Bob Lazar: Excursions
This is the second in a series of articles resulting from over fifty interviews conducted with people who know or knew Bob Lazar, have had a role in his story or claims, or would have knowledge relevant to Bob’s story or claims if they are true.
The first article in this series focused on Bob’s role at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After publication of that article, I received new information that narrows the known period of time that Bob worked at LANL.
Below is Bob Lazar’s entry as it appears in the October 21 1982 Los Alamos National Laboratory Alphabetical Telephone Directory.
I have now received the February 11 1983 telephone directory through a FOIA request.
The names in this directory were redacted by the FOIA office, however it is possible to locate where Bob’s entry should be by matching the information in the surrounding entries.
Below are the Oct 21 1982 and February 11 1983 sections, side by side. (Link to full page 1982 | Link to full page 1983)
Bob’s entry does not appear in the alphabetical directory of all Los Alamos employees as of February 11th 1983. As such, it can now be established that he was no longer employed at the lab by that date. Bob’s Z number was issued on May 18, 1982, therefore the maximum length of his employment at the lab is 8 months and 23 days.
This is consistent with the recollection of his coworkers in their interviews, which can be read at this link.
On the length of Bob’s employment:
John Jarmer: He was there for a limited period of time…
John Jarmer: When he worked for my section, I can’t even remember the length of time but it wasn’t too long…
Fred: A matter of a few months. And, then again, it’s been 40 years… It was less than a year.
Henry: …it was a very short, pretty short span.
Excursions
One of the primary pieces of evidence put forward to support Bob Lazar’s story is his knowledge of lights in the sky around Groom Lake, which according to Bob were scheduled flights of the alien craft he worked on. Specifically, this raises the question of how Bob would have knowledge of the lights if he had not learned about them while working at S4, and what to make of the additional testimony from witnesses who he brought to see them.
There is very good evidence that Bob Lazar had an intense interest in UFOs in the months leading up to his claim that he was hired and began working at the S4 facility.
I will include the key details below, however to fully understand this prior interest I recommend reading the first portion of the article Believing Bob Lazar — Part II — A Consistent Story?
After New Line Cinema acquired the rights to make a feature film of Bob’s story, the screenwriters conducted a highly detailed interview with Lazar to help them write it. That interview in its entirety can be found at this link. In this interview, Bob walks the screenwriters through each calendar entry and describes each one.
The first significant date Bob describes in the interview is a visit by his friend and former colleague Joe Vaninetti on September 7th 1988. The entry includes a note about the length of the drive to Area 51. Bob’s explanation is that the note about the distance to Groom Lake is placed on the entry for an unknown reason or to be “intentionally” deceiving.
Wednesday, September 7th, 1988:
Joe — the guy I knew and worked with in Los Alamos — came to visit. And left on the 10th.
[Groom Lake = 125 miles] This is just a mileage note. It doesn’t occur on this date — it’s a note to myself how far the drive was… that was one of my excursions up there. There will be some deceiving stuff on the calendar intentionally. We’ll run into other stuff like this.
In an interview conducted on September 8th 2021, John Lear was asked about this entry.
Author: It says Groom lake 125 miles. He says that it was just how far the drive was. He says “that was one of my excursions up there.” This was after you met him. I assume kind of in the time period that he had taken an interest. I assume that you hadn’t gone out... I mean, I haven’t heard about this. Did you go up to Groom Lake with him before those Wednesday nights just to take a look? Did he do that stuff by himself?
John Lear: Before we met or just at the same time we met, he was driving up to Groom Lake. And there’s a place on a hill that you could see… you can’t see the lake bed, but you can see the range of mountains where it was. And he described seeing this light come up and then go down. And I think one of the trips he made was with Joe Vaninetti.
Bob Lazar and John Lear met in mid-1988, months before he claims he started work at S4 in December of 1988.
In the New Line interview, Bob also describes spending many nights and hours driving around the Groom Lake area.
Lazar: I just didn’t do anything. I wound up on the days off driving out that way.
Q: That’s cool.
Lazar: That was when I did lie to my wife and say, I’ve got to go to work tonight, and I’d go out and just drive out near the area… I didn’t want to get stopped by the cops… I didn’t want to do anything… so I’d just drive… and I’d take tremendous drives all the way up through Tonopah, which is two hundred and fifty, three hundred miles, and come all the way around the other side of the state and come back down in the morning. I was just orbiting the area, just so I could… I don’t know what I was doing…
Q: You were probably getting obsessed with the work over there.
Lazar: Well, it was more than a fascination… it was… well… maybe they’re going to be flying it or something. I just wanted to be around there and…
Of the five witnesses who accompanied Lazar to the hill near Groom Lake to view the alleged alien spacecraft conducting a test flight, only John Lear and Gene Huff have spoken publicly about what they witnessed.
