So, Bob Lazar Is a Liar Again
If you trust behavior panels
By MARTIN REZNY
To know what I’m going to talk about, I’m afraid you will have to watch this analysis first (it’s good, though, and I generally do recommend The Behavior Panel YouTube channel):
Now, isn’t this interesting. First of all, Derek Van Schaik, another expert on body language on YouTube, has analyzed Bob Lazar’s body language across different interviews spanning decades, and he arrived at the conclusion that he is probably truthful, and full disclosure, I have to say I agree with him much more than with anything said by the panel in this video.
In the interest of weighing my opinion, I have degrees in political science and media and communication theory from Masaryk University, specializing in the scientific study of subjects like propaganda and conspiracy theory, I’m a trained actor, I have over 18 years of experience with debating competitions (and therefore argumentation and persuasion strategy), and my main interest since high school has actually been psychoanalysis and many related psychological subjects.
I have watched a number of Behavior Panel videos, as I generally find them to be great, but in this case, it feels different. Here’s what I see — look at the eyes of the panel, listen to their tone of voice. This time, in comparison to other videos I’ve seen, they don’t seem to be having fun, their eyes and facial expressions look tired or grim. They only occasionally light up, which is generally limited to when they start speaking themselves or are directly addressed (or are pushing a specific strategically important point, more on that later).
When they do lighten up, they seem to overcompensate a bit as well, as if that was releasing some kind of tension for them. It does get better beyond the half-way point, but not to their normal levels. When they speak, they also occasionally sound more irritated or agitated than usual, especially Greg Hartley. None of this applies too much to Mark Bowden, but he’s clearly the best actor on the panel who stays in character almost the whole time (and comes off therefore as the least genuine in all of the videos, which is how better craft can backfire).
That’s an important thing to look for if you’re trying to read experts on body language, because it is hard even for trained actors to not turn off their character when they’re not directly engaged, thus showing in their resting facial expression their true current internal state. Eyes are in fact the hardest to control, mainly what’s behind them, the window into the soul and all — as an actor, you actually have to induce a positive feeling inside of yourself for it to show in your eyes, much like physically smiling makes your tone of voice sound happier. Being a theoretical expert alone doesn’t make you a good actor.
By itself, maybe it could just mean that they have been bummed out by something prior to shooting, or that Bob Lazar is generally frustrating them for any number of reasons. What makes it sound more suspicious to me as a debater are the specific arguments they choose. What kind of point you’re really trying to make, and what kind of bias you have, can typically be deduced from your choice of arguments, as communication experts are not going to just say randomly whatever pops into their head, and given that making arguments is a very structured, logical activity.
If the speaker making the arguments is very smart, he or she would do things like making a point to say, repeatedly, that they absolutely would like some UFO truths to be disclosed, that they’re a fan of Bob Lazar’s story, or that they do believe the U.S. Navy UFO videos.
The thing is, agreeing with what’s already officially disclosed is entirely safe even for a secret agent with an NDA, so it means nothing, and furthermore, this is the kind of point that’s more likely to be stressed by someone who either indeed does have a bias against aliens being here (skeptics say the first part all the time, often obviously disingenuously), or who’s part of a cover-up (perhaps not entirely willingly, which would show as discomfort, anxiety, or depression of the speaker while being in any way dishonest, as well as relaxation when they can return to saying anything honest). In this way, discomfort with being dishonest is a good sign, character-wise, but also a tell.
A smart dishonest speaker, who’s not a psychopath, cannot use truly good arguments, and he or she knows it — they know the truth is not on their side and they also don’t truly believe in what they’re saying. That’s why their arguments will be more technical, nitpicking. Like glancing over all of the truth signals (that Derek Van Schaik elaborates on), as if there had to be a lie underneath them (a pre-judgment), spending vast majority of the time on debatable conjectures (stated as facts) and going for convincing-sounding red herrings. The same applies for speakers who are aware that their case is weak at best. In any case, the panel does seem to be less confident than usual, especially Scott Rouse.
Take the whole Bowden’s series of science-based arguments about how it was “smart” of Lazar to break a fundamental law of physics and that any laws of physics have to result in consistent hulls. The first part is a conjecture presupposing that Lazar is lying (we don’t know that from that part of his statement alone, other evidence would have to prove it first), and the second is pure conjecture, given that if physics are different than what we assume, we simply don’t know what the implications of that may be.
In any case, what we’re supposed to be doing here is analyzing everything else Lazar said precisely to evaluate the likelihood of the impossible science part of Lazar’s statement, the part we don’t know the truth value of and that we shouldn’t be pre-judging about. Also, Bowden doesn’t seem to be aware that elements can have differently stable isotopes, but that could easily be just scientific ignorance (it’s generally a good idea to refrain from arguing points outside of one’s area of expertise).
Or let’s look at the whole issue of Lazar apparently not recalling what happened, but what he memorized — every time, there’s a straightforward truth indicator, like story consistency, but not sameness, and a much more speculative possible deception, like stutters or head or eye movements, that can be explained away. Like by Lazar’s migraine in the Joe Rogan interview, which is only mentioned as a probable evasion tactic (again, pre-judgment), or by understandable personality quirks of a semi-autistic engineer/academician, or by the imperfection of human memory, or by one becoming less fidgety over time simply as one matures as a person or as an introvert acclimates himself to be an interviewee at the center of attention (or with increasing emotional distance from a threat to one’s life over time).
Because, and this is important, there’s every reason to suspect that Lazar does leave some things out or tries to word them very carefully or indirectly even if he is generally truthful, as there would be many reasons for doing that if he was involved in secretive and potentially questionable activities that may still have dangerous repercussions for him if he speaks of them in a wrong way (not to mention the whole ridicule and reputation problem — being concerned about how one sounds).
Maybe they did figure out something, but he doesn’t feel it’s safe to disclose it — assuming he’s telling the truth, there’s a good chance he’s hiding conclusive proof (element 115) that he has, as leverage. The context of speech shouldn’t be ignored. Experts with military, criminal, or covert experience should be well aware of all this. And by the way, as a person who suffers from migraines, I saw nothing fake about Lazar’s migraine, so I guess we should add that to his acting chops.
The fact that the conclusion here always leans toward deception just doesn’t sit right with me. This is again what a smart deceptive speaker would do, try to be apparently balanced to maintain the appearance of impartiality, and to hedge their position, if they were proven wrong later, but making sure to drive home the preferred conclusion.
After all, truth cannot be fully denied persuasively. Honest speakers without an agenda tend to spend more time emphasizing that they ultimately don’t know and that they may be wrong, and are not like that only at the conclusion part of the argument (knowing that you have to end with it in order to maintain the aura of open-mindedness and fairness).
At least the panel agrees that if Lazar is a liar, he would have to be an excellent liar, and maybe that’s what’s visibly frustrating the panel. Maybe they really would want to believe him, and really don’t, which would be frustrating.
After all, keep in mind, this is not exact science. You can almost always build a persuasive case either way through selection and conjecture, but ultimately, you don’t know.
I honestly don’t know, but I have to admit I do have an agenda here — not to argue anything I can to make people believe that aliens are real, but to prod any experts in this area that I think are not doing a great job, to get closer to finding out if they’re just having an off day, don’t see their assumptions and biases, believe in their expertise a bit too much, are selling something disingenuously for cynical reasons, or are being part of some sort of disinformation operation. Or whether I’m completely off-base.
So, am I imagining things, or did something happen here?
