Bob Lazar: The Area 51 UFO Claim That Changed Everything

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: on the 15th of May, 1989, an award-winning investigative journalist, George Knapp, appears live on television with a story so explosive that if true, it would change humanity's understanding of reality.

His guest's face is blacked out. His voice had been altered. America is staring at nothing more than a silhouette in a dark room.

[00:00:25] Adam Cox: Ooh, that sounds mysterious.

[00:00:28] Kyle Risi: This man called himself Dennis.

Denis says, the US military are hiding nine alien spacecraft in the Nevada deficits. A place the government says doesn't even exist.

Area 51.

And here's the thing. De isn't saying that he heard a rumour. He's literally saying that he worked there

[00:00:50] Adam Cox: inside Area 51,

[00:00:53] Kyle Risi: He says he read the files. He says he saw the craft.

He says The government were trying to reverse engineer technology that did not come from Earth.

And when people start checking who he was, records Adam, they just vanished.

Schools had no memory of him.

[00:01:10] Adam Cox: So is he lying?

[00:01:11] Kyle Risi: Or someone had already started to erase him

because according to Bob Lazar, the most unbelievable part of the story wasn't the aliens. It was how easy it was to make the truth look insane.

[00:01:53] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of Fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:02:02] Adam Cox: We explore strange stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and remarkable people.

[00:02:09] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:02:12] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the Ringmaster for the Invisible Animals.

[00:02:16] Kyle Risi: I see you're muscling in.

[00:02:17] Adam Cox: Yeah. You look after obviously everything that people can see.

[00:02:20] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:02:21] Adam Cox: And I look after everything that people can't see.

[00:02:23] Kyle Risi: Yes, Adam, you're a very special boy. Yes, there is a circus. You got your little toys? Yeah. What's this one? What is it? This Just a little lion.

[00:02:36] Adam Cox: Hey, I was allowed to leave the house today.

[00:02:41] Kyle Risi: It's good to see that we are doing our bit for the community, for our members of staff when they, when they, when they fall over the cliff, because it's been too difficult for them here at the circus. We accommodate them. We don't just sack them, we find them a job. And in your case, imaginary ringmaster.

[00:02:56] Adam Cox: Yeah. I was going with lazy, but you went straight down to special needs.

[00:02:59] Kyle Risi: Oh, I mean, I, I see what I say.

Guys, if you are new to the show and you wanna support us, and the absolute best way to do that is to join us on Patreon, because if you sign up, you will get access to next week's episode a whole seven days before anyone else.

And it's real. It's not imaginary.

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[00:03:28] Kyle Risi: Yes. But of course, Adam, let's be honest, right? The real reason that people sign up. As a certified freak or a big top team member, it's because they want access to a very exclusive compendium key chain.

[00:03:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. They've been lining up all around the world.

[00:03:43] Kyle Risi: Why is that Adam? '

[00:03:44] Adam Cox: cause they want a goddamn compendium key chain dangling near their crutch.

[00:03:49] Kyle Risi: Absolutely. It's as simple as that. They just need a crutch companion.

[00:03:55] Adam Cox: And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favourite app and leave us a review. Your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

It also keeps all of our great and popular episodes in your feed if you follow us.

[00:04:07] Kyle Risi: That's true. Yes. And we are so close to getting, like, on Spotify specifically, like a thousand of the little star ratings.

[00:04:13] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:14] Kyle Risi: That's not bad.

[00:04:15] Adam Cox: That's not bad. Few more. Just need a few more.

[00:04:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I think like another a hundred or so.

But Adam, that is enough of the housekeeping because today, on the Compendium, we are diving into an assembly of official denials, extraordinary claims, and a deeply awkward possibility that the weird guy might actually have a point.

[00:04:36] Adam Cox: This just sounds like one of your excuses for getting out of doing chores.

[00:04:40] Kyle Risi: What do you mean?

[00:04:40] Adam Cox: I don't know. Just like claims. You're the weird guy. I don't know

[00:04:46] Kyle Risi: what, what,

[00:04:47] Adam Cox: it just reminded me of your excuses.

[00:04:50] Kyle Risi: Do you know, I was reading a review the other day and someone's recommending us and they were saying, you guys, you have to go listen to the compendium . And they had, they caveated it. Oh. They were like embraced. Okay. It's very silly. But it is very good. And they were like trying to like, in spite of it being silly, it's really good. So, um, yeah, this show is just really silly.

should we lean into it a bit more? Should we be sier? I don't know. Do people really like the silly

[00:05:15] Adam Cox: people are here to learn about fascinating things. And if you can have fun along the way and so be it.

