Bob Lazar’s “S-4” claims cannot be trusted - and here’s why
We’ve deliberately decided not to name and shame any individual in “ufology”, even though there’s no shortage of candidates to expose as self-promoting fools or charlatans. This article, focused on Bob Lazar, is the exception.
Many believe Bob Lazar is telling the truth, especially after seeing him on the Joe Rogan Experience - a 2-hour+ podcast with 50 million views on YouTube - in which he came across as “believable”. Supporters of Lazar say he’s the ultimate whistleblower, proving that the US authorities have a secret reverse-engineering UFO program. If Lazar’s claims are true, it would undoubtedly be the biggest story in decades. Many people also think he’s a liar.
Bob Lazar is now in his 60s, married to Joy White, who has said on camera that she believes her husband is an honest person. It would be utterly shameful of us to publish this article if there was any likely possibility that we could be wrong. But, as you’ll soon see for yourself, the facts are the facts. And there’s a lot of them - none of which make Lazar look good. We value qualities such as integrity and concern for all, so we haven’t written this article lightly. Furthermore, we’ve closely followed this story since it emerged in 1989. This is the first time we’ve ever publicly commented on it.
Let’s start off with what is commonly known. A lot of people have understandably dismissed Bob Lazar as a liar simply because of what he’s said about his further education. What is true is that he attended the W Tresper Clarke High School in Westbury, New York, finishing in the bottom third of his class. The only science course he took there was chemistry. He then went on to study electronics at Pierce Junior College, an institution described as having been in “the lowest row” of Los Angeles’ community colleges. Lazar’s credibility was immediately put in doubt when he announced that he also had Masters degrees from both Caltech and MIT, claims which are verifiably false. There are no records whatsoever of him attending either of these two prestigious universities. Indeed, Caltech has never offered a graduate degree in “electronic technology” or “electronics”, contrary to Lazar’s assertions. When asked in 1993 to name any professors who taught him at either place, Lazar offered up “Dr Duxler” and “Hohsfield”. No such people have ever worked at Caltech or MIT, whereas a William Duxler was at Pierce Junior College and a Frederick Hohsfield taught Technical and Vocation at the W Tresper Clarke High School. Suggestions that Lazar’s credentials have somehow been “erased” by “the government” are absurd and for conspiracy theorists who’ve reached rock-bottom.
According to the pre-sentencing records for Bob Lazar’s conviction for pandering, he claimed a BSc in Physics and Electronic Technology from Pacifica University - a "correspondence university” that was shut down in 1978 by the State of California for selling degrees.
Lazar first married Carol Nadine Strong in 1980. Carol was much older than Bob, with a colourful past that included drug abuse and serving a prison sentence for second-degree murder. In May 1982, they moved from California to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and set up a photo processing business. Everyone familiar with the Bob Lazar story knows that the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) phone book listed him in 1982, with “K/M” next to his name. Kirk-Mayer was a contractor providing electronic technicians for LANL.
It’s also well-known that a local newspaper featured a story about Lazar and his jet car in June 1982. In the article, he was described as a “physicist” - but the journalist just wrote what Lazar told him without checking at LANL.
In July 1985, Bob Lazar and Carol purchased a house in Las Vegas. Carol moved there, whilst Bob continued living at Los Alamos.
Whilst still legally married to Carol, Lazar married Tracy Anne Murk at the We’ve Only Just Begun wedding chapel in Las Vegas on 19th April 1986. Two days later, Carol committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning from a motor vehicle exhaust. On 12th October 1986, Tracy and Bob Lazar married for a second time, with Tracy using the name Jackie Dianne Evans. This was at the Chapel of Love, Las Vegas.
Bob Lazar filed for bankruptcy in July 1986. He’d previously borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, finance and other companies, family, and friends - paying very little of the money back.
Bob Lazar and Tracy moved into the Las Vegas house immediately after the death of Carol. Later, on 16th March 1988, a Notice of Default was issued after no payments had been made on the property for the previous nine months. On 22nd March 1988, Tracy purchased a different house in Las Vegas.
