Bob Lazar 1989 interview with George Knapp

0:00 Gary and Mary Ruth, though, we've been working on this story for a long time and we'll tell you right up front that it's going to be hard to swallow at first. This week we've heard the contention of UFO researchers that there's a secret government within our government. While that may be hard to believe coming from the UFO perspective, we've certainly learned in Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal that factions within our government can and do pursue pursue their own hidden agendas outside of the law, outside the control of Congress or the knowledge of the American people. This is exactly the type of operation we'll hear about tonight. It's a chilling scenario with worldwide implications that may have its roots right here. Area 51, that mysterious corner of the Nevada test site, is no longer much of a secret. The fact that secretive things go on here is a given, even to the Soviets who make daily spy flights over the facility to take a peek at what's going on. These photos, never before shown in public, are about as close as anyone will ever come to seeing what the place looks like. Again, the dry bed of

1:00 Groom Lake, corrugated metal buildings, a 3-mi long runway, and some highly sophisticated radar and detection equipment. It's been known by many names over the years, Dreamland, the Ranch, the Skunk Works. If ever there was a place to test a secret new technology, this is it. And that's exactly what's been done here for decades. Area 51 is where Francis Gary Powers and the other U-2 pilots were trained in the '50s and where the U-2 itself was developed. The SR-71 spy planes that spotted Soviet missiles in Cuba in the early '60s were also developed at 51. 51 is where stealth technology was nurtured, where Star Wars devices are still tested, and where all manner of CIA monkey business has been plotted and refined. It's the perfect place for secret things, but of course, that's no secret. 51 is ringed by the forbidden vastness of the Nevada test site, by the looming Groom Mountains, and by sparsely populated desert expanses. The few people who do live out here have no love lost for the

2:01 military, but they're conservative, patriotic, and they mind their own business. Ever see stuff you can't explain? Sure. Lots of stuff. Care to elaborate? No. On any given night at the Rachel Bar and Grill, you might find three or four people who work at Area 51, there amid the flowing Budweisers and cowboy hats. You might find them, but they aren't going to talk to you, not about the things they've seen over the mountains. A steady trickle of curiosity seekers flows through here, strangers drawn by strange stories of lights in the night sky. Their questions also go unanswered. No one who's worked at Dreamland has ever publicly acknowledged what so many people have suspected for years, that alien technology is being tested in the Nevada desert. The speculation first surfaced in documents obtained by UFO researchers, documents about something called Project Aquarius. The documents, allegedly prepared for an organization called MJ-12, state that a program to

3:03 fly recovered alien spacecraft was established in 1972 and is continuing in Nevada. The National Security Agency has confirmed it does have a Project Aquarius, but denies it has anything to do with flying saucers. NSA will not say what Project Aquarius is. Speculation was heightened in 1984 when the Air Force seized nearly 90,000 acres around Groom Lake. The action was, by most accounts, illegal. During congressional hearings about the land grab, Congressman John Seiberling grilled the military about the legal authority used in the action and was told the authority was at a much, much higher level than the Air Force. Seiberling asked, "What authority is higher than the laws of the United States?" The Air Force official said he could respond, but only in a closed briefing. In 1987, when the Air Force sought to renew its stranglehold on the Groom Range, news articles once again mentioned the talk about alien spacecraft, and subsequent articles in national magazines quoted unnamed sources about things of alien origin

4:03 flying in Nevada, things that would make filmmaker George Lucas drool. Despite the speculation, no one who knew Area 51 from the inside ever talked publicly about the saucer stories. Well, there's uh, actually nine, uh, flying saucers, flying discs, uh, that are out there of extraterrestrial origin. The live interview with the shadowy Dennis drew international attention. Portions were broadcast by radio in six European countries and in a nationally televised TV special in Japan. Actually nine, uh, flying saucers, flying discs. Despite numerous inquiries and feelers, Dennis has remained anonymous until now. His real name is Robert Lazar, a young scientist with eclectic interests. The choice of Dennis was an inside joke. He says that's the name of his superior at Groom Lake. It wasn't a joke to Dennis. He called right after and said, "You have an idea what they're going to do to you now?" And I I said, "Well, no." He hung up the phone. Lazar's story is, by

5:04 any standards, fantastic. He says he's telling it in order to protect himself. He says he was hired to work at an area called S-4, which is a few miles south of Groom Lake. At S-4, he says, are flying saucers, antimatter reactors, and other working examples of technology that is seemingly beyond human capabilities. Right, this this came from somewhere else. I mean, as bizarre as that is to believe, but I mean, it's there. I saw it. I know what the current state of the art is and in in physics it's it can't be done. Checking out Lazar's credentials proved to be a difficult task. He says he earned degrees in physics and electronics, but the schools we contacted say they've never heard of him. He also said he worked as a physicist at Los Alamos National Lab, where he experimented with one of the world's largest particle beam accelerators, a half-mile long behemoth capable of generating 700 million volts. Los Alamos officials told us they had no records of a Robert Lazar ever working there. They were either mistaken or were lying. A 1982 phone book from the lab lists Lazar right there among the other

6:06 scientists and technicians. A 1982 clipping from the Los Alamos newspaper profiled Lazar and his interest in jet cars. It, too, mentioned his employment at the lab as a physicist. We called Los Alamos again, and exasperated official told us he still had no records on Lazar. EG&G, which is where Lazar says he was interviewed for the job at S-4, also has no records. It's as if someone has made him disappear. Well, they're trying to make me a non-person. Explain. You called where? Well, the schools that I went to, the hospital that I was born at, uh, past job, and uh, essentially nothing comes up with my name in it. He smiles, but out of futility, knowing the whole thing must sound ridiculous. According to Lazar, his employer was the United States Navy. He says he and other government employees would gather near EG&G, fly to Groom Lake, then a very few people would get into a bus with blacked-out or no windows and drive to S-4. When you get off the bus, what do you see? It's a very interesting building. It's

