugs and hypnosis had not worked.' This would represent a confirmation that Lazar's stories were truthful and seems counter-intuitive if they were purportedly seeking to silence him...or trying to shoot him.

For the sake of argument, let's say Lazar was actually working with the 'alien' saucers? Would an employee be provided with chapter and verse of not only the locations of other craft but also a history of strife between humans and aliens? An engineer wouldn't have a 'need to know' for any of that.

To expand on my doubts, if there was a mind-control/hypnotic narrative being implanted in his memory, would they really be so extravagant and plot-driven? Would they 'program' someone with a narrative that's so full of holes and inviting of incredulity? Would it even be possible?

a reply to: Kandinsky

Yes it's certainly possible to implant such false memory, bear in mind that when he went to the hypnotist it was because he suspected they were trying to erase memory in order to cover up what he had seen, so they would be coming at things from completely the wrong direction, and there is also the often seen pattern of creating confusion and paranoia in order to stop the target thinking clearly, and set them off running in the direction you want them too.

Everything was organized to give the impression that the problem lay in what he had seen which would reinforce the delusion, shaken well stirred and needing to be heard...

a reply to: mirageman

Element 115 is factual and helped give credibility, at the time that was leading edge theory. I don't know if he had any contact with 'Aviary' members, though he did seem to have an interest in brothels which have ever been the happy hunting ground of intelligence agencies.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Yes Element 115 has been confirmed and it is an element that does not exist naturally on earth. Uranium is the heaviest element that can be found. All elements heavier can only be synthesized and have a half life measured in nano-seconds.

There are theories that these heavy elements can reach a level of stability without decaying into other elements rapidly. But we have never been able to prove it.

The part that sounds to me like pseudo science is how element 115 can have a "strong nuclear force extended beyond the perimeter of the nucleus that counters gravity".

Now that may eventually be proven correct.

But I don't understand how this element supposedly acts as an opposing force to gravity. I am fairly sure no one will come on here and explain that to us. And that is why I think, at this moment in time, it all sounds like pseudo-science.

I said earlier in the thread that this is one UFO tale where the UFOs are relegated to a minor, almost irrelevant, role. The real story is fathoming out why Bob Lazar went public in 1989 and whether any of it has an element (115) of truth in it.

I love his story and wholeheartedly believe that Lazar is the real deal. George is a great journalist and is the only one that actually took the time to do the research to find the facts. The facts say Bob Lazar did work on alien flying saucers.

My favorite part of his story which made me believe him even more so was when he told us about them taking a gravity wave generator and pointing it at a candle, watching the flame freeze, yet still emit light. He made a great point that if the things indeed warp space then how is the light from the candle still reaching their eyes? That just blew my mind and made me think that there's soooo much more to physics that we don't understand.

a reply to: mirageman

I think he's saying we just have our physics wrong and it's gravity holding them together. I hope it is proven correct soon! I so want to ride in a starship before I die

originally posted by: NiZZiM
a reply to: mirageman

I think he's saying we just have our physics wrong and it's gravity holding them together. I hope it is proven correct soon! I so want to ride in a starship before I die

Sorry I don't really think that explains how element 115 cancels out the force of gravity? I seriously doubt anyone on the planet can.

I am certainly no Albert Einstein but I do try to understand the world around me and how science is the best method for doing so. So far this does not compute.

Cheese and rice,

I'm really tripping out on something right now. It took Stephen Spielberg 4 years to finally have Close Encounters of the Third Kind made in 1977.

Then only 1 year later, Stanton Friedman interviews Jesse Marcel in 1978.

What's trippin' me out is: where the hell did Close Encounters come from? With its little big-headed aliens, and gangly pale also-big-headed aliens? I just somehow can't get over the fact that CEotTK has no Roswell in it whatsoever. Why does all this crazy cold-war UFO madness seem to start with the CeotTK overture and then just race off like some mad decade-long Warner Bros. inspired symphony?

And the whole crazy cast of characters are known-entities now, from Bennewitz and Doty, to Phil Schneider (that guy who said he was the only survivor of the “Dulce Firefight”) and Bob Lazar.

The whole thing, all 36 years of it, seems to sort of shrink when it is all put in to some kind of historical context, it all just seems so silly now that it makes me wanna go...



Has anyone else seen the film recently? Close Encounters?

Meanwhile, this guy Dan Willis on YouTube has posted a video just last year that he “personally filmed”. It starts with a rare look at the MJ12 license plate that was on Bob Lazar's corvette and was filmed in 1993 in Rachel, Nevada. It also has Bob L. discussing element 115. Note the dramatic hi-tech military camo-net that is the backdrop for the podium. That must have set someone back a few bucks at the surplus store. I also seem to be hearing John Lear cueing him a bit.

Also, what's up with 1:23:30 in the video? Bob Lazar mentions how he brought a 9mm pistol along with a group that included women when he took them all out to the desert to look for spaceships because he “Didn't want to get caught.” He didn't want to get caught so badly that he was going to shoot somebody? Presumably these “delta force” types that he swears were all over the place!?

Not even remotely believable. The whole story that he follows with is just beyond NLBS.