This is a synopsis, or maybe booklet, of Bob Lazar's story which is being offered as a ground zero for future dialogue. After coming to the internet a short time ago, I noticed that people's knowledge of Bob's story varied widely. This is an effort to increase that knowledge base so people who either support or dismiss Bob's story do it for the right reasons. Bob's story is long and complex and in this document I've tried to condense it to a manageable size without omitting relevant points. I'm going to emphasize how things looked from my point of view. I won't elaborate on propulsion systems and things of that sort, so if you want that you can get it on the Lazar Tape and hear if from Bob himself. So here we go...
In the late 1980's I was working as a real estate appraiser in Las Vegas, and still am for that matter. Bob Lazar, known as "Bob, the photo guy" to most Las Vegas appraisers operated the photo lab that serviced many appraisers at that time. Bob and I had met in 1985 and by 1988 we had become friends and began to socialize together. Bob's wife, Tracy, usually did the photo deliveries to our office and, at first, I had talked to her and seen her infinitely more than Bob. Periodically she would talk about when she and Bob lived in Los Alamos, not together, and I just presumed that he ran a photo lab down there. Bob and Tracy met when Tracy was hired to work at a business run buy Bob's first wife, Carol. Tracy's dad, Don Merck, worked at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL from here on out) and that's how she happened to be living there. Don worked on the conventional charge that implodes and compresses the nuke material to make an atomic bomb explode.
After Bob and I started socializing, I began to notice that he knew a lot about many things. I knew that he was somewhat of an egghead because, when he would do a rare photo delivery, he would drive a Honda CRX in which he had installed a jet engine. But his knowledge base extended far beyond that. There was little he didn't know about jet engines, combution engines, electronics, computer hardware and software, etc. He even made some nitro- glycerin one day while we sat talking at the kitchen table. We later took it out to the desert and blew it up, that's how I knew it was, indeed, a high energy explosive. Eventually, I asked him why he knew all of this stuff. He said, "I've got degrees in physics and electronic technology". I said, "Well, what's the difference between you and a scientist?" He said, " I AM a scientist". I said, "Why didn't you tell me?" He said, "What did you want me to do, say hey man, I'm a scientist"? I said, "Yeah, I would have". He just shook his head and walked away. I later found out that he had worked at the Meson Physics facility at LANL.
All this time, I just thought he was some guy who ran a photo lab and just happened to have an interest in jet engines. He also had, and still has, a rail type dragster with a jet engine from one of the military's first supersonic fighters. Anyway, in time, I met: Bob's dad, Al; his mother, Phyllis; Tracy's dad Don; Joe Vaninetti, an old friend from Los Alamos. Joe's last job at LANL was melting down plutonium. He is currently completing his masters in soils analysis (soils science?) up in Utah. You'll hear more about Joe later; Melissa Crey (maybe Cray) Joe's room mate and a physicist at LANL; and Jim Tagliani, and old friend and computer & electronic tech. All of these people seemed to think Bob was a scentist and, to this day, I have no reason to doubt him and numerous reasons to believe him. Jim Tagliani actually worked with Bob at Fairchild Electronics in southern Cal where Bob was the youngest electrical engineer ever to have worked there. This was a couple of years prior to Bob's Los Alamos job.
At this point, in 1988, Bob was bored with the photo lab and had sent out resumes to various government labs to try and get back into another scientific job. Included on that list was Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb and scientific consultant to the last 5 or 6 presidents. Bob had met Teller in 1982 in Los Alamos when Teller was there lecturing. Coincidentally, at this same time, Bob's picture was on the front page of the Los Alamos Monitor newspaper. A staff writer named Terry England had done an article on Bob and a Honda CRX in which he had installed a jet engine. This wasn't the same jet CRX he had when I first met him. This article ran in the June 27, 1982 edition of that paper and in it they refer to Bob as, and I quote, "Lazar, a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility". It's difficult to believe that in a town of 10,000 scientists, who all have egos about their credentials, the only local newspaper could refer to Bob as a scientist if he was not one, at least not without any public outrage. Anyway, when Bob arrived early to hear Teller speak, there Teller sat reading the newspaper article about Bob. Bob used this as an avenue to introduce himself and they had a short chat about jets, etc. Bob later heard Teller's speech and that was that. So in 1988 when Bob sent out all of these resumes, he thought, why not take a shot?
It had been a while since he sent out these resumes and one day I dropped by his house and asked him if he had heard any news. He said, "As a matter of fact, yeah, Edward Teller called me". I said, "Who's Edward Teller?". After he explained, I understood the importance of the call. Teller had responded by phone and said that he was no longer active, but currently worked in a chief consultant capacity. However, Teller did give Bob the name of a gentleman to call here in Las Vegas. Bob called this guy and talked to him and a short time later, someone from EG&G called Bob to set up an interview. EG&G is a company that has all kinds of high tech interests here at the Nevada Test Site. Bob threw away the piece of paper with the name Teller gave him on it. Remember, at this point in time, nobody knew what Bob was headed for and it's obvious that it would be nice to have that name now.
So Bob went to EG&G for the interview. Bob later told me that he "dazzled" them by having every answer to some pretty complex questions and he was optimistic about getting the job. This was unusual because Bob isn't one to pat himself on the back. However, dazzling them temporarily backfired because they told him he was overqualified for the job and he didn't get it. They then told him not to lose hope because they had something coming up that he might be interested in. Ultimately, they called him back and hired him to work on a propulsion project in an "outer area".
