A previously unpublished letter from reporter George Knapp to Stanton Friedman contains new details about early claims Bob Lazar had made to Knapp regarding his education.
The letter was written in August 1989, just under three months before Knapp first identified Lazar publicly in his Las Vegas TV series UFOs: The Best Evidence.
In the letter, Knapp states that Lazar told him "he graduated from high school, somewhere in Southern California, at age 15."
During a pre-sentence investigation related to his conviction for Pandering, the Nevada Department of Parole and Probation verified that Lazar graduated from from W. Tresper Clarke High School in Westbury, New York at the age of 17.
"The defendant was able to supply this department with a high-school graduation certificate dated August 30, 1976 from W. Tresper Clark High School, East Meadow School District #3, Westbury, New York."
Friedman later independently confirmed this.
In the August 1989 letter to Friedman, Knapp also describes what Lazar had told him about his college education: "[Lazar] attended two other colleges prior to MIT -- Pierce College and U.C. Northridge."
The letter makes no mention of Caltech, where Lazar would later claim to have earned a Master of Science in Electronic Technology in 1985.
That claim appears, among other places, in Lazar's 1990 statements to the Nevada Department of Parole and Probation, which recorded that Lazar claimed to hold a Masters of Science in Physics from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, awarded in 1982 - before receiving a second Masters degree from Caltech in 1985 (rather than attending Caltech first and then MIT, as he has claimed in the majority of interviews since 1989).
The letter is published for the first time below.
Bob's close friend Joe Vaninetti, who was with Bob when he went to a casino to meet with the man Bob claims was his supervisor at S4 (Dennis Mariani) briefly mentions the related project in his diary - though "AIDS" had been misinterpreted as "HIDS" and went thus went unnoticed.
"August 30, 1989
Dennis called Bob back. He sounded angry and threatening. Told Bob "they" weren't going to allow Bob to complete his project (AIDS).
Bob volenteered to go public and retract all that he has said. Dennis's response to this was "It's too late for that. We're going to kill you. He then hung up the phone."
When speaking about information he read in the briefing documents he claims to have been exposed to while working on a crash retrieval program in 1988 and 1989, Bob Lazar told author Michael Lindemann in 1991:
“I have no reason to suspect it was disinformation.”
In 1993, Timothy Good said of Lazar’s statements on the subject:
“He did not deny the possibility, but pointed out that everything he saw on paper pertaining to his own specialized field turned out to be factual, so he assumes therefore that everything else he read could have been equally valid.”
These statements are similar to many statements Lazar has made since 1989.
Earlier this year, however, in Luigi Venditelli’s documentary S4, Bob Lazar began taking a different stance on whether the information in the documents were likely to be accurate.
“The main reason is because when Barry and I did discuss about their reports, he said, 'Take everything with a grain of salt because they'll intentionally inject ridiculous things in there. So if anything ever gets out, they know exactly who to track it back to.'"
Bob made similar statements in his interviews with Chris Ramsay and Jesse Michels, telling Ramsay:
“I really didn't put much credence in it at all. So, I just brushed it off.”
This raises the question of why Bob would seek to downplay the claims that he read in the briefings and his earlier opinion on their possible veracity.
One reason may be a set of claims from the briefings that very few are aware of, likely because the only public statements made about them were from John Lear - that the briefings had information about the origin of the AIDS virus and contained the formula for the cure for HIV.
Lear: “AIDS was invented by a Navy surgeon named R.M. Donner, and when Bob read the, read the briefing up at S-4... It was developed you know, to get rid of a certain segment of, or number of human, but it was developed by R.M. Donner and it has the exact cure for AIDS and it has to do with the acucumber, Trichosanthes kirilowii, which is only grown in China. We tried to get it out of China... But I'll read you the exact cure and how it works."
In 1996 usenet newsgroup post, Tom Mahood, a researcher who uncovered much of the information known today about Lazar’s life and background, posed the following question to Gene Huff:
“I have heard several very strange rumors that a while back Lazar was working on an AIDS cure, based upon info he had come across at S-4. From some of your postings, I have the impression that you possess more than layperson level knowledge of the subject. What's the story here? Any substance to the rumors?”
Huff’s response:
“I guess that remains to be seen.”
While most may have disregarded Lear’s statement as too wild to be believed, Lear's claims are accurate.
It is, in fact, true that Bob claimed the cure for HIV was contained in the briefings he read, and that he had apparently been able to memorize it.
There is more to the story of what Bob did with the information about the purported cure that will be published in the future.
@cartoonkeith1 Oh you meant all of his interviews.
I added up all of the text transcripts for every interview or appearance he’s done (including his book) and at average reading speed, it would take roughly 6 weeks reading 2 hours per day to get through them all
Oddly, I have never come across a version of Bob Lazar's original May 15th 1989 "Dennis" interview that contains the entire interview. All of the clips across TV shows, documentaries, etc have some (often significant) portion missing from them.
