Bob Lazar : Area 51 & Flying Saucers... The whole story.

a reply to: Jay-morris

Bob has said in past interviews he saw what he assumed was something resembling an alien with the two men in lab coats. But he never directly said, "I saw an alien". It was John Lear who added the hyperbole. Lazar never said "John you will never know what it's like to see your first alien." That doesn't even sound like something Lazar would say but sounds 100% like something John Lear would say. I'm sure Lazar relayed along to Lear the brief glance through the window and what he thought he may have observed but never once have a heard Lazar make the statement he definitely saw aliens or an alien.

I think much of Lazar's story has a bit of hyperbole wrapped into it based on who is retelling it. People sometimes mishear things and then misstate those things, add a word here, detract a word there, etc. It's just what happens to a 30 year old story. I could be wrong but I have never heard Lazar in any of his interviews make that reference to actually seeing aliens.

originally posted by: Outlier13
a reply to: Jay-morris

Bob has said in past interviews he saw what he assumed was something resembling an alien with the two men in lab coats. But he never directly said, "I saw an alien". It was John Lear who added the hyperbole. Lazar never said "John you will never know what it's like to see your first alien." That doesn't even sound like something Lazar would say but sounds 100% like something John Lear would say. I'm sure Lazar relayed along to Lear the brief glance through the window and what he thought he may have observed but never once have a heard Lazar make the statement he definitely saw aliens or an alien.

I think much of Lazar's story has a bit of hyperbole wrapped into it based on who is retelling it. People sometimes mishear things and then misstate those things, add a word here, detract a word there, etc. It's just what happens to a 30 year old story. I could be wrong but I have never heard Lazar in any of his interviews make that reference to actually seeing aliens.

Yeah as far as I know, he said he glanced at two men through a door window, and he saw a small weird figure in a chair with long arms. As far as I know, he thinks it was a dummy. He only saw it in passing and was less than a second.

originally posted by: Outlier13
Are you afraid to do some actual research? Did you watch the movie? It happened.

originally posted by: moebius
Ah yes, the classic cop out non-answer.

PS:
No I did not watch the movie, that is why I am asking.

Rather than silly smug responses, I'll partly help you out here moebius- This is what Lazar said he was told by the FBI as far as the raid and what they were looking for:
"Some paperwork... an old order from 2 years ago about a customer that ordered some potentially toxic material"

Lazars business has been raided before because of what he sells. So it's not out of the question his business being raided or being watched by the government, there's no need for a secret stash of 115. If he owned a toy shop and this happened, then there might be a good argument for it being odd.

I find it hard to believe with the level of security that Lazar himself describes of getting into the facility, that the storage and security of 115 would be so lax that he could steal even the smallest piece and just walk out. I find it ridiculous actually.

"I wonder what Bob Lazars motivation is?"
And here we are 30 years later still talking about him. Manipulative power can be a strong motivation for some people. The action of coming public every once in a while shows he's obviously getting something.

It's funny believers of this tale want you to ignore and write off something that can and has been substantiated by research, education. But they want us to believe and buy into his claimed study of alien spacecraft and so forth, which has not been substantiated given 30 years.
I get it- We're to forget the throughout research that has been done into his education because if we do focus on it, he's a liar and that speaks to his character. When it's asked what makes you question Lazars tale, THIS is one valid reason.

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

Thanks Ectoplasm8. That is about what I've expected.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8

originally posted by: Outlier13
Are you afraid to do some actual research? Did you watch the movie? It happened.

originally posted by: moebius
Ah yes, the classic cop out non-answer.

PS:
No I did not watch the movie, that is why I am asking.

Rather than silly smug responses, I'll partly help you out here moebius- This is what Lazar said he was told by the FBI as far as the raid and what they were looking for:
"Some paperwork... an old order from 2 years ago about a customer that ordered some potentially toxic material"

Lazars business has been raided before because of what he sells. So it's not out of the question his business being raided or being watched by the government, there's no need for a secret stash of 115. If he owned a toy shop and this happened, then there might be a good argument for it being odd.

