From: Glenn Campbell <campbell@ufomind.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 17:51:00 -0700
Fwd Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 03:41:39 -0500
Subject: Bob Lazar - True or False?



By Glenn Campbell

I am happily retired from the Area 51 field and am currently
enjoying a blissfully UFO-free lifestyle, but one issue won't
leave me alone: People keep asking me about Bob Lazar. True or
False: Did he work with flying saucers at "Area S-4"?

I adore ambiguity, and I really hate being pinned down like
this. I mean, what is truth anyway? My idle-handed colleagues
and I have been researching Lazar's claims since 1992, but I
wasn't there when Lazar first made those claims, and no one can
visit the secure military areas where Lazar's experiences
supposedly took place. Who am I to declare what is and is not
reality?

Still the inquiries keep coming, especially after Lazar's recent
reappearance on Art Bell (June 6, 2002), where he announced yet
another movie deal. The only way to efficiently deal with my
questioners is to come up with a crude one-word answer.

Unfortunately, that answer is False.

I don't mean this as an insult to Mr. Lazar. He's an incredibly
creative and intelligent guy. I also don't mean to denigrate
Lazar's many supporters. One thing I learned while studying Area
51 is that you don't mess with people's religion. Lazar, I
believe, has a right to make his claims, and people have a right
to believe him. Lazar's flying saucers have become part of
Nevada's identity, and probably even my own. I mean "False" only
in a rather mundane factual sense.

Lazar did not work with flying saucers in an underground hangar
near Papoose Lake. He made the story up. Furthermore, he made it
up by himself, without the help of any nefarious agency and
probably without any deep motivation other than the pleasure of
attracting attention and putting people on.

The story evolved out of a long heritage of pre-existing
underground alien base claims, which eventually infected the
pilot and conspiracy theorist John Lear. Lear announced, in
electronic bulletin board posts in the 1980s, that gray aliens
were eating humans in deep underground facilities at Area 51.
Lazar met Lear, heard his ramblings, and decided to give Lear
what he wanted. Lazar took Lear's paranoid delusions and
repackaged them in a much more intelligent and internally
consistent rendition. Initially, Lear was the only audience, but
he tipped off a Las Vegas TV station, and the frenzy began. The
story soon spun out of Lazar's control, and, at least until the
recent Art Bell appearance, Lazar seemed to sincerely want it to
go away.

Lazar's limited knowledge of Area 51 came from secondhand
sources, which are plentiful in Las Vegas. Lazar has never been
to Area 51. His "S-4" is a relocated and reconfigured version
of "Site 4", a real Top Secret radar testing facility west of
Area 51. Lazar's saucers and their propulsion system seem
plausible to anyone without a physics degree. They were
constructed, in Lazar's head, with the same fastidious care that
he has lavished on his real-life fireworks, jet cars and other
mechanical projects. "Element 115" and its peculiar periodic
neighbors were discussed in an article in Scientific American
just before Lazar used it to fuel his craft. Lazar has always
displayed an exceptional respect for detail and consistency, and
he has an extraordinary ability to focus his attention on
whatever his current project is, to the exclusion of everything
else. His only deficiencies are moral (that is, if you consider
lies and the exploitation of others to be somehow 'wrong').

A good model for how Lazar operates is found in the forger Mark
Hoffman, now in prison for murder. There is a recent interview
here:

http://toddshow.org/log/dailylistings/05242002.asp

While forging Mormon documents, Hoffman built a detailed web of
lies that still leaves researchers in awe. Hoffman's forgeries
were internally consistent and perfect in every detail, and they
meshed seamlessly with the world of existing documents, many of
which he also created. His trance-like ability to focus his
attention was so highly developed that he easily fooled
polygraph tests.

Lazar is in the same league, having convinced a hypnotherapist
of his truthfulness and earned at least an "inconclusive"
polygraph report. Lazar might be even more clever than Hoffman,
because he hasn't significantly broken the law, and he strictly
limits his claims to his original story.

You can ask me for proof for my Lazar position, but I'm not
going to play the game anymore. The Lazar documentation on the
internet is already massive, and the heated debates about one
detail or another of Lazar's claims have been going on for over
a decade. It is senseless to harp on his false educational
credentials, enhanced employment claims or pandering conviction.

Those who believe in Lazar are going to continue believing, and
those who don't will only say, "I told you so." The funny thing
about oral traditions like this is that they continue to live
and propagate regardless of the evidence and far beyond their
original source. They spawn new stories, like the similar UFO
claims of Bill Uhouse, aka "Jarod 2" (which is another
fascinating personal journey). Lazar's story has grown much
bigger than Lazar himself, and no one will ever be able to
follow all of its threads.

Answering "False" still rubs me the wrong way. I distain
finality, and I certainly don't want to attract the attention
Lazar's rabid supporters. Instead, I would rather state things
in relative terms: Lazar's claims _could_ be true, like the boy
crying wolf who eventually encounters a real one, but given the
known lies and lack of new information, the joy of exploring the
story has dwindled. Life is full of more interesting mysteries.


Glenn Campbell

http://www.aliensonearth.com

June 2002