As a result, many have never seen the complete interview.
This is the entire interview in a single clip, cut together from two separate sources.
Transcript in post below.
Transcript:
Unknown Anchor: “Sir, how do we know you are who you say you are and that you actually have knowledge about what's going on at Groom Lake?”
Bob Lazar: “Well, I guess there's no way you could really know, there's really no way I can prove it without revealing my identity and getting myself into more trouble than I have already.”
George Knapp: “Exactly what's going on up there?”
Bob Lazar: “Well, there's several, actually 9, flying saucers, flying discs, that are out there of extraterrestrial origin, and, they're basically being dismantled, Some are, well, in various stages of completion, built from other parts, and they're being test flown and basically just analyzed.”
Unknown Anchor: “You say there's 9 saucers. How are those tests going?”
Bob Lazar: “As far as what?”
Unknown Anchor: “As far as whether they're successful and that sort of thing.”
Bob Lazar: “Oh, well, some of them are 100% intact and operate perfectly. The other ones are being taken apart. I was involved mainly in propulsion and the power source, Basically, as far as I can remember, about half of them do operate and the other half are just being torn down, basically to analyze the components to them.”
George Knapp: “Where did we get these saucers? How did they come into the hands of the government?”
Bob Lazar: “I haven't the slightest idea, and you have to understand the information is very compartmentalized, and I was only allowed information that pertained particularly to what I was involved in.”
George Knapp: “But I mean, couldn't, couldn't our government have made them as opposed to getting them from some alien beings?”
Bob Lazar: “Totally. Impossible. The propulsion system is an, a gravity propulsion system. The power source is an antimatter reactor. This technology does not exist at all. In fact, one of the reasons that I'm coming forward with this information— it's not only a crime against the American people, it's a crime against the scientific community, which I've been part of for some time who are actively trying to duplicate these systems, yet they are in existence now and basically in the hands of the government.”
Unknown Anchor: “What would happen to you if the government learned that you were giving us this information?”
Bob Lazar: “Anything could happen. I don't know. It's, I haven't the slightest idea.”
George Knapp: “Well, you said, you referred to getting into trouble. Have you had some repercussions already?”
Bob Lazar: “Yeah, I've been threatened with, being charged with espionage. I've had my life threatened by them, my wife's life threatened by them, and, I mean, I don't know where else you can go from there.”
Unknown Anchor: “Will the government ever tell us about the testing? And, and do the Soviets know about this?”
Bob Lazar: “The Soviets were involved at some specific point. They were kicked out of the program rather abruptly in the middle. I don't know why that, why that was or what happened. They're not very happy about it. And as far as them revealing it, I'm sure they have every intention of claiming that all the technology was developed here, and it was absolutely not.”
Unknown Anchor: “If the Soviets were kicked out of this testing program, why wouldn't they tell us about this?”
Bob Lazar: “I have no idea. They weren't allowed all the information. Apparently they had some, and we were basically trading with them. As far as whether they have discs or not, I don't know. I don't even know if they had knowledge that we actually had any there, but they were involved to some extent, and I, I don't know how much.”
George Knapp: “What about aliens? Any of those up there at Groom Lake?”
Bob Lazar: “I really want to steer away from that right now.”
George Knapp: “Is the Star Wars program in any way related to what's going on up there? I know some people believe that maybe we're building Star Wars for something other than, than the Soviets.”
Bob Lazar: “This directly taps out of the Star Wars budget, um, which is very hard to follow because it requires huge amounts of money. It also, it, it taps out of a lot of other, places too that, that would be very hard to track down. But yes, Star Wars is directly related to it. The United States Navy is the part of the government that really maintains control over that.”
George Knapp: “Well, we want to thank you for joining us. Pretty interesting stuff you've got to say. Thank you.”
Unknown Anchor: “Thank you, sir.”
@ParaN_rmal Bob claims to have been doing CGI for commercials as well as aerospace simulations. See first image.
Second image is exceprt from an interview I did with a friend he’d known since childhood.
David Grusch's FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Defense has its first joint status report.
Grusch's FOIA request seeks records submitted to the Office of the Senior Intelligence Oversight Official between April 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023 concerning unauthorized disclosure complaints related to Grusch, as well as unauthorized disclosure complaints containing the terms “unidentified aerial phenomenon,” “unidentified anomalous phenomenon,” and/or the acronyms “UAP” or “UFO.”
On April 7, the parties jointly moved for a 90-day stay to give the DoD additional time to finish processing the request. The court granted the stay the same day and ordered the parties to file status reports every 30 days.
At the time the 90 day stay was requested, DoD had apparently located 30-40 potentially responsive pages on unclassified systems.
The DoD has now completed its search of its classified systems and says it found no records responsive to Grusch's request on those systems.
Regarding the 30-40 pages that were previously located on the DoD's unclassified servers, they have now determined 39 pages to be responsive. Those pages are undergoing “final coordination and review”, and the DoD anticipates releasing some or all of the 39 pages within the next few weeks.