I find it hard to believe with the level of security that Lazar himself describes of getting into the facility, that the storage and security of 115 would be so lax that he could steal even the smallest piece and just walk out. I find it ridiculous actually.

"I wonder what Bob Lazars motivation is?"
And here we are 30 years later still talking about him. Manipulative power can be a strong motivation for some people. The action of coming public every once in a while shows he's obviously getting something.

It's funny believers of this tale want you to ignore and write off something that can and has been substantiated by research, education. But they want us to believe and buy into his claimed study of alien spacecraft and so forth, which has not been substantiated given 30 years.
I get it- We're to forget the throughout research that has been done into his education because if we do focus on it, he's a liar and that speaks to his character. When it's asked what makes you question Lazars tale, THIS is one valid reason.

There is evidence that he did work as a physicist at Los Alamos National Lab. So, you have to ask yourself why did they deny this? Dont you find that odd?

But more important, why would a company like this employ a person with no education? Dont you find this a bit odd?

Hence the reason I will not straight up say he is lying. He knew too many things, and too many things have come to light. Yes, we all know that debunkers simply do not want this to be true, because they are more worried about being wrong than something like this being true, hence the reason it's all about belief for them too.

There is enough to keep this case very intriguing to me, you just have too look at it without the debunking beliefs and the believer beliefs, and just look at it the way it is.

Hence the reason I will not straight up say he is lying. He knew too many things, and too many things have come to light.

Yep, and at the end of the day, that's what keeps this case interesting.

Personally, it's just difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in his story, as I believe he is like many others I have known of a similar intellect and personality type....so he's prone to exaggerate and even fabricate details. I think a lot of his info about the aliens and taking some of the element to be of this variety. However, I do choose to believe that he was indeed briefly tapped for some fresh insight on a recovered disc.

But, I also feel that his insight, if any, wasn't near as important as he stated (or they would have kept him on it), and that perhaps he was miffed when he wasn't kept on, so then exaggerated and fabricated his role in it.

I know, I know, it's odd to admit that I think he lied, but then believe parts of it, but just going by gut reaction, and knowing too many guys like Bob. It's almost as if they are clones of each other, their personalities are just all that similar.

Incidentally, researching Lazar's claims is what first brought me here to ATS, so many years ago.... (2002).

a reply to: Gazrok

His story is interesting and he is an interesting personality and I get what you mean about people like him. He is/was a charismatic individual, building rocket-cars and corvettes with MJ12 on the plates.. I mean someone who doesn't like attention wouldn't do those kind of things...

I believe there are aspects to his story that have been proved and are believable too, BUT...the parts that are verifiable don't make the parts that aren't, true. That's the issue with the entire thing..What's been embellished and what hasn't?

The government might have tried to erase him from LANL records, purely down to embarrassment potentially and didn't want any negative press / focus on LANL or any questions about the operations they were carrying out there of which I am pretty sure are classified. PR management if you will, not necessarily anything Evil, Shady or Nefarious.

Just a theory of course..

a reply to: pigsy2400

The weirder parts are the details that DO corroborate (like the existence of the base in the first place, not exactly common knowledge then), the bus, the road, the dates and times of tests, etc. Then you have the parts they didn't erase, like him being in the directory, teachers who remember him, etc.

No matter how much is true/false, I do think at some point, they made him a witting disinfo agent. Probably to avoid jail and fines.

Maybe somebody who seems to have seen a UFO might have been drunk or something...Though I myself have happened to see strange flying objects

Isn't it weird how this story is continually mired in all kinds of interesting and unverified accounts of investigation, retellings and anecdotes?

I find it interesting that Corbell in making this documentary, won't document how he came in to posession of the supposed facts that he has gathered in his investigation. And I agree with Kandinsky's point, that it's not revealed how it was verified that the background check of Lazar was affirmed by the person claimed to be doing it. We don't ultimately know if he simply remembers Lazar (e.g. from popular culture), or if he actually performed a background check.