7:08 got a slope of probably about 30°. The, uh, which are hangar doors. And it has textured paint on it, but it's it looks like sand. It's made to look like the side of the mountain that it's in, whether it's to disguise it from satellite photographs or what. He says he was never told exactly what he'd be working on, but figured it had something to do with advanced propulsion. On his first day, he was told to read a series of briefings and immediately realized how advanced the propulsion was. The power source is an antimatter reactor. they run gravity amplifiers. There's actually two parts to the drive mechanism. Uh, it's just it's a bizarre technology. There's no physical hookup between any of the systems in there. Uh, they use gravity as a wave using wave guides, almost like microwaves. It took a while, Lazar says, before he actually saw one of the flying discs. However, there were hints everywhere. Right, they had a poster, and it looked like a commercial poster almost, like it was lithographed and you could buy it at a

8:08 Kmart or something, but they were all over the place and they had the the disc that I coined the term the sport model was lifted off the ground about 3 ft at at, uh, Area S-4 on the dry lake there and, uh, the caption on the bottom said, "They're here." And, uh, those were just all over the place. Later, he got to see the real thing. When I was led in, it was the first time I saw the sport model in the hangar sitting down, and, uh, I was told they could have walked me in the front door, but they purposely wanted to walk me by it. I was told not to say anything and just keep my eyes forward and and walk past the disc into the office area. And I did, and, uh, as we went by it, I just kind of stuck my hands on it just to run it alongside the thing, and, you know, I that that was about the smallest time. After that, I got to see uh, actually lift off the ground and But you you also, in between that, you saw more than one. Yeah. The hangars are all connected together, and there are large bay doors

9:09 between each one. And, uh, there were nine total that I saw, uh, each one being different. Like they had the, uh, assortment pack. Security at S-4 was oppressive, Lazar says, and his superiors used fear and intimidation almost as a brainwashing tool. I did everything but physically hurt me. Put a gun to your head? Yeah. And and said what? Put actually put a gun to your head? Well, they did they did that even in the in the original security briefings. They had, uh, guards there with M-16s. Guys slamming their finger into my chest, screaming in my ear. Some people pointing weapons at like I said, it's not a it's not a good place to work. That fear factor would surface later. Lazar agreed to undergo a polygraph exam as part of this report. Polygrapher Ron Wright Slay asked about the technology Lazar had seen. Did you knowingly lie when you said you had actually seen anti-gravity propulsion in operation?

10:09 No. The results of this exam were inconclusive. Lazar appeared to be truthful on one test, deceitful on a second. Clay recommended that a second examiner be brought in. Polygrapher Terry Tavernitti runs a corporate security operation and is a former Los Angeles police officer. He put Lazar through four tests and concluded there was no attempt to deceive. And I left there thinking that I feel we do have some credibility to the subject had to say. And that's when I went to some of my colleagues. Tavernitti sent the test results to a third polygrapher who agreed the results appeared truthful. The charts were then sent to a fourth examiner who did not agree, suggesting Lazar might be relating information he'd learned from someone else. The polygraphers conferred and decided they would not issue a final statement on truthfulness until more specific testing can be conducted and that's where it stands. Tavernitti believes that difficulty in determining Lazar's truthfulness stems from the fear that was drilled into him. I think we're talking about a subject here that is so

11:13 and it is so emotional. And when you're dealing with emotions, this is polygraph cuz we're dealing when polygraph you're looking at fear. The fear of getting caught telling a lie because something bad will happen to you if you do. I am telling the truth. I I I've tried to prove that uh what's going on up there could be the most important event in history. You're talking about contact physical physical contact and proof of from another another system, another planet, another intelligence. That's got to be the biggest event in history, period. And it's real. And it's real and it's there. And I had an extremely small part in it, I'm convinced that what I saw is absolute proof of that. There is there is no way we could have created those systems. There's no way we could have made the disc, the power supplies, anything to go with them. Lazar says he has no intention of going on any UFO lecture circuit. He's not looking to do any additional interviews.

12:13 In fact, he wasn't too crazy about doing this one. He did it after certain unfavorable things started happening in his life and he did it because he feels that whoever is running the show up at S4 is perpetrating a fraud on the American people and on the scientific community. We intend to have much more about this story, about the operation up there on Monday and beyond. This is by no means the end of this series of reports. In fact, on Monday, including in our story there, support testimony other people who say they have knowledge of the flying discs at the test site and information from people who know Lazar very well and insist his story is true. If indeed they have these flying saucers, George, it seems like it'd be really hard to keep it so secret. Well, uh yeah, it would it would seem that way except for as Lazar asked his superiors up there, they say it's the easiest secret in the world to keep. It's leaked out many times before and nobody believes it. What what's the Navy saying about all of this? Well, of course, the Navy is supposed to have been his his employer and we have put some fairly pointed question questions to them. Of course, number one, it may not be the Navy at

13:14 all. Information is so compartmentalized up there, no one is exactly sure who is in charge. We have put the questions to several Navy departments. The answers thus far have been unsatisfactory. We've applied for more information through the Freedom of Information Act and that information will be revealed on Monday as well. You believe his story, don't you? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I've I've got to know him pretty well over the last couple of months and I believe he's telling the truth. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, George.