[00:05:19] Kyle Risi: Fine Adam. Okay.

George Knapp is what you might call a seasoned investigative journalist whose career has spanned, literally mainstream local TV reporting and also high profile investigations.

He is quite literally a celebrated guy, not only for his of course, onscreen presence, but for the quality and the credibility in his reporting.

This is a guy who has won Peabody Awards, Edward r Murrow Awards. Emmy Awards. They're a big deal in America.

[00:05:48] Adam Cox: And Emmy, he's won an Emmy.

[00:05:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Daytime Emmy's. Loads of him and a DuPont Award from the Columbia University. So I think it's fair to say that as far as investigative journalists go, he's good.

[00:06:00] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:06:01] Kyle Risi: He has the kind of credibility where if he was to bring something hard hitting to the forefront of the mainstream, you'd probably believe him, right?

[00:06:09] Adam Cox: I think so. I mean, he's won an Emmy.

[00:06:11] Kyle Risi: But Adam, on the 15th of May, 1989, George did exactly that.

George had a man appear live on TV with a, story so explosive that if true would literally alter humanity's understanding of reality as we know it.

[00:06:29] Adam Cox: Um, I'm intrigued, I don't know this guy, but what has he done?

[00:06:33] Kyle Risi: Well, before we get to that, Adam, I just wanna give you a bit of a snippet of context as to one of the series of events that led up to this moment and why what George is about to broadcast was so explosive, but also very persuasive.

Five years before, in 1984, a pretty big story went mainstream after the US Air Force, just like that, illegally seized 90,000 acres of land around an area known as Groom Lake when this surfaced, it literally outraged Americans all over the country.

And as a result, a senior air force official called John Rittenhouse, was called into a congressional hearing to explain himself.

While under questioning, representative of John Sling asked a direct, but very firm question, Adam, what legal authority allowed the US Air Force to seize 90,000 acres of land?

[00:07:26] Adam Cox: That's a good question. Yeah.

[00:07:28] Kyle Risi: Rittenhouse responded very candidly that he would tell him, but not in front of all the cameras.

[00:07:34] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:07:35] Kyle Risi: And so the cameras were cut, private hearings were held. And Adam, at the end of it, the US Air Force now laid legitimate claim to 90,000 acres of land. And the story just went away.

[00:07:48] Adam Cox: So if I was one of the reporters that overheard that, you know, they've just said that it's like when you're at school, when people be like, oh, um, I'll tell you later. Yeah. It's really annoying. You're like, well, let me tell me.

[00:07:58] Kyle Risi: It's so annoying, isn't it?

Yeah.

[00:07:59] Kyle Risi: So as you can imagine, this moment sparked years of speculation about what this physically meant was the US government answering to a much higher power.

[00:08:07] Adam Cox: The US government so higher than the President.

Almost like the Illuminati. Or even something more secret than that.

[00:08:13] Kyle Risi: It sounds like that doesn't it? A power. Far more powerful than the most powerful government on planet Earth.

[00:08:18] Adam Cox: That's really powerful, Kyle.

[00:08:20] Kyle Risi: That's so powerful.

And so, Adam, on the 15th of May, 1989, George Knapp opened his live television segment by introducing an anonymous guest. His voice had been altered, his face had been shadowed out. America was basically just staring at nothing more than just a silhouette in the darkroom.

The guest introduced himself as Dennis and said what he was about to say, would likely put his life in danger of prosecution, possibly even assassination.

But in spite of that, the world so needed to hear it.

Des then told a live TV audience that the US military were in fact hiding nine alien spacecraft in the, out in the Nevada desert at a mysterious site known as Area 51.

And so Adam, we hear those words today and it's not really that surprising to us, is it?

[00:09:09] Adam Cox: Yeah. Everyone knows about Area 51, but is this the first time that's been said then?

[00:09:13] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But to most Americans in this moment, this was a revelation they were hearing for the very first time. Sure. There had been rumours that had circulated as far back as the mysterious events of Roswell in 1947.

But Adam, all of these were all on the fringe.

And so according to the US government AREA, 51 didn't even exist.

But now Denis was telling the world that not only was Area 51 real, but that the facility had access to extra terrestrial technologies.