Bob reported to the EG&G building at McCarran airport, which had runway access, where he was met by Dennis Mariani. Mariani was a security man of medium build and heighth, about 35 to 40 years old, blonde hair and a tightly cropped blonde mustache. Mariani had a military look and manner, but he didn't wear a uniform. With Mariani as his escort, Bob was flown out to area 51 at Groom Lake.
At area 51, Bob had to sign a secrecy agreeement and an agreement to waive his constitutional rights, which is illegal but was made possible by an executive order with Ronald Reagan's signature on it. He also had to sign an agreement which allowed them to monitor his phone line. Bob already had "Q" clearance, which is top secret civilian clearance, at Los Alamos but he had never gone through anything like this. The clearance he was now attaining would require perpetual monitoring of his activities and would never simply be attained and forgotten about until the next review date. After some abrupt suggestions that he honor his secrecy agreement and watch his general conduct, he and Mariani boarded a bus with blacked out windows and took a 20 to 30 minute ride down a bumpy dirt/gravel road. They arrived at a base near Papoose dry lake bed know as S4.
S4 was a combination of buildings and hangars built into the side of a mountain. Armed guards were everywhere, and security was oppressive. Bob even got an armed escort when he went to the bathroom. They arranged Bob's I.D. and gave him a physical which included a test for allergic reactions to substances which were not identified for Bob. After this he was placed in a briefing room by himself to read some briefings as part of his indoctrination. As Mariani closed the door to leave Bob alone, Bob saw a poster on the back of the door. It was a "flying saucer" hovering over a dry lake bed and it was captioned, "They're Here". Bob opened the top folder on the desk and it contained 8 x 10 glossy photos of 9 different flying saucers, including the one on the poster.
To this day, no one knows why Bob was selected for this project. Bob has a comprehensive knowledge base and is an excellent problem solver, but this may not be uncommon in the scientific community. Maybe the good word from Edward Teller carried a lot of weight. It's even possible that the nod from Teller carried more weight than was originally intended, no one knows.
At this point in time, Tracy helped with the photo lab during the day and worked out at a health club and took flying lessons at night. Bob was on call for S4 and would generally be called to go out once every week or two. They said he'd be working on an on call basis until he was "brought up to speed", at which time he would work on a more consistant basis. They'd always have Bob report in the late afternoon and work evenings which allowed him to maintain the photo lab during the day. Bob was now very secretive about his job and would only tell his wife and friends that he was working on something that required clearance. He eventually did tell us that he flew into area 51 when he went to work. We had no idea what he was actually doing and, because of that, none of us were overly curious as to what his project was.
Around this same time, KLAS, the CBS affiliate is Las Vegas, had been running local news shows, featuring UFO researchers, which I found entertaining and intriguing. These shows were hosted by George Knapp, a local news anchor who is now high profile and arguably the most informative and motivating speaker on the UFO circuit. George doesn't speak as regularly as "UFO experts", but is infinitely more informed than them, especially with things ufological in Nevada. On these shows, much ado was being made about alleged UFOs and aliens at area 51. Bob assured us that there were no UFOs at area 51. As it ended up, he was telling the truth. They were at S4 and they were called "discs" and they were anything but "unidentified".
Bob had been hired to be part of a "back engineering" team. Back engineering is the act of taking apart a finished product to find out what makes it tick. In this instance, their job was to back engineer a flying disc to see if it could be reproduced with earth materials. Bob's specific job was to help back engineer the propulsion system. In subsequent trips to S4 Bob was exposed to the propulsion system on a bench in a lab, as well as the propulsion system, in place, in a disc. In a sleek disc he would eventually nickname the "sport model" Bob had to hang upside down through an opening on the floor of the central level to view the gravity amplifiers on the lower level. He eventually witnessed a brief, low altitude test flight of this same disc. He was also taught how the discs are able to distort space/time to achieve interstellar travel. The "Sport Model" disc is currently being produced as a plastic model by the Testor Corporation.
In subsequent visits to the briefing room, he read read overview reports which were used to give the diverse group of S4 scientists some idea of the breadth of the project. Naturally, they were all given in depth information regarding their own particular endeavors, but it seems that they couldn't put good scientific minds to work and compartmentalize information so much that someone wouldn't say, " By the way, aren't these flying saucers we're working on?". The scientists at S4 worked in teams and were obviously not allowed to chat in the lunch room about what everybody else was doing so apparently they gave them all a limited overview to satisfy their curiousity and keep them sane.
In these reports Bob read information about man's history and philosophy and theology and the part that these aliens, who brought the disc technology, played in these areas. Much of this information was alarming, even shocking, and it has certainly changed my life. This information, combined with the defense capabilities and possibilities of disc technology and gravity propulsion , has caused this to be the most secret program in history and THE pet project which the military and political elite have kept from the rest of the DOD and, for that matter, the rest of mankind.