The above facts are not in dispute, each supported by official public records. The Bob Lazar UFO story then begins shortly afterwards, with his supposed employment at the secret “S-4” facility happening between December 1988 and March 1989. According to sworn statements in the divorce records, Bob Lazar and Tracy separated in May 1989, with the divorce finalised in July 1990. The first interview with George Knapp also took place in May 1989, with further interviews later that year.
Bob Lazar’s criminal conviction for pandering ended with sentencing in August 1990. An additional little-known fact is that he and Carol had previously invested in another brothel, the Honeysuckle Ranch, in northern Nevada. No mention of ownership or income from this brothel was included in the 1986 bankruptcy filing.
Any suggestion that Bob Lazar would be considered suitable to work at a secret government facility, necessitating rigorous background checks to get security clearances, is ludicrous in the extreme. He lacked the qualifications in physics and work experience. His financial track record was dreadful, culminating in bankruptcy not long before he allegedly began work on the reverse engineering of an off-world craft. And his first wife, Carol, with a criminal record, had committed suicide - two days after he married Tracy for the first, but not last, time. Regardless of whether Tracy was having an affair with her flying instructor or not - the reason which Bob Lazar said flagged up potential emotional instability, causing concern for his employers at “S-4” - surely the warning red flags had already been flying high in the wind long beforehand?
We could stop here. The above facts should be enough to show that the Bob Lazar claims cannot be trusted. But we’re not done yet. There’s more. We could examine the blatant inconsistencies in Bob Lazar’s account of “S-4”. His supporters often say that his story “never changes” - whereas, actually, it does and has, if you bother to carefully check. When Lazar first spoke out, he was less disciplined in what he claimed. More recently, such as when talking with Joe Rogan, he’s become far more selective and cautious.
The Nevada Test and Training Range, which includes Area 51, is a prohibited area
However, instead, we’re next specifically going to look at Lazar’s clear statements that he doesn’t profit from his UFO story. He told Joe Rogan, for example: “I don’t get any money out of this - at all.” The reality, of course, is somewhat different.
He initially produced his own VHS video, The Lazar Tape, selling for $29.95. It’s now on YouTube and, if you’re capable of reading someone’s psychology, you might want to watch when Lazar first appears in front of a whiteboard; his swagger and facial expressions are telling.
Down the years, several movie companies have shown interest in acquiring the screen rights to his story. The Guber-Peters Entertainment Company was first, until the project was put into turnaround in 1993. Then Variety reported that it had been picked up by New Line Cinema, who had set an estimated budget of $8-10 million, scheduled for a 1994 cinema release - although they also ended up letting their option lapse. The Hollywood Reporter announced in 2009 that Curmudgeon Films had acquired the movie rights for Bob Lazar’s story.
He’s still financially profiting, 34 years after first speaking out. His main business is selling an assortment of chemicals, magnets, basic laboratory equipment, etc. However, also for sale is various UFO/ Area 51 merchandise: an autobiography for $39.00, a selection of T-shirts priced at $22.00 each, mugs for $15.00, posters costing up to $50.00, stickers, and so on. Here’s his website - unitednuclear.com - which we’ve been periodically checking for many years, where you can see what we’re saying for yourself.
We haven’t finished yet. There’s still more.
Back in March 1990, Lazar failed to deliver on his promise to appear on a live 2-hour Japanese TV programme about Area 51, keeping the honorarium payment.
Lazar’s W-2 Wage and Tax Statement for work allegedly done at “S-4” is a forgery, as is his “security pass”. There’s no such thing as the “Department of Navy Intelligence”. There’s the Office of Naval Intelligence, which is part of the US Department of the Navy. This has been confirmed by Rear Admiral (Ret.) Samuel J Cox, Director of Naval History. Mention on the “security pass” of “MAJ” is an additional giveaway, a silly attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the fake Majestic-12 documents that were doing the rounds in “ufology” around the time his story broke. The “briefing documents” that Lazar said he was given to read likewise fitted existing conspiracy theories, including ones held by John Lear who Lazar met in 1988.