As another poster commented on; I also am intrigued by the way the credits referred to the people actively participating in the documentary. By referring to them as "The cast", it simply doesn't reverberate confidence to the topic presented.

Also, the carrot is shorter than the stick when they imply Lazar revealing something about element 115 in the woods. Will we ever know what was said? It was never adressed at all. Corbell is careful of the surroundings, making sure even their telephones are out of distance, when Lazar is supposed to reveal something we are led to believe are quite substantial. We are left to ponder what this reveal entails. It's not very compelling when we are left with the feeling of being left out. It's just another way of saying "We know something you don't, and you won't get to know... unless we at some point decide to share *wink wink*".

Whatever Bob revealed in this conversation, why should this lead to an FBI raid the following day? Isn't it kind of suspect?

It was a mediocre "documentary" if you want to call it that. But... man, this is still not something I want to buy into.

originally posted by: Droogie
Isn't it weird how this story is continually mired in all kinds of interesting and unverified accounts of investigation, retellings and anecdotes?

I find it interesting that Corbell in making this documentary, won't document how he came in to posession of the supposed facts that he has gathered in his investigation. And I agree with Kandinsky's point, that it's not revealed how it was verified that the background check of Lazar was affirmed by the person claimed to be doing it. We don't ultimately know if he simply remembers Lazar (e.g. from popular culture), or if he actually performed a background check.

As another poster commented on; I also am intrigued by the way the credits referred to the people actively participating in the documentary. By referring to them as "The cast", it simply doesn't reverberate confidence to the topic presented.

Also, the carrot is shorter than the stick when they imply Lazar revealing something about element 115 in the woods. Will we ever know what was said? It was never adressed at all. Corbell is careful of the surroundings, making sure even their telephones are out of distance, when Lazar is supposed to reveal something we are led to believe are quite substantial. We are left to ponder what this reveal entails. It's not very compelling when we are left with the feeling of being left out. It's just another way of saying "We know something you don't, and you won't get to know... unless we at some point decide to share *wink wink*".

Whatever Bob revealed in this conversation, why should this lead to an FBI raid the following day? Isn't it kind of suspect?

It was a mediocre "documentary" if you want to call it that. But... man, this is still not something I want to buy into.

That would mean that Corbell is straight out lying, but Knapp has also come to the conclusion that he worked there prior to area 51. We know that his name was in the directory, so we know he did work there, even though they tried to deny it. Someone remembers him working there as a physisist.

And you have to ask yourself, why would they employ someone with no qualifications?

It a huge story to make up for someone who is not in it for money or attention. I mean, why?

He knew things about area 51 he should not have known about. He knew about test flights etc He passed something like four lie detector tests. I know some people will say that does not prove anything, but those same people would use that against him as evidence if he failed those tests.

People will always believe this, and people will always not believe this, and they will use their beliefs as arguments either way to prove they are right.

Me, I just see it the way it is. He could be telling the truth, he could be lying. But he intrigues me. Mainly because there is evidence that he was there. There is evidence that some of his past work has been erased. He has made no money from this, or craved attention. In fact, he shyed away from it early on and the only reason why he went public was insurance.

At the end of the day, we can argue all we want. Believe him or not believe him, but chances are, we will never know the truth.

a reply to: Jay-morris

I don't imply that he's lying. But he's leaving out substantial important pieces of evidence in my opnion. Unless he can verifiably document and demonstrably show us how the story hangs together with the new evidence he claims exist, we're simply mulling over an old story, and he's embellishing the story further with the "promise" of new evidence that we really don't know exist.

The documentary was also void of any dissenting opinions. I don't feel the wording "Audi alteram partem" (hear the other side") is in alignment with the makings of this documentary, and that's why I'm not looking at this as a documentary.

If some new evidence should emerge that would provide Bob Lazar with the weight of truth or verifiability to his story, we should also know how the newly recovered evidence/facts were aquired, and also know of it's provenance.

I don't want to speculate too much on a fantastic story.

