Bob Lazar
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Robert Scott Lazar (born 26 January 1959) is a central (and highly controversial) figure in recent discussion about UFOs. Lazar claims to have worked at area S-4 of the Nevada Test Site (near Area 51) at the special request of Edward Teller. He further claims to have performed reverse engineering on crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft there. The publicity surrounding his revelations is one of the major factors in putting the previously obscure military facility in public awareness.
In November 1989 Lazar made a special interview appearance with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to talk about his reported work. He suggested this was in part to share the information in scientific interest, and partly to insure himself against any mysterious sudden demise for exposing what Lazar described as classified information.
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Claims
Lazar claims that when he first saw disc-shaped craft at the base, he concluded they were secret--but decidedly terrestrial--aircraft, and that sightings of test flights were responsible for UFO reports. Only on closer examination of the craft did Lazar conclude it was designed by and for extraterrestrials.
Lazar claimed that the placeholder element ununpentium (Uup) was the fuel that enabled extraterrestrial craft (commonly called flying saucers or UFOs) to travel interstellar distances. Uup's role was twofold. Firstly, it provided an energy source which would step up to ununhexium under particulate bombardment. The ununhexium would then decay, including a small measure of antimatter in its decay product. Its second function, discovered later, allegedly lay in the intense strong nuclear force field of its superheavy nucleus. This field extended barely usably beyond the atom's perimeter. But properly amplified, this could be employed as a variant of gravity. "Gravity B", as he claimed project scientists referred to it, could thus be employed to "shape" a craft's relation to the gravitized space around it. Lazar said this property explained the "triple dome" structure frequently shown in sketches and photographs of saucer-shaped UFOs, which he believed to be the crafts' gravity amplifiers.
Lazar described ununpentium as a heavy dull orange metal which had to be properly machined for such use. He ascribed the element's absence on Earth to the fact that the supernovae in Earth's region of the galaxy were insufficiently massive to produce nuclei of this density, but other parts of the universe are richer in this element. These areas, according to Lazar, are inhabited by the adventurous (but to date comparatively reclusive) extraterrestrial visitors who could employ it. A significant supply, he claimed, was acquired through direct exchange by supersecret US government operations at Nevada Test Site Area 51.
Criticisms of Lazar
Many of Lazar's statements have been criticised as inaccurate or unfounded. His grasp of physics has been questioned, though he appears well-versed in it in his interviews and public appearances. Lazar claims to hold advanced degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology, but does not appear on the alumni roll of either institution. Lazar's supporters allege this discrepancy is the result of a government cover-up.
One objection to Lazar's report was that while the element Uup occurred in the atomic number range postulated for greater stability, the first terrestrial experiments to produce it indicated a half-life on the order of seconds rather than years. Defenders answer this criticism on the ground that different stabilities are attributable to different isotopic compositions: that an isotope achievable only under distant stellar formation may be more stable than forms resulting from collision of stable elements by conventional means.
On June 18, 1990 Lazar was convicted in Las Vegas of pandering for an illegal prostitute, a felony. This was one of rather few pandering charges sought in Las Vegas, leading to some speculation that the prosecution was intended to harass Lazar.
External links
- Tom Mahood's detailed page on Lazar (interviews, radio transcripts and essays) (http://www.serve.com/mahood/lazar/lazarmn.htm)
- Glenn Campbell's discussion, frozen, with links (http://www.ufomind.com/area51/people/lazar)
- Bob Lazar's home page (http://www.boblazar.com)
- United Nuclear, a company founded by Bob Lazar (http://www.unitednuclear.com)
Reference
- Darlington, David. (1998) Dreamland Chronicles. Henry Holt & Company, ISBN 0805060405