Bob Lazar

Lazar has provided no evidence of alien life or technology, and his claims about his education and employment history are replete with fabrications. Lazar was also convicted in 1990 for his involvement in a Nevada prostitution ring, and his company was sentenced to probation in 2006 for violating laws prohibiting the sale of chemicals across state lines.

Bob Lazar studied at Los Angeles Pierce College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is reverse engineering. Places of work recorded in the authority are Area 51.

• Name — Robert Lazar • Birth Name — Robert Scott Lazar • Birthplace — Coral Gables, Florida, U.S. • Occupation — Owner of United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies • Criminal Charges — Pandering • Spouse — Joy White

• Illustration — Groom Lake (left) and Papoose Lake (right) Lazar graduated from high school late, in the bottom third of his class. The only science course he took was a chemistry class. He subsequently attended Pierce Junior College in Los Angeles. In 1986 Lazar, who at the time described himself as a self-employed film processor, filed for bankruptcy.

Lazar claims to have obtained master's degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in electronics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). However, both universities show no record of him. Scientists Stanton T. Friedman and Donald R. Prothero have stated that nobody with Lazar's high school performance record would be accepted by either institution. Lazar is unable to supply the names of any lecturers or fellow students from his alleged tenures at MIT and Caltech; one supposed Caltech professor, William Duxler, was in fact located at Pierce Junior College and had never taught at Caltech. Friedman asserted, "Quite obviously, if one can go to MIT, one doesn't go to Pierce. Lazar was at Pierce at the very same time he was supposedly at MIT more than 2,500 miles away."

Lazar claims to be a physicist and to have worked in this capacity during his tenure at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility. This assertion was echoed by local journalist Terry England, who interviewed Lazar about his interest in jet-powered cars in 1982; some media outlets have since dubbed him a "physicist". Asked about the article in 2021, however, England admitted that he took Lazar's claims at face value and did not fact-check his credentials as a physicist. Inquiry into Lazar's position at Los Alamos revealed his role to have been a technician for a contractor, and that he worked neither as a physicist nor for the lab directly. As such, the facility retains no records on Lazar, whom Prothero states was "in short, rather a minor player". The Smithsonian, along with various other mainstream news outlets, have stated that his designation as a "physicist" is self-proclaimed. Since 1989, Lazar has achieved public notoriety as an Area 51 conspiracy theorist. In May of that year, he appeared in an interview with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS, under the pseudonym "Dennis" and with his face hidden, to discuss his purported employment at "S-4", a subsidiary facility he claimed exists near the Nellis Air Force Base installation known as Area 51. Lazar said that his job was to help with the reverse engineering of one of nine flying saucers, which he alleged were extraterrestrial in origin. He claims one of the flying saucers, the one he coined the "Sport Model", was manufactured out of a metallic substance similar in appearance and touch to liquid titanium. In a subsequent interview that November, Lazar appeared unmasked and under his own name, where he claimed that his job interview for work at the facility was with contractor EG&G and that his employer was the United States Navy. EG&G stated it had no records on him. His supposed employment at a Nellis Air Force Base subsidiary has also been discredited by skeptics, as well as by the United States Air Force. In 1995, Lazar's claims appeared to be partially-corroborated by UFO theorist Phil Schneider. After his death in 1996, Schneider's former wife revealed he had suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Author Greg Valdez argues Schneider was directly influenced by John Lear. Writes Valdez: "In the mid-90s Phil started making claims that he was involved in the firefight at Dulce. The key to this mess is the fact that Bob Lazar popularized the story in 1989. Bob Lazar and John Lear were also working together a lot that year... Schneider more than likely obtained the story from Lear, which Lear supports in statements he’s made... If you view the Phil Schneider story from a legal standard of preponderance of evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt, there is no evidence to support his story... Based on this lack of evidence and the cumulative issues about Phil, the Phil Schneider story about Dulce is not credible, and neither are the stories of alien/government firefights, especially in light of where these stories originated from: John Lear and the air force.... Since Phil did not enter the Dulce story until the mid-1990s, his story has no evidentiary strength because a lot of Phil’s story had already been around the UFO community for several years. Phil also met with John Lear in Las Vegas, according to Lear’s interviews." Lazar has claimed that the studied vehicle was fueled by the chemical element with atomic number 115 (E115), which had not yet been artificially created. Lazar said that the propulsion system relied on a stable isotope of E115. In 2003, scientists successfully synthesized an element with 115 protons, which they named "Moscovium". Contrary to Lazar's claim, isotopes of element 115 are highly unstable, decaying in a few hundred milliseconds. • Illustration — An Area 51 gate Lazar alleges that his employment and education records have been erased, an allegation that Friedman, Prothero and author Timothy D. Callahan consider implausible. His story has drawn significant media attention, controversy, supporters, and detractors. Lazar has presented no actual evidence of alien life or technology. Lazar owns and operates United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies, a company that sells a variety of materials and chemicals. In 2017, Lazar's workplace was raided by the FBI and local police. The raid was reported as part of a murder investigation (in which Lazar is not listed as a suspect) to determine if United Nuclear sold thallium to a murder suspect in Michigan.

Lazar co-operated the Desert Blast festival, an annual event in the Nevada desert for pyrotechnics enthusiasts. The festival features homemade explosives, rockets, jet-powered vehicles, and other pyrotechnics. Lazar was featured in Knapp's and Jeremy Corbell's 2019 documentary Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers, and he has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. In 2026, he was featured in Luigi Vendittelli's documentary S4: The Bob Lazar Story.

Journalists have noted that further doubts have been cast on Lazar's credibility due to his criminal activity. In 1990, Lazar was arrested for aiding and abetting a prostitution ring. This was reduced to felony pandering, to which he pleaded guilty. He was ordered to do 150 hours of community service, stay away from brothels, and undergo psychotherapy. In 2006, Lazar's supply business was charged with violating the Federal Hazardous Substances Act for shipping restricted chemicals across state lines. The charges stemmed from a 2003 raid on United Nuclear's business offices, where chemical sales records were examined. In 2007, United Nuclear pleaded guilty to three criminal counts for violating a law prohibiting the sale of chemicals and components used to make illegal fireworks; it was fined $7,500 and received three years probation as part of a plea agreement where the government agreed not to bring direct charges against Lazar or his wife.