Here's a surprisingly little-known open letter from Jim Oberg a few years back. This letter did make some waves and also, apparently, some fairly scary backlash against Jim by some government heavies. He doesn't talk about this letter these days. More on that at the link.

I've come to respect and like Jim over the years. As a skeptic and science commentator he has benefitted the ufological community in many ways.

I take this letter very seriously and I think most here who read it will too. One of the things he mentions has also been postulated as an explanation for Bob Lazar by a few folk. I've bolded that one in Jim's Open Letter.

Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
Subject: OTHER gov't UFO secrets

From: [email protected]
Date: 26 Apr 1997 14:15:43 GMT 



Open letter to CSETI: 

I applaud CSETI's efforts to strip away the "government secrets prosecution" barrier to the disclosure of people's stories about UFO experiences and I fully support the call for a government declaration that all legal constraints against disclosure be dissolved. I've always felt that claims of fear of such prosecution as an excuse by people not to "go public" was often merely a gimmick not to have to take responsibility for the authenticity of such stories, since as far as I've been able to tell -- and through OMNI's "Project Open Book" we searched far and wide for examples -- nobody has ever been arrested or charged -- much less convicted and sentenced -- for actually doing so. 



But don't stop merely with legalizing disclosure of all -- if any -- government secrets about "real UFOs". I believe there is a far more valuable body of "secrets" that will help understand the decades of UFO phenomena that the world has experienced. This deals with government-related activities which directly or indirectly led to public perceptions that UFOs might be real when they weren't. Sometimes these actions were carefully orchestrated in advance, sometimes they were localized impromptu ad hoc damage- limitation tactics. But from my own experience, they seem to have played a tremendous and widely unappreciated role in inciting and enflaming public interests in UFOs while deflecting public attention from real highly-classified government activities. 



I'm referring to situations where government representatives -- officials, military officers, any employees -- used "UFO" as a convenient camouflage for other official classified activities (such as retrieval of crashed aircraft or nuclear weapons or other objects), or used artificial "UFO stories" (in oral, written, photographic, film, etc.) form as "tracers" in studying the function of security safeguards and personnel psychological responses, or used "UFO" as an excuse (either intended or accidental) to cover-up improper, forbidden, or diplomatically delicate activities (such as aviation incidents involving dangerous accidental or deliberate close passes or intercepts of civilian airliners, or overseas excursions of agents on intelligence missions where deflection of local perceptions was useful, or to conceal from the country of origin the possession of foreign military hardware), or played pranks and jokes on intended or accidental targets, or any other activity that the government -- or any part of it -- wanted to keep hidden, knowing that having it thought of as "UFO-related" would consign it to the never-never- land of myth and nuttiness, thus keeping mainstream media attention to a minimum. And it's worked!! 



Please include such "UFO secrets" in your list of disclosure demands, and ask that any government personnel involved in the use (or misuse and abuse) of such practices be immune from any government prosecution for the actions which led them to take such measures. Once such immunity is verifiably granted, I have my own list of people who have privately talked to me over the years and who were involved in government activities leading to a number of well-known "UFO cases", which can be released and which can help understand where and how much of today's UFO mythology originated.



This is a serious proposal deserving of serious consideration, and promises immensely fruitful results.

The Oberg Files
by Blue Resonant Human, Ph.D.

Whether that has any bearing in Bob's case or not, I think Jim's letter is an important document and actually quite useful to the UFO community at large.

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

Why and how could the FBI reference the private conversation between Corbell and Lazar during a raid on his facility after their conversation about element 115?

It's what is shown in the movie. So do you think Corbell is complicit as well?

a reply to: The GUT

Oberg isn't the first one to postulate as to the use of Ufology as a means of coverup. In my opinion it's one of the most ridiculous theories I've heard from skeptics. Nothing more than a skeptic attempting to fit a false narrative to justify their programmed belief.

I still find it amazing anyone with a basic knowledge and understanding of organic chemistry still attempts to refute the development of life outside that of Earth.

That disbelief is more mind boggling than tackling the more logical UFO/ET discussion.