And so the question was, Adam, what separated Dennis's claim from all the other rumours and speculations that had only ever existed on the fringe?

[00:09:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. Also to, believe a guy that's going by the name of Dennis.

[00:09:54] Kyle Risi: I know.

[00:09:54] Adam Cox: I dunno, that doesn't sound credible to me.

[00:09:56] Kyle Risi: Dennis isn't his real name.

[00:09:57] Adam Cox: He sounds like a mechanic.

[00:09:59] Kyle Risi: He does, doesn't he? Adam? According to Dennis, what gave him the credibility, what separates him from these other fringe claims was that Dennis said that he was actually assigned to work inside this facility, embedded into the side of a mountain, within an area known as Area 51, specifically a secret section called S four.

So it was a secret even within a very secret area.

which is ver That's very secret.

[00:10:23] Adam Cox: That's very secret. I'm trying to think of all the layers. Here is the US like one of the first to like store things within a mountain or something like that? 'cause I heard that Iran were doing that with their weapons recently.

[00:10:32] Kyle Risi: I guess. 'cause it kind of keeps it secure, especially from aerial, observation. That's the reason why, right? Mm-hmm. Because it's almost, invisible to aerial photographers.

[00:10:39] Adam Cox: Yeah. And you can't attack it or penetrate a mountain

[00:10:41] Kyle Risi: But yeah, so he's basically saying they have access to alien technology, but also that he worked at this

[00:10:47] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Kyle Risi: facility basically

[00:10:49] Adam Cox: for someone to come out and say that there is alien, I guess he's not the first person that's saying, oh, there is alien technology, but he's going undercover as if he is part of some top secret.

[00:10:59] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Like the fact that he is not going public is to protect himself, right? Mm-hmm. And that in a way gives him a bit of credibility because he is like, I can't really come forward, but I need to tell the story. But then at the same time, you could also argue that, he is a quack.

[00:11:14] Adam Cox: You know what I mean? Yeah. But then I guess if enough news broadcasters and stuff like that are paying him attention and broadcasting this Sure. They would've done some due diligence to know that okay, he does work for the government or whatever.

[00:11:25] Kyle Risi: And this is my point with George Knapp, right? He's one of the most celebrated journalists of his age, and he obviously believed Denis enough to put him on this live TV broadcast.

Mm.

But Adam Denis was saying that while he works at this facility, the US government were attempting to reverse engineer alien technology so that they could build their own. But it didn't start there because Denis then went on to explain that the US governments had been involved in a cooperative exchange programme with these very aliens up until 1979.

[00:11:59] Adam Cox: A cooperative exchange programme.

[00:12:01] Kyle Risi: Yes. A technology exchange in exchange for something that we do not know what it is

[00:12:06] Adam Cox: really.

[00:12:07] Kyle Risi: So assume for a second that Dennis is telling the truth. Why was Dennis coming forward now? Well, Dennis says that what was happening was a crime against the American people, but also against the scientific community.

He claimed that the US governments were hoarding this technology to advance their military advantage against their adversaries when instead it could be used in this technology to change the world for the better.

[00:12:31] Adam Cox: I have so many questions.

[00:12:33] Kyle Risi: Yes, there are gonna be many. And that's what this, episode is all about, working out whether or not he's credible and whether or not what he's saying is true. And it is a wild story.

I think I am firmly on the fence we all believe that there must be alien life out there, right? Mm-hmm. But he takes a step further to say, well. Yes, there's early life out there, but they're here now.

And actually they're working in corporation with the US government. That's too far. Do you know what I mean? It's so weird. It's like, where's that line?

[00:12:59] Adam Cox: yeah. Especially 'cause my inkling is like, oh, we're gonna use this technology to either spy on American citizens or something like that. And that's what goes against the American people.

[00:13:08] Kyle Risi: But that is so plausible as well, right?

[00:13:10] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. But this is why I feel like, is this why he's speaking out?

[00:13:13] Kyle Risi: So Adam, today on the Compendium, I'm gonna tell the story of Bob Lazar, or as I like to call it Bob Lazer. 'cause it's literally spelled laser and you couldn't get more quacky than that.

Right?

[00:13:22] Adam Cox: Do you actually know how to pronounce his name?

[00:13:23] Kyle Risi: It's Bob Za.

[00:13:24] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:13:24] Kyle Risi: That's how he pronounced it. But it is spelt la

[00:13:27] Adam Cox: We did get some feedback on a recent episode of some of your pronunciations.