The next status report is due June 8, 2026.
Case documents are in the post below.
In the new Chris Ramsay interview with Bob Lazar, Bob suggests that Dennis John Mariani (born in 1940) is the man he worked with at S4.
While Dennis John Mariani's gravestone is shown on screen, Bob says:
"It looked like Dennis Mariani died... I had pictures of a gravestone and, you know, people seem to - this guy, it connects all the dots. This looks like it was the guy."
I published an article about this Dennis Mariani last month, and it is highly implausible that he worked at a classified facility in Nevada at the time of Bob's story.
He was a longtime pool salesman who was living in Texas in 1989, and had been convicted of a felony in 1987. He would go on to be convicted of another crime in 2002.
Link to the full article is in the post below.
@_NTME9_@chrisramsay52 I was unable to reach her after a number of attempts.
It is highly implausible that Dennis Mariani worked at a classified facility in Nevada.
https://t.co/YmJmtVkhSD
In the new Chris Ramsay interview with Bob Lazar, Bob suggests that Dennis John Mariani (born in 1940) is the man he worked with at S4.
While Dennis John Mariani's gravestone is shown on screen, Bob says:
"It looked like Dennis Mariani died... I had pictures of a gravestone and, you know, people seem to - this guy, it connects all the dots. This looks like it was the guy."
I published an article about this Dennis Mariani last month, and it is highly implausible that he worked at a classified facility in Nevada at the time of Bob's story.
He was a longtime pool salesman who was living in Texas in 1989, and had been convicted of a felony in 1987. He would go on to be convicted of another crime in 2002.
Link to the full article is in the post below.
In the new Chris Ramsay interview with Bob Lazar, Bob suggests that Dennis John Mariani (born in 1940) is the man he worked with at S4.
While Dennis John Mariani's gravestone is shown on screen, Bob says:
"It looked like Dennis Mariani died... I had pictures of a gravestone and, you know, people seem to - this guy, it connects all the dots. This looks like it was the guy."
I published an article about this Dennis Mariani last month, and it is highly implausible that he worked at a classified facility in Nevada at the time of Bob's story.
He was a longtime pool salesman who was living in Texas in 1989, and had been convicted of a felony in 1987. He would go on to be convicted of another crime in 2002.
Link to the full article is in the post below.
Bob Lazar just revealed “brand new information” about Area 51 S4, where he allegedly worked to reverse-engineer UFOs.
“No one has ever heard this … ”
He dropped the name of another person who worked at S4:
Chuck Payne.
Lazar said Payne was one of the security guards at S4.
Chris Ramsay did his own research into Chuck Payne, and “there are many that come up, from retired Army to intelligence.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Here’s what Lazar said about him:
“All the security guards around there were very tight-lipped and quiet, and you really had minimal interaction with them.”
“Chuck was different.”
“He stood out, and if you were at S4, you knew Chuck Payne.”
“A security guard would never talk to you or say anything.”
“He was the only one that was just a bit of an extrovert.”
Ramsay: “Do you think he’s still around?”
Lazar: “I don’t know.”
Ramsay: “You haven’t looked into him?”
Lazar: “No, I really haven’t looked into anybody, but from those that did, it looked like Dennis Mariani died.”
Mariani was allegedly Lazar’s supervisor at Area 51 S4.
@chrisramsay52
It is highly implausible that Dennis John Mariani, the person whose gravestone is shown in the clip, worked at S4.
He was a long time pool salesman who lived in Texas at the time of Bob's story and had been convicted of a felony in 1987.
Full article on him:
https://t.co/ahkP1jzNXg
@UAPFilesPodcast I had missed your question until now. You may have already heard or found the answer. The source is that Google Drive file, which is from the original photographer's (Gabriel Zeifman) Google Drive account.
The evidence Luigi Venditelli describes in the clip below as being "indisputible" and "100% proves something that Bob Lazar said in 1989" appears to be this photo taken by Gabriel Zeifman from an aircraft approximately 17 miles away from Papoose Lake.
In the documentary, Venditelli says that "all you have to do is play with the contrast, play with the levels in the image. And if you look carefully in this version here where the contrast has been changed, that as we zoom, look what we see... You see them [the S4 hangars] clearly right there."
Great, I am glad we agree on that, and I assume you will make that correction.
Beyond the strictest construction of what constitutes a factual inaccuracy, would you agree that it is misleading to suggest to readers that Bob's knowledge of Area 51 and the Janet flights are both evidence of having special knowledge when, in fact, Lazar himself admits that it wasn't special knowledge (and thus has no relevance one way or the other)?
"But it also proves more than skeptics used to allow. A fabulist could have been lucky once. He is harder to dismiss as a mere fabulist when elements of the practical architecture around his story keeps turning out to be real."
He was neither lucky, nor did he have special knowledge. He had the same knowledge that many Las Vegas residents had.