Otherhand

I'm pretty skeptical of Lazar. See this article for an investigative counterpoint of many of his claims:

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/

> A last item for your consideration to assess Lazar’s veracity is his academic background. He claims Masters degrees from BOTH Caltech and MIT in subjects they don’t offer and during time periods he couldn’t have physically been at either campus. In response to questions at the “Ultimate UFO Seminar” in Rachael, NV in May of 1993, Lazar was so kind as to offer up the names of two of his instructors at Caltech and MIT, a “Dr. Duxler” as well as “Hohsfield”. He even spelled them. Stan Friedman told me he went searching for Duxler and no such person ever taught at Caltech or MIT. However he did find a William Duxler who taught Math and Physics at the previously mentioned Pierce College and confirmed to Friedman that Lazar had taken at least one of his courses in the 1970s.

> As for finding Hohsfield, Friedman rolled snake eyes, beyond confirming no one by that name ever taught at Caltech or MIT. However did you know that in this amazing 21st Century you can buy reprints of all sorts of old high school yearbooks? Like, for example, the 1976 yearbook for W. Tresper Clarke High School? And if one were to do so, one would find that there was a Technical and Vocational teacher there by the name of Frederick Hohsfield. Looks like he was teaching…

His story is full of holes. He claims that he has a master’a degree in physics, but cannot produce a diploma, his master’s thesis of the names of any classmates or professors. Furthermore, he has never demonstrated that level of knowledge of physics and the things that he does say are bizarre at best.

There’s no evidence that The facility that he allegedly worked exists. There isn’t any trace of roads or any infrastructure for it. The location that he gives is right on the edge of the restricted airspace surrounding Area 51, which seems odd for a super secret facility.

There are a bunch of little things. In one interview he mentions seeing an alien through a window in a door. His escort guard tells him not to look. Somehow the government is able to secretly reverse engineer alien technology, but can’t spring for some curtains?

To put it simply, there’s no evidence to support it. He has never been able to produce a sample of any extraterrestrial material nor has he shown that he has any knowledge that is beyond current physics.

Personally, I’m fond of [this idea](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/). Basically that Bob Lazar schmoozed his way into a job at Area 51 due to a chance meeting with Edward Teller. He brought people to watch a classified test (of experimental, but completely terrestrial technology) and got into deep shit over it.

You might need to follow some of the older links (e.g. [1]) but there's a very clear and specific statement of what he's explaining: this is what he claims Bob Lazar observed at the so-called Area 51 (Groom Lake). He claims Lazar knew exactly what it was but decided to show his friends and tell them it was UFOs. Now he is stuck with that lie because if he ever tells the truth, he could be prosecuted. That's the theory anyway - I'm not saying any of that is correct but it strikes me as by far the most plausible theory I've heard.

Applying this theory to the tic tac thingy was something I just thought of, not something the author of that website ever claimed (to my knowledge).

The problem I have with statements like "they're too big/expensive/non-portable for that" is that we already know that we're dealing with something that we can't explain. In other words: at least one of our beliefs about the state of some kind of technology is very wrong. One thing I keep hearing about these objects is that they move instantly, as if they have no mass. Well, then, they probably have no mass - that's the simplest explanation.

[1] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/

> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

You are in the minority, and it is absolutely someone else's business. At least it's their job to ensure that you're safe.

It doesn't even have to be for months at a time, just a simple wrong way turn in a national park on their way someplace else:

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/

(Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567)

While that's a long story (and well worth reading), it illustrates how even the simplest things going wrong could lead to an entire family dying, within walking distance of paved roads, certainly less remote than Alaska. There were multiple SAR teams/missions that put their own lives at risk, even when it wasn't their job, that took responsibility to find out what happened.

Anyone who wants to "go out into the wilderness" has to remember that, it isn't just their own life at stake.

It really is an amazing national park. The vastness of it all is stunning--you have Batwater Basin at -282' elevation and Telescope peak at 11k. My partner and I hiked Wildrose Peak 9k (+2200) because Telescope had too much snow on it. The size of the park really hits home when you see that 2-inches on the NPS map takes you 1.5hrs by car.

Our rental car was punished pretty hard by the roads, but held up like a champ. There was no way we were getting to the roads that DVG were lost on. The morbid streak in me wanted to find the bush described in [1], but we had to give up after an hour or so. There is something about tying a place to a story. Will definitely be back to explore the park more.

If you are tenting, reserve your site early, because there are only a couple camp areas that aren't engulfed by pull-behinds and their generators running 24/7.

[1] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-norman-cox/

I think there's probably something to the UFO phenomenon. However I'm convinced Bob Lazar is a fraud. It's a tricky case because certain parts of his story are verifiable, like that he worked at Los Alamos and that his friends did see a moving light in the sky. The best explanation I've seen is here:

http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/

http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/particle-beams-and-saucer-dreams/

The explanation is he worked on particle accelerators as a mechanic (not a physicist), and they were shooting particle beams into the sky. However since this is all likely classified he would be forced to stick to his UFO story.