[00:13:31] Kyle Risi: It was the one on the Nepal, massacre. And the lady was like, I am an Indian lady and your pronunciation hurt me.

[00:13:39] Adam Cox: That's awful.

[00:13:40] Kyle Risi: And that felt so bad.

[00:13:41] Adam Cox: I mean, I had no idea whether you're doing it right or wrong, but I always assume it's wrong.

[00:13:45] Kyle Risi: I'm not Rachel when she's getting the massage from, Phoebe and she's like, so Phoebe, what's the capsule of, Sweden? And she's like, star calm. And like, she's like, dammit, I wish I knew that was right.

But anyway, Adam, today on the compendium, I'm gonna tell you the story of Bob Lazar the origin of the law we are so familiar with today involving the existence of extraterrestrials.

Like this. Adam is the point in history where most people like me, and you first heard of AREA 51 and this idea that the US government were covering it up, this is where it all started, but yet very few people know the name Bob Azar. Right?

[00:14:20] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:14:20] Kyle Risi: Isn't it so strange? Mm-hmm.

Which I think in a way gives him a bit of credibility because he's always been like, I need to get this truth out there. But I'm also not looking to capitalise on the story. I'm not looking to cash in and make a bunch of money.

That's true. Now that is contested. 'cause we'll get into that a little bit later.

[00:14:34] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:14:35] Kyle Risi: But two questions. Do you know anything about Bob Lazar?

[00:14:38] Adam Cox: I know nothing about Bob Lazar.

[00:14:41] Kyle Risi: And do you believe in aliens?

[00:14:43] Adam Cox: I think there is a good chance that there's aliens. Whether we've discovered them, I don't know. But I feel like the universe is big enough.

[00:14:51] Kyle Risi: I, I Agree with that.

I think most people today find it difficult to fathom that we are alone. So conventionally I think people accept that aliens do exist. But this story takes it a step further saying not only are aliens here now, but they have been here for a lot longer than we initially thought.

And that the government is covering it up. And so Adam, of course, as a spectator, seeing this being broadcast on live television, you can imagine just how huge this was.

Mm-hmm. First, this wasn't just some quack story in a tabloid, this was a story being presented by an award-winning investigative journalist George Knapp.

Before coming to air. George spent months working with the man referred to as Dennis looking into his claims. It was convincing enough to George that he believed what Dennis was saying, and that it was his duty to expose this to the world.

The reception, of course, was largely mixed. On one hand, there was this intense fascination with this idea that aliens did exist, and very little surprise that the US government were actually trying to cover it up.

Especially since just a few years before the US Air Force had seized 90,000 acres of land, and then the story just went away.

But the scepticism came from the notion that the US government were actively collaborating with these aliens. And I think that's where the line was, right? Like, yeah, I can believe that aliens exist, but

[00:16:15] Adam Cox: working with them,

[00:16:16] Kyle Risi: working with the American government. That's too much of a stretch.

[00:16:19] Adam Cox: I'm imagining a boardroom and there's like humans and there's aliens. And they're talking about, I don't know, some kind of deal.

[00:16:25] Kyle Risi: Adam, what you're describing, there isn't an imagination. You're describing a memory from an American Horror story.

[00:16:32] Adam Cox: Oh, oh, yes, I am.

[00:16:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:16:34] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:16:34] Kyle Risi: And we'll get onto that in a minute.

[00:16:35] Adam Cox: Okay. 'cause

[00:16:36] Kyle Risi: of course, American Horror Story, they're always inspired by real life things, right?

[00:16:39] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:39] Kyle Risi: This idea that the American government will work in, in collaboration with Extraterrestrials is directly pulled from the Bob Lazar story.

[00:16:47] Adam Cox: Oh, no way. Yeah. Another, do you know what? I just think that the whole thing's made up American Horror Story, but the fact how much is based on true, or at least, you know,

[00:16:54] Kyle Risi: so much overlap.

[00:16:55] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:16:55] Kyle Risi: But yeah, you're right. It does kind of evoke this kind of image of them holding team meetings, hosting team building days on a golf course with these aliens.

Do you know what I mean?

[00:17:05] Adam Cox: Zoom calls at, you're on mute.

[00:17:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah. Tha tha Thanks, ed. ,

And so that notion that we are working collaboration with these aliens just sounded farfetched.