The alleged “S-4” facility is said to be within a hollowed-out hillside at the edge of Papoose Lake, several miles south-southwest of Area 51. Lazar has stated there were nine large hanger doors - which would add up to a continuous length greater than 600ft - painted, with no vegetation growing on this significant area. Thankfully, there’s Google Earth. Allowing for the possibility of camouflage, there’s no indication whatsoever of any manmade construction here. The dirt access track is extremely limited - described by Lazar’s friend, Gene Huff, as nothing more than a “jeep trail” - and you’d certainly expect to see much more of a road if large amounts of excavated rock had been hauled away in trucks and construction materials brought in, not to mention daily bus traffic back and forth from Groom Lake. Nevada is the driest state in the US, so you’d see lasting indications for several decades after any work might have been done. We know this from studying our own 30,700 acre Komsberg Wilderness Nature Reserve in South Africa, using Google Earth since 2005 (at which point we were also looking at Area 51/Papoose Lake). In a semi-arid or arid environment, recovery from any man-made degradation is painfully slow - with traces of past disturbance typically persisting for decades.
According to what Lazar said to Gene Huff, the “S-4” facility had a chain-link fence around it, with large gates through which a bus could pass. Again, there’s no sign of this on Google Earth.
A small group of Greenpeace protesters entered the Nevada restricted area in 1983. They walked across Papoose Lake, seeing no indications of security or a secret base.
Gabriel Zeifman is a private pilot who made three flights in his Cessna 150 very close to the Nevada Test and Training Range in 2019/2020. He took his camera with him and captured many high-quality photographic images of Area 51 etc. These included good views of Papoose Lake, confirming what can be seen by using Google Earth.
Papoose Lake is actually within the National Desert Wildlife Refuge, at the top northwest corner of these 1.6 million acres of protected land. Although there are public restrictions forbidding access to Papoose Lake, it wouldn’t make bureaucratic sense to site a top-secret facility here. It should also be mentioned that the usually dry lake bed occasionally floods after heavy rainfall, which would be considered problematic by any qualified structural engineer at an early planning stage.
This next additional point is just speculative, but wouldn’t it be more conventional to construct a building or buildings, like has been repeatedly done at nearby Area 51 and elsewhere, rather than opting for an elaborate underground structure more typical of a James Bond movie? You could then use regular contractors, rather than having to bring in specialists, limiting the chance of arousing suspicion and possible security breaches. The reality, of course, is that there’s nothing there.
Wide view of Papoose Lake (Credit: Google Earth)
According to Lazar’s story, only two people were working on the UFO propulsion system: Barry and, of course, Bob himself. Prior to Bob’s arrival on the scene, there’d been Barry and Brian - until Brian had been killed whilst trying to cut open the saucer’s reactor, a highly unlikely scenario in itself. In total, a mere 22 scientists were supposedly engaged with solving the technical mysteries of the UFOs, including Barry and Bob. As a real-life comparison, 130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project at its peak.
George Knapp comes across well. His career as a television journalist in Las Vegas took a significant change of direction following his breaking of the Bob Lazar story. He subsequently became a leading figure within “ufology”. Although he’s expressed concerns about Lazar’s higher education claims, Knapp has nevertheless gone along with the “S-4” story for decades. Everyone is vulnerable to confirmation bias, but it’s somewhat surprising that there hasn’t been more thorough questioning of George Knapp’s judgement.
In 2018, a documentary titled Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers was released, written and directed by Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell. It was widely criticised, by professional reviewers and the public alike. Here are some of the shorter comments: “absolute garbage”, “a jumbled mess”, “awful misfire of a documentary”, “a rehash”, “a flop”, “horribly directed”, “bizarre style”, “jarring to watch”, “the audio is terrible”, “a wasted opportunity”, “annoying CGI effects”, “self-serving”, “amateurish”, “a pompous film”, “cringeworthy”, “one of the worst documentaries I’ve ever watched”, “silly”, “a commercial for the director’s ego”, and “terrible!!!” Corbell featured prominently in his own documentary - as well as later appearing alongside Lazar on the Joe Rogan Experience - prompting numerous comments about him from viewers such as “off-putting”, “attention seeking”, “suffering from narcissism”, “pretentious”, “delusions of grandeur”, “I can’t stand him”, “egocentric”, and “such a tool”.