During this time, agents from the Office of Federal Investigation, the OFI, would randomly visit Bob's house. The OFI agents are the guys who do background checks on people hired for classified positions on the Nevada Test Site, and elsewhere I would imagine. One time an agent named Mike Thigpen visited with other agents and searched Bob's house and belongings. Thigpen was witnessed there by Kristen Merck, Bob's now ex-sister-in-law and Mrs. Wayne Higdon, the wife of a mutual friend of Bob's and mine. George Knapp later asked Thigpen what he was doing at Bob's house. Thigpen claimed he had no file on it and he couldn't remember being there. He said maybe he was there asking Bob questions about Jim Tagliani, a friend of ours who was then trying to get clearance to work as an electronics technician at the stealth fighter base on the Tonopah Test Range. This was a ridiculous response. Thousands of people nationwide have been visited by investigators from the OFI or DOD to respond to questions about friends and neighbors and relatives who are in the process of getting cleared for classified positions. These agents hardly retain the right to search your house and personal belongings. Obviously, Thigpen was doing his job by not remembering being at Bob's house, even though he was witnessed there by two women who didn't even really know each other. In defense of the OFI investigators, the guys doing the background checks are not necessarily informed of the destination of the subject of their investigation. Even if Thigpen had admitted his activities at Bob's house, this would have been no sort of verification that he knew what Bob was in for. The depth of the requisite investigation may indicate the level of security clearance, but not the actuality of the subject's employment.
Around this same time, the U.S. scientists at S4 had made some sort of discovery which was a major step forward in understanding disc technology and gravity propulsion. We had apparently involved some Russian scientists to whatever degree, and rather than share this advance with them, we kicked them out. Bob doesn't know that the Russians were allowed to actually work with the hardware. They may have only been involved in the mathematical and physical theory, he doesn't know. Anyway, the Russians weren't pleased about being left out. One of the S4 scientists didn't show up for work for a couple of days and security was paranoid. They said that the KGB had a presence in Las Vegas and they were afraid that they would either abduct someone that worked at S4 or make the bribe so good that someone wouldn't be able to refuse. The S4 guy eventually turned up, but security wanted to be safe rather than sorry. They decided to make everyone in the program who flew out from EG&G carry guns from home to EG&G and from EG&G back home.
At EG&G, a female official distributed a small caliber pistol to Bob and told him that if he lost it, he'd have to pay them $500 for it. Bob said no way, because he knew this pistol wasn't even worth $500. After some discussion, Bob made them aware that he had a .44 magnum, amongst other guns, and they agreed that he would carry his own gun. However, since all of Bob's guns were purchased in New Mexico and had never been registered, they wanted Bob to register his guns so everything was legal. Dennis Mariani escorted Bob down to the Las Vegas Metro substation on the southwest corner of Atlantic and St. Louis. Bob sat in a waiting area and Mariani went in and spoke about whatever with the police official in charge. A short time later, the police official came out of the office with Mariani to make a copy of something. He looked at Bob and scoffed, "So THIS is the kid the Russians might be after?" I guess Bob wasn't the big, strong, he-man required to command this guy's respect. It's curious that Mariani would have even mentioned anything like that to a local cop. In Nevada, you can carry a gun in your car as long as it's not concealed. Your car is interpreted as an extension of your home, so Bob didn't need a permit to carry a concealed weapon or anything like that. This event has subsequently caused us to question whether or not Dennis Mariani was from Nevada.
Also around this same time something was going on that Bob didn't know about. The feds monitoring his phone line had heard Tracy talking with her flight instructor, who was teaching her more than just how to fly. She was having an affair and they knew that if Bob inadvertantly found out or if Tracy confessed, Bob could potentially become emotionally unstable. They kept him involved at S4 on a limited basis but the time intervals between calls to work lengthened and he became frustrated. This was ultimately a blessing for Jim Tagliani and me.
Bob sensed that something was wrong. They had given him a taste of honey and he had a strong desire to get back out to S4. He would hear us talking about George Knapp's UFO shows and we would wonder aloud about the actuality of the situation. In a rebellious move, Bob threw us some hints and finally decided that he would do us the favor of allowing us to KNOW, not suspect, that something was really happening. After not being called to work for some time, he broke down and told me. I understand that he told Jim Tagliani around the same time. We didn't have group meetings or anything like that. Jim didn't know what I knew and I didn't know what Jim knew. Bob was the central cog in that relationship and, though I consider Jim Tagliani a friend, we seldom socialize together unless Bob is involved.
When Bob told me we were riding down Alta drive in my car. He said that he was working at S4 on flying discs and he was back engineering the propulsion system. I was intrigued to say the least. He said one of the discs looked like it had been stood up on it's edge to have a projectile fired through it to test the integrity of the metal or something along those lines. The conversation was brief, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
I now had a million questions to ask Bob, but we couldn't talk on the telephone and, considering the state of the art in listening devices, we couldn't talk at his house either. This confirmation increased my appetite for reading UFO literature exponentially. I soon saw that no one knew what Bob knew and I was lucky enough to have him telling me. When we felt it was safe and convenient we would have discussions and he would tell me things about S4 and I would tell him things that I had read. We both found it hilarious that organizations like MUFON andCUFON named themselves by placing UFON after their initials. So we jokingly nicknamed each other Bufon and Gufon, for Bob's UFO network and Gene's UFO network, respectively. These were nicknames that, later, government agents would not find so funny.