The absolute arrogance of mankind here on Earth to actually believe he/we are the pinnacle of evolution and none have come before or exist along side of us outside of our planet is the absolute height of arrogance and assumption.

If history has taught us anything it is with each passing decade we come to realize how completely wrong we are about everything we assumed we already knew.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8

I find it hard to believe with the level of security that Lazar himself describes of getting into the facility, that the storage and security of 115 would be so lax that he could steal even the smallest piece and just walk out. I find it ridiculous actually.

Has it ever been addressed exactly how Lazar got his 115 (Moscovium) sample out of S4?

1. How did he keep it on his person? In his mouth? Down his pants?

2. How was the 115 contained? I'm assuming "rolled up in a napkin" isn't the answer.

3. What measures is Lazar using to counter radioactive emissions?

originally posted by: Outlier13

The absolute arrogance of mankind here on Earth to actually believe he/we are the pinnacle of evolution and none have come before or exist along side of us outside of our planet is the absolute height of arrogance and assumption.

There is also an arrogance in believing that any space-faring civilization is traveling to an isolated tip of the galactic spiral to watch tool-using primates shout at each other. Imagine if we discovered another civilization only to realize they're neither benevolent nor malevolent, but entirely apathetic about the whole affair.

"Hey look, another ant colony."

originally posted by: Outlier13
a reply to: The GUT

I still find it amazing anyone with a basic knowledge and understanding of organic chemistry still attempts to refute the development of life outside that of Earth.

That disbelief is more mind boggling than tackling the more logical UFO/ET discussion.

I don't know of anyone with even a moderate amount of education (and who isn't a religious fundamentalist) who refutes the possibility of ET life elsewhere.

Granted, there are people who refute that there is solid evidence that those ETs are visiting Earth, but that's a totally different thing.

I mean, name someone who is not a religious fundamentalist who feels that there is no other life anywhere in the universe. I bet 95% to 99% of mainstream scientists today would tell you that life elsewhere in the universe almost certainly exists.


I just think the whole "man is arrogant to believe they are the pinnacle of/only life in the universe" argument is a strawman.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I just think the whole "man is arrogant to believe they are the pinnacle of/only life in the universe" argument is a strawman.

It's one of the laziest and simplistic tropes around and a non sequiter/red herring/strawman. I say 'lazy' as it's a strong indication that someone is in parrot-mode and giving their brain cells a rest.

Guy makes a big claim with questionable evidence. Someone points out the evidence isn't so hot. "Oh, so you believe humans are the only life form in the universe?! How arrogant!"

I spent a little time trying to trace its origins a couple of years ago. It was used as early as the 1970s by Von Daniken and I caught an even earlier version used by one of the Contactee guys which lands it in the late 1950s.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Yes. I've gotten that straw man response before.

I may say something like "I don't think there is good enough evidence for me to say that ETs are visiting Earth" to which I got the response "How can you think we are the only intelligent life in the universe?"

At which point I need to explain that belief in other intelligent life in the universe and belief that Earth is being visisted by that intelligent life are two very different ideas. I really do think it is almost certain that other intelligent life DOES exist, even if I haven't seen hard evidence for visitation.

What's more is that I don't even refute the possibility that aliens are visiting Earth. It's certainly possible, but I simply don't think the evidence is there for more to say the it is likely happening.

Other life in the universe, on the other hand?...I think given the size of the known universe, the odds are >99.999999999% that other intelligent life is out there, somewhere.

The argument that "the universe is a big place, so other life must exist" is a very good argument. However, it works two ways. The universe is also such an unimaginably huge place that -- while other intelligent beings almost sure exists -- none of those other intelligent beings have found a reason to visit our infinitesimally tiny corner of that unimaginably huge universe.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

You're what I call a drive by poster. You read a response but don't bother to read the preceding posts that provide relevance to the argument. The posters prior to me are refuting the Lazar story because their insinuation is there is no such thing as ET life and therefore Lazar is a liar.

Learn the proper application of "straw man". So many people incorrectly use catch phrases in the absence of actually forming a proper debate.