Corbell has made much of himself “confirming” Lazar’s story, which amounts to nothing more than blatant hype. First, there’s the biometric hand scanner. These have been around for ages. One was even featured in the classic 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The suggestion that only Bob Lazar mentioned them way back in 1989 is utter nonsense. Then there’s Corbell’s insistence that Lazar had “inside information” about element 115, allegedly the fuel for UFOs. Again, this is grossly misleading. Yes, the periodic table was only updated in 2016 with four new chemical elements - including 115, also known as moscovian, which was discovered in 2003. But scientists have always expected further new elements to be added, and this will happen again in the future. Lazar had earlier claimed that 115 was “stable”, whereas recently synthesised atoms of 115 decay incredibly fast - so there’s no justified comparison here between Lazar’s claims and the current known reality. Articles appeared as early as 1969 about there being a possible “island of stability” around element 114, so Lazar could easily have got his idea from reading one of them. His interest in science is genuine, but it’s obviously self-taught. Corbell has also spoken to a couple of individuals who knew Bob Lazar in the ‘80s, but the accuracy of what was told to him is disputed because others have subsequently contacted the same individuals who tell a differing version of what was actually said.
We can’t move on from element 115 without mentioning that Lazar claims to have “acquired” some of this “UFO fuel” in its “solid” state from LANL. He apparently has it hidden somewhere. If this is true, why hasn’t he taken it to Garry Nolan who has the equipment to analyse it? And if Lazar is “disinterested in UFO stuff”, why hasn’t George Knapp or Jeremy Corbell persuaded him to do it via them? After all, if the claim really is true, this would prove his story beyond any shadow of a doubt. Furthermore, why hasn’t Lazar been asked to appear as a witness in front of a Congressional hearing looking at UAP and legacy programs? Wouldn’t he be the No. 1 candidate?
Many have fallen for Bob Lazar’s story, not least after seeing him with Joe Rogan. Rogan himself has said that he didn’t detect any bullshit. So, at least nowadays, Lazar can come across as “believable” (as we said at the beginning of this article). We could attempt to put into words what we see Lazar doing as he talks with Joe Rogan. However, the problem with psychology is that it’s poorly understood by most people and therefore seen as a load of “intangibles”, barely perceptible. So we’re not going to attempt to go into any detailed examination of why and how he’s often viewed as being “honest”, when actually his behaviour is the opposite of this. What we can hopefully get across are few techniques that Lazar uses to bolster a suggestion of credibility. On several occasions, he’s very quick to link valid subject matter or a plausible concept to enhance his core claims. Sweeping generalised statements are used to make him look knowledgeable, often starting with the word “Typically…”. And when he’s doing all of this, nurturing a certain impression that he wants to convey, he speaks more fluidly. Then he throws in comments like “I don’t care if you believe me or not” to further endear an inference of his sincerity. Lazar also uses blatant facial expressions - manipulators, to use a more technical term - to influence how he’s seen. One big difference from how he talks now, compared to back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, is that he carefully restricts himself in what he says, limiting exposure to being caught out and ridiculed.
Anyone can learn to portray whatever impression they want, with sufficient practice. Professional actors do this - and they get even better with age, more believable, after decades of portraying fictional characters for our entertainment. Look at Kevin Costner, for example, in the TV series Yellowstone, who’s only 5 years older than Lazar.
We can’t end this article without briefly addressing what Lazar’s friends and Tracy saw in the Nevada desert on three Wednesday nights in March/April 1989. We cannot know for sure what was actually seen - and, unsurprisingly, the bit of available video is as fuzzy as hell - but we can say that these were moving lights in the night-time sky. There’s good reason to think that Lazar was familiar with Tikaboo Peak and the surrounding area beforehand. And those with him were already zealous believers in UFOs, so it’s more than possible that they would have been open to suggestion and wild speculation from Lazar, who claimed to really know what was going on. The actual truth could be anything ranging from aircraft landing lights to experiments with particle beams for the eventual purpose of radar spoofing. Tracy has since said it was just the former, and that nothing extraordinary took place. What we can say for certain is that Gene Huff’s description of what they saw on the third and final Wednesday night is significantly less dramatic than the account Lazar told Rogan. But then Bob Lazar has always had a tendency for exaggeration, considerably more than we’ve suggested above.
Endnote: If anyone unfamiliar with EvolveFirst.org thinks we are anti-UFOs, please read our previous article: 5 things we know, for certain, about the UFO or UAP situation. A “no bullshit” review of where we’re at.
Written by Iain Scott, 9th March 2023