Around this same time, Bob received his first paycheck for one week's pay even though the days had never been worked consecutively. The check was for $958.11. Bob showed me the check and I remember commenting that I thought that a senior staff physicist, which was Bob's position, would have been paid more than that. He proceeded to tell me how underpaid scientists were and I later found out that was true. I think I was the only one, other than Bob, to ever see that check. He had his eye on some electronic equipment so he decided to buy it and not tell Tracy that the check had ever arrived. In later years when people questioned Bob's W-2, I knew it was actual because, even though I didn't remember the exact amount, I knew that it was nine hundred and fifty or sixty bucks which showed me that Bob's W-2 reflected the money actually received. Later, when he left the program, the government still owed him for some time worked, a bill which remains unpaid to this day.
The next time he was called to work, the people at S4 were questioning Bob about his friend, Joe Vaninetti. They implied they might be interested in Joe and wanted Bob to get a resume from Joe and take it to the office at EG&G. On the day when Bob told them he'd have it there, he was busy and couldn't make it. Since Joe was still down in Los Alamos, Bob asked me to drop it off for him. I took Joe's resume out to EG&G and the receptionist asked me what I was doing there. I told her that I had Joe's resume and she grabbed it from me as though she was expecting it. We still don't know if they were interested in Joe or they just wanted to know more about him because he was Bob's main, but not only, Los Alamos connection. They may have heard Bob talking on the phone with Joe or something like that, no one knows. The bottom line is, they never hired Joe and his name was never brought up again.
On one of Bob's last nights at S4, he was being escorted down a hallway by armed guards and was told to keep his eyes forward. As they passed a door with one of those small square windows in it, out of the corner of his eye, Bob thought he saw a small "grey" alien standing between two men in lab coats. All three were facing a console of some sort and had their backs to the door. When he tried to turn his head to actually look and confirm his sighting, he was pushed forward by a guard behind him and told, again, to keep his eyes forward. Bob recognized it as a "grey" alien because these types of beings were shown in reports in the briefing room. To this point, he had surmised that any grey aliens had been gone since 1979, at least that's what the briefing reports implied. The sight in that room surprised him, to say the least.
After work that night, Bob arrived home and Tracy was gone, apparently to her flying lesson. He needed someone to talk to so he called me. I had been sick with the flu all that day and my wife had been nursing me back to health all that evening. I let the answering machine go off and after it beeped, I heard Bob say, "Gufon, it's Bufon, pick up the phone". I answered and he suggested that we get together that night. I explained to him that I had been sick and, after all of my wife's efforts, she would be mad if I left. He insisted and said that he wanted to talk to me about those "baby pictures". He and I had no business with baby pictures so I recognized this as code and he mentioned photos so if anyone was listening, they wouldn't be suspicious. I reminded him that I rise early and suggested we get together the next morning. I asked if he would be up at that early hour. He replied that he would probably be up all night. I told him I'd talk to my wife and call him right back.
I told my wife that something big must have been up because he was so persistent. After all, we already knew he was working on flying saucers so this had to be something big. Whatever it was he wanted to talk about was so important that he risked sounding suspicious to those monitoring his phone. I called Bob back to tell him I'd come over and, oddly, there was no answer. I thought maybe he had stepped out to get something to eat. I'd wait about 5 minutes between calls, but he didn't answer the next four times I called him. Finally, on the sixth call he picked up the phone and said, "I'll have to call you back, some people from work are here. Bob didn't call back that night, but since I had the flu, I fell asleep anyway. As it ended up, right after I had hung up with him the first time, government agents arrived at his door and wanted to know who this "Gufon" character was. To them, this sounded like a code name, not a joke. Bob explained and they stayed there and filled out a multi-page report on Gene Huff aka Gufon. We don't know if these were the guys who were actually listening to our conversation or if they had been radioed or telephoned about it. However they found out, they couldn't have been far from Bob's house to arrive that quickly.
The next morning I arrived at my office around seven. I had taken some baby pictures to the office with me, just in case. Bob walked into my office around seven thirty and motioned with his hands in an effort to tell me to watch what I said. He now knew they were suspicious of me and he didn't want to talk in my office or on my phone. It was highly unusual for Bob to ever be at my office before ten thirty or so and his face was very ruddy. He looked like he just may have been up all night. I said, "Here are those baby pictures" as I handed them to him and he said "Thanks". Since we couldn't talk, I grabbed a legal pad and wrote down two questions. The first one said, "Have you only flown in planes?", as I was thinking he might have flown in a disc. The second one said, "Has everyone you've seen been from earth?", for obvious reasons. He grabbed the pen and answered the questions Yes and No respectively. He said, "I'll take care of these baby pictures" and left my office. Just to be safe, I went out to the wetbar sink at my office and burned that piece of paper. Bob later told me the rest of the story which I've just told you. Now, in present day, when Bob is asked about this event by strangers, he explains it away by saying that it may just have been an alien doll or something along those lines which was employed just to test him. He tends to diminish this story with time, but as you can tell, that's not what he thought back on that night.
Another substantial period of time had passed since Bob had been called to work and one day I dropped by his house. He answered the door and we walked out to the sidewalk in front of his house to have a short chat. I was telling him about all of the UFO stuff I had read recently and the whole time he was looking up in the sky, preoccupied with his own thoughts. I was essentially whining that everything of substance in ufology always happened a long time ago, i.e., the Roswell crash in the '40s, the Russian sightings in the '50s. I told him that if all this was reality, there should be something happening somewhere, now, and that's where I wanted to be. He stopped looking at the sky and looked at me and said, "What are you doing Wednesday night?
Bob had had it. He was tired of them not involving him to a greater degree and he decided to rebel in an aggressive manor. He had decided to take me to the desert out off of the now infamous highway 375 to witness a disc flight test. Bob knew the tests were held on Wednesday evenings right after dusk.
The first Wednesday, March 22, 1989, we arrived right at dusk, turned our lights off, and went in about 5 miles on the Groom Lake road. Soon we saw a bright light rise above the mountains which were between us and S4. The light begin jumping and dancing around, doing step moves in the sky, then would come to a dead stop and hover, etc. It repeated this type of activity for a few minutes which was thrilling, but it was so far away, we could only see so much. This activity by the object was blatant and it wasn't our eyes playing tricks on us with starlight and planet light being distorted by the atmosphere or clouds, or anything of that sort. Eventually, the light slowly sat back down behind the mountains. Little did we know that the next Wednesday, March 29, 1989, would present us with the thrill of a lifetime. I would not generally remember these Wednesday dates, but my son was born Wednesday, March 15, 1989, so the Wednesday dates were easy to remember.
The next Wednesday, Bob, Tracy, Jim Tagliani, and I rented a Lincoln towncar to make the trip a little more comfortable. We all owned compact cars and the round trip out to Groom Lake was a killer. We arrived, turned our lights off, and went in about 5 miles on the Groom Lake road. We pulled off on a side road and unloaded our video camera, telescope, binoculars, etc. out of the trunk and we left the trunk lid open.
The disc came up around the same place but, this time, it staged a breathtaking performance. It repeated moves similar to the week before, but this time it came down the mountain range toward us. At first it seemed far away, then you'd blink and it would seem a lot closer, then you'd blink again and it would seem a LOT closer. It wasn't the same sensation as seeing a set of headlights on a car or landing lights on a jet approach you at night time. There was no sense of continual movement toward you, it just sort of "jumps" toward you and this is very alarming to your brain. Bob explained that this is because of it's method of propulsion and the way it distorts space/time and light. Bob also explained that the bright glow of the disc was due to the way it was energized. When the disc came our direction, it glowed so brightly that we thought it might explode so we moved behind the open trunk lid for protection. The fact is that an explosion was the only thing, other than the sun, that we had ever seen be that bright so that's why we suspected an explosion. As we all look back on that now, it's difficult to believe it came so close that we backed away from it. After all, it was probably still a few miles away and that fact reflects how brightly it was glowing. But the fact is, it did come that close and the event was much more thrilling than I've described here. It, too, eventually sat down behind the mountains and we left. We have never seen anything comparable to this in the sky out in central Nevada since then, and we haven't even heard other people's descriptions come close to describing what we saw. Remember, this all happened prior to the highway 375 sky watch becoming ufology's favorite past time.
The next Wednesday, April 5, 1989, we arrived shortly before dusk. On the drive out, Bob told us he had been called to go into work the next day. Numerous security vehicles were sweeping the roads that the cattle ranchers use to round-up their cattle after open range grazing. It seemed that this night, more than the previous Wednesday nights, they wanted to make sure no one was outside of area 51. We tried to sneak in using our usual "stealth" mode, but security saw our brake lights and began to chase us. We tried to beat them out to the highway, but they came from all directions and ultimately we had to stop. We told them we were simply out there star gazing, which they didn't believe for one moment. They agreed that they couldn't chase us off of public land, but simply said they would "prefer" that we retreat back up to the highway. They issued us a copy of a written warning that said we were approaching a military installation and it stated the Nevada Revised Statutes which cited the penalties for taking pictures of the base, etc. So much for those UFO researchers who say that the government won't admit that area 51 exists. If that warning isn't an admission, I don't know what is. We went back up to the highway, but we didn't leave. A short time later a Lincoln County cop named LaMoreaux pulled us over and hassled us. He took our I.D.s and radioed our identities into the security base station. It was obvious that the guards and the sherriff's office worked together. He let us go and we went back home.
The next day when Bob reported to EG&G, Dennis Mariani stopped him and told him they wouldn't be flying out to Groom. Instead, they took Bob's car and drove out to Indian Springs Air Force Base, a small, rural base about an hour north of Las Vegas. On the drive out Mariani sarcastically told Bob that when they told Bob this was top secret, they presumed he understood that meant not to bring his family or friends out to watch a disc test. He also told Bob that our shenanigans outside of area 51 had caused them to postpone a "high performance" disc test. Mariani was totally silent for most of the rest of the drive.
At Indian Springs, Bob was debriefed and reprimanded for bringing us out to watch the disc test. They didn't know we had been successful the two previous Wednesdays. They helicoptored the head security man in from area 51 to identify Bob as one of the people he saw when they stopped us the night before. They told him that if they caught any of the rest of us out there again, they'd arrest us for espionage. Bob explained that he couldn't tell us what to do and also reminded them that we were on public land. They explained that they would simply claim that we were on government land and that a judge would certainly believe twenty of them before he'd believe us. They blatantly stated that they would collectively lie to get us convicted, not that we were surprised by that. That was certainly enough to keep me away from there, at least for a while.
They also showed Bob transcripts of Tracy's phone conversations with her boyfriend/flight instructor. Bob already knew about the affair, but he was shocked to see that they had actual typed transcripts of her conversations. Since they now knew that he was aware of the affair, they considered him to be a sure candidate for emotional instability. They revoked his security clearance and said he could reapply in 6 to 9 months. They let him go back home that night, but they apparently weren't done with him yet. A short time later they called and demanded his presence back out on the Nevada Test Site, but Bob refused. He knew they had no intention of letting him go this time and he was not about to volunteer to help them out. Dennis Mariani called and threatened him but Bob stood firm.
After losing his wife and the most important job a scientist could ever have, Bob was pretty much a broken man. His concern for their efforts at retaliation caused him to decide to go on television in silhouette and tell the story of what was going on out in central Nevada. After he did that, they shot his back tire out one evening as he was driving up an entrance ramp to get on the highway. This was an extra hint at what was in store for him if he didn't shut up.
Bob had decided to work with George Knapp to expose the story. This was an aggressive move on his part to try and gain some leverage. If he went high profile, he could force them to adopt a hands off policy. After going high profile, if they incarcerated him or killed him, they would have confirmed that what he was saying was true, and that was definitely not their desire.
At this point, we all agreed that there was great power in knowing that someone was listening on the phone. People watch what they say when they suspect their phone line is tapped, but it's a much different story when you're confident they're listening. We called friends in other states and told them Bob's story. We would also imply that we had informed numerous friends and agencies by mail, something that they could not monitor. If someone actually was listening, and I think they were, we must have driven them crazy trying to figure out what was real. They had to prepare for the worst and presume we might be telling the truth. Bob was being followed by unmarked cars both day and night. I was even followed one evening.
Finally, Dennis Mariani contacted Bob and send he wanted to meet and speak with Bob on a "personal level". Bob set up the meeting at the Union Plaza casino in downtown Las Vegas. The meeting was set for 8 PM on Saturday night when there's be plenty of witnesses if anything bad happened. Joe Vaninetti happened to be in town from Los Alamos that weekend. We created a stealth plan and Joe and I accompanied Bob down to the Union Plaza hotel.
Bob entered first and, a short time later, Joe and I entered and sat down to play the slot machines as though we were tourists. Bob walked around and looked for Mariani, but at first he couldn't find him. Bob even paged him on the house phone. Finally, Bob saw Mariani approaching in a crowd of people and walked up to him. Mariani wouldn't make eye contact with Bob and walked on by as if Bob wasn't there. Bob also noticed another security man from S4 over by the wall on the other side of the crowd. Bob casually walked by Joe and I and told us what happened without looking at us or appearing to socialize with us. From a distance he then saw Mariani walk into another part of the casino.
Bob asked me to go into that other part of the casino with him, but to stay out of sight. He wanted someone else to be able to visually identify Dennis Mariani. We entered in a crowd and Bob pointed out Mariani, who was now sitting at a blackjack table. I went and hid behind a bank of slot machines behind Mariani. I was only about 20 feet from him and I had a clear view of him. He looked exactly as Bob had described him. Thirty five to forty years old, medium build, blonde hair , and a tightly cropped blonde mustache, and this night he was also smoking a slender cigar.
Mariani's manor was quite curious. He was sitting between two very attractive, very buxom, women at the blackjack table, yet he would only look down at his cards and didn't seem to be enjoying himself. This is unusual behavior for someone in the festive casino atmosphere of a Saturday night in Las Vegas. Bob walked down the other side of the blackjack pit parallel to a long bar. Mariani looked up and his head followed Bob as Bob made that walk. Since this was the only time he looked up from his cards, especially considering the other available scenery, this indicated to me that he, indeed, knew who Bob was.
Bob walked around the blackjack pit and walked right up to Mariani and said, "Well, Dennis, you said you wanted to meet and here I am, now what's the deal?". Not only did Mariani not answer, he didn't even look at Bob or acknowledge his existence. Bob said, "Dennis, what the hell is going on, what is this shit?". Again, Mariani didn't acknowledge him.
Bob came over to me behind the slot machines and we quickly formulated a plan to follow him and try and get his license number or something along those lines. Mariani was only out of our sight for less than 15 seconds, but when we looked back, he was gone. We hurried through the casino in different directions looking for him. We even checked the restrooms, but he was nowhere to be found. We went back to the other part of the casino where Joe was sitting and asked him if anybody fitting Mariani's descripton had come that way. Joe said no one who looked like that had walked by his area. We could only surmise that maybe Mariani was there to speak on a personal level and that the other security guy that Bob had spotted was a surprise to everyone, including Dennis. No one has seen or heard anything from Dennis Mariani since that night.
After this Bob proceeded to cooperate with George Knapp, who subsequently produced "UFOs, The Best Evidence". George won the UPI individual achievement award for that special. During the making of that documentary, George tried to check out Bob's credentials, including his schooling and his previous employment. George could only find a record of Bob's schooling at Pierce Junior College in California. Even Los Alamos denied that Bob ever worked there.
Bob provided George with evidence that he had worked at Los Alamos. This included the names of people he worked with, newpaper articles about him, and even a LANL phone book that listed Bob's name in it. People were apparently going to great lengths to detach from Bob Lazar. Eventually Bob cooperated with George in contacting Kirk-Mayer, the LANL sub-contractor that Bob worked for at LANL. Both Kirk-Mayer and LANL admitted that Bob had been issued a "Z number" of 094729 on May 18, 1982, but both said they no longer had any record of Bob's employment. By the way, a "Z number" is some prerequisite identification number for anyone who works at any of the LANL facilities. Bob also provided George with his W-2 from S4, however, George ran into dead ends when he tried to find who deposited money in IRS and FICA accounts on behalf of Bob Lazar. The word was that some IRS and Social Security files are also classified.
In the months that followed, ufology began to become more mainstream and much of it was due to George Knapp and others exposing Bob Lazar's story. The Rachel Bar and Grill, outside of area 51, became the "Little A le Inn" and people began running bus tours out to watch the sky over Groom Lake. George Knapp received 30 to 40 phone calls on a daily basis which involved peoples reports and questions reagarding all aspects of ufology. Journalists from all over the world were chasing Bob Lazar for interviews, and still are for that matter. Then came the brothel bust.
Bob was still a broken man, but when he had recovered enough to go out in public, he sought some comfort with a hooker. Now I don't know how this looks and sounds elsewhere in the world, but in Nevada this is no big deal. Prostitution is legal in the state of Nevada, but illegal in the counties that house Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. However, this is just for show and it's common knowlege that brothels and hookers in the form of escort services exist in these cities also. The police pretend to passively pursue this, but along with gambling, drinking, and entertainment, prostitution is part of the package.
Bob called a number out of the newpaper and happened upon a 40 to 45 year old madam/hooker who ran 2 to 4 girls out of a condominium project in the southeast part of town. This was an upper line condo project so don't envision some dark sleezy place engulfed in red lights. Bob went there and did his business, but before he left, the hookers were having some problems with a stereo or something like that and, naturally, Bob came to the rescue. He fixed it for them and they invited him back for a freebie.
Well, Bob went back more than once and, in time, all of the girls loved him. Bob has this unique manor about him in which he treats everyone equally. When you interact with Bob, he never gives you the feeling that he's a scientist and you're not so you're not worthy. He treated the hookers with respect, like friends and equals, and this was a breath of fresh air to them considering the attitudes they get from some people. The madam explained to Bob that she had an ongoing affair with a member of Las Vegas Metro Vice and that as long as she didn't do outcalls to the hotels, vice would turn their heads and allow her to operate. It is unknown whose interest these cops were protecting in the hotels. The madam also told Bob that she was an FBI, DEA, and Las Vegas Metro informant. Bob felt a sense of security because of all of this and proceeded to tell the madam how he could streamline her operation by installing computers, security cameras, and other electronic equipment. This appealed to her and she financed her brothel's entrance into the computer age. During all of this, something bad happened. The madam fell in love with Bob. She offered him fifty percent of the business to stay around, but once the electronics were installed, he was no longer interested. Since he wasn't really interested in her, it was a drag for him to be around and he detached himself from her and the brothel. To say that she didn't take this very well is an understatement.
So now television sweeps rolled around and George Knapp thought it would be a great idea to give his audience an update on what the now famous Bob Lazar had been up to since his exit from the program at S4. KLAS had set ratings records with George's previous UFO special about Bob Lazar and they were interested in doing that again.
When George did the interview Bob said, amongst other things, that he had installed a computer system for a local brothel. That was a bad idea. The fact that Bob had broadcast this on television reflected his naivety about the ramifications of his actions. The Las Vegas cops now had a problem. Here was a guy stating that he knew where a local brothel was and all they had to do was ask him it's whereabouts and then bust it. The problem was compounded by the fact that the brothel was run by one of their informants and they were aware of her operation.
The madam's vice buddies explained to her that they had to bust her operation because of Bob's televised admission. After all, the entire vice department didn't know about this, just a couple of vice cops she knew and did business with. They busted the place and she blamed the entire operation on Bob, probably under their advice. She had a client list of some very high level Las Vegans, including cops, and they weren't about to force her to make that public. They let her off with a misdemeanor called, "Keeping a Disorderly House", which is Nevada statute from the early 1900s. I don't think anybody even knows what that's supposed to mean. They then charge Bob with six felonies.
These cops thought they could just hang this whole thing on Bob and be done with it. They soon found out that Bob Lazar had a large following and hundreds of thousands of people were scrutinizing this story. Naturally, most following Bob's story thought this was a setup by the federal government to discredit him, and they may have been involved, but that is unknown to this day.
Anyway, under some of the most incompetent and questionable legal advice in history, Bob plead guilty to pandering and they dropped the rest of the charges. We all urged Bob to fight it but he didn't want to spend the money. This is part of his "I can do everything myself" attitude because his dad is a wealthy L.A. businessman and money would have been no problem. Bob simply won't depend on anyone, even those that love him and want to help him.
Prior to sentencing Judge John Lehman questioned how it was possible that a guy with no previous criminal record, like Bob, would have plead guilty under these circumstances. He also couldn't understand how the madam of the brothel wasn't in front of him as a co-defendant. After all, in the madam's original statement to the police she admitted having become a prostitute in 1971 when Bob Lazar was 12 years old. The judge wasn't buying that Bob coerced HER into anything. All of the judges questions and apprehensions were stated on the record, ON CAMERA, and George Knapp still has a copy of the raw footage.
Bob was sentenced to 3 years probation and community service. Ironically, he completed his community service by installing yet another computer system, this time for Clark County, Nevada. The guys down at probation would jockey for position to see who got to go visit Bob so they could talk to him and ask him UFO questions. He's now off probation and we're currently investigating the possibilities for a pardon. The whole thing was one bad dream and somewhat of a joke because there have only been a handful of pandering convictions in the history of Las Vegas and the others weren't scientists with no criminal record.
Even after the brothel fiasco, Bob was still a highly sought after interview. In 1990, I had an operation on my left leg which laid me up for ten weeks. Since Bob kept turning down people who wanted interviews, I suggested we make a video tape. He said, "Who would want to see a video tape about all of that stuff?". I proceeded to question Bob at length about things and I proceeded to write the script of the "Lazar Tape". Unless our distributors are lying to us, it has become the most highly purchased, and bootlegged, video in the history of UFO videos. The original was produced with elementary facilities and it is currently being remade, broadcast quality, with state of the art graphics and imaging. The rest of the story is pretty much history.
The story I've just presented you is in no way the totality of what happened, but it does present the basic facts. I'm fully aware of everything else that happened so I can answer questions on subjects and details that have not been mentioned here. No one knows everything so if I don't know the answer, I'll simply say "I don't know".
In this synopsis I've also given researchers, pseudo researchers, and "wanna be" researchers new tidbits to chase down and verify and to them I say "Go for it". As you have just read, Bob went public to save his own butt, not to do a favor for everyone else. This is not to say that there isn't a part of him that thinks we all have the right to know. His motive for going public should help explain to some why he is reluctant to participate in some of the the current sideshows, that was never his intent.
I'd also like to include the personal observation that people who think Bob would perpetrate a fraud are wrong. He is totally self sufficient and doesn't care enough about what other people think to waste the time to try and fool them. If I had to describe Bob Lazar in one word, I'd call him "productive". Bob doesn't watch television unless it's the news or weather channel. He doesn't waste one moment of his life preoccuping himself with irrelevant minutia like the rest of us. Bob couldn't tell you who was in the super bowl or the world series and if the baseball strike never ends it won't affect his life one bit. He's busy with one scientific project or another and he certainly isn't sitting around wondering what we're saying about him on the internet.
I know that this synopsis, in itself, doesn't prove a thing. I'm now going to write a counterpoint to the infamous "Lazar Timeline" and post that. I don't intend to refute everything that's in it, I just intend to put it in perspective. This story isn't as simple as some guy with no credentials makes some flying saucer claims and then gets busted for pandering.
I fully understand everyone's apprehensions about the lack of evidence of Bob Lazar's schooling. If I didn't know him, I would be apprehensive, too. I wish I had been around when Bob went to school, but I wasn't. Anyone who has met Bob Lazar knows that you don't know what he knows by taking 1 electronics course at Pierce Junior College in California. When George Knapp couldn't find any records on Bob, I asked Bob about it privately. I told him that if he did overstate his credentials that he should tell me and I would try and help him smooth it over. I certainly believed he worked at Los Alamos and S4, even if he had overstated his credentials. I believed, and still believe, his story is way too important to lose it's impact because of something like this. Bob stood firm and didn't change his story. I've seen him do this about other subjects and I haven't caught him in a lie yet.
Evidence is abundant that he worked at Los Alamos. In the early 80's if you worked at Los Alamos you had to have a degree or be working toward one at the University of New Mexico at Los Alamos. That's why there IS a branch of the University of New Mexico in Los Alamos. That's probably still the rule, I don't know. Since Bob was never enrolled there, obviously, LANL believed Bob had credentials.
After you've read the preceding information and after we've had some questions and answers and dialogue on internet, I think you'll have enough information to put Bob's story in perspective. I'm aware of all of the different theories about him which range from total fraud to a subject of mind control to who knows what. Most of those are based on misinformation by incompetent UFO researchers and blatant liars.
You don't need UFO researchers and other assorted characters to pass judgment for you, even when it comes to the physics of gravity propulsion and disc technology. There are numerous books available which are written to the intelligent layman and they explain how physicists know what they know and why they don't know what they don't know. If this subject is important to you then do some reading and upload your own knowledge base. I'm comfortable with whatever conclusions you draw, both for and against Bob Lazar, I understand.
The bottom line is that the only opinion that really counts for you is yours. All of our current opinions are based on the best information we have at this point in time and all of our opinions are subject to change based on new information. That's true of Bob Lazar's story, science, and life in general.
Up to this point I've responded to all of you by Email, but now I'm going to do it on UseNet so any benefit of dialogue will be available to all. I'll treat you as fairly and respectfully as you treat me. Einstein was quoted as saying "Common sense is all the prejudices you acquire by the age of 18". So use your common sense when you examine Bob's story, but remember to expand your knowledge base at the same time. Bob Lazar is 100% certain the S4 story is true. I'm 99% sure, saving 1% for the fact that I wasn't there myself. I hope my effort here will move your opinion up or down so at least it will have been worth the time one way or another. Please forgive any typos, spelling, or sentence and paragraph structure as I am not a professional writer and I haven't found spell check yet on my new word processsing program. Keep in touch..