And so elements of what Deni said were met with this ridicule and suspicion to many, Denis was basically Adam, a tinfoil hat, wearing quack,

which I can understand, like some people would think that, but regardless of what you believe, it's this single event back in 1989, that caused a surge in interest around this mysterious location that people, for the very first time getting wind of called Area 51, which at this point, the government refused. To acknowledge even existed. The government were like, yeah, that place doesn't exist.

[00:17:47] Adam Cox: Yeah. And everyone now admits that it exists, right? Or is a real place.

[00:17:50] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:17:51] Adam Cox: I think it's signposted or whatever.

[00:17:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. And so based on the government's refusal to even acknowledge that AREA 51 existed, this to them was proof that this was just a hoax.

So following this broadcast, Deni says that he started being harassed by the US government even receiving death threats.

One of which came directly from his supposed superior at AREA 51. Now, his name actually is Deni. This is the reason why he chose his kind of pseudonym name. 'cause he thought it would be funny.

[00:18:16] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:18:17] Kyle Risi: He calls him up and says, do you have any idea what they're gonna do to you now? And then he hung up the phone.

I'm like, sorry Dennis, that's not a helpful phone call.

[00:18:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. So Dennis, real Dennis is calling fake Dennis.

[00:18:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:18:28] Adam Cox: Do you know what they're gonna do to you now that you've gone out with this?

[00:18:30] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:18:31] Adam Cox: So they know that he's the leak as well.

[00:18:32] Kyle Risi: Yes. And it's very interesting how they know he's the leak. And we'll get back to that in a little bit. But as a result of this, Dennis feels like he now had no choice but to come forward and reveal his actual identity before the only way to protect himself while getting his message out there was to stay anonymous, right?

Mm-hmm. But he says that the government quickly worked out who he was, and now it made sense for him to come forward as a form of assurance.

This way he could explain that he wasn't having suicidal thoughts, and that if anything happened to him, it wasn't on his own doing.

[00:19:01] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:02] Kyle Risi: Which, that makes sense, right?

[00:19:03] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:19:03] Kyle Risi: So a couple of months after the broadcast, He appears on several TV and radio interviews where he reveals his real name was Bob Lazar, and that he was an MIT and KelTech graduate who had been working at the Los Alamos Research Centre as a physicist before he was sent to Area 51.

He explained why he decided to come forward as his form of assurance.

But more than anything, he wanted people to not lose sight of the stakes in what he had said. Saying this went far beyond just proof that UFOs existed, but that this technology had civilization level consequences for energy economy, but also for the lives of ordinary people.

And at the time for many, what was really convincing was not only the fact that he was a physicist, but also how he came across on air.

Like before nobody knew what he looked like. The image in their minds was that he was just a madman.

But now in the open there was this very calm, presentable, young, very academically presented man making these extraordinary claims.

Adam, do you think his education and the fact that he came forward gives him that legitimacy? Do you believe him now that you know that he's a physicist and he's trained at MIT and Caltech?

[00:20:17] Adam Cox: It adds a layer of credibility. Absolutely. It's not like it's not someone that's just on the internet on red or whatever and just going, coming up with these theories and got a U2 channel for example.

So yeah, it does.

But I guess anyone hearing this for the first time information is like really, what's your proof?

[00:20:34] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. Bob does go into a little more detail about the specifics of what he experienced firsthand at the area 51 base, which he calls very specifically S four.

[00:20:43] Adam Cox: Okay. So it's a sub area of Area

[00:20:44] Kyle Risi: 51. Yeah, it's like a super secret sub area of Area 51.

And we'll get into it because it's amazing. But before we do, I wanna jump back into Bob's background because this will help us understand how if true Adam Bob even managed to get the job reverse engineering alien technology in the secret base.

Because despite him having a master's from MIT and Caltech in physics, it actually had nothing to do with these qualifications.

[00:21:08] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:21:09] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

So Bob Lazar or Bob Lazar was born in Coral Gables in Florida in 1959. He ends up spending most of his childhood in Westbury, long Island in New York. And growing up, Bob develops this real deep interest in science, electronics, and anything kind of mechanical. He was known to kind of often modify his toys in really creative ways.

Now. A lot of kids were like this, I was like this. But Bob takes this to a whole new level because one time he manages to retrofit his bicycle with a small rocket type engine mounted to its frame, which lets him achieve speeds. Adam of up to a hundred miles.

[00:21:45] Adam Cox: What?

[00:21:45] Kyle Risi: Per hour?

[00:21:46] Adam Cox: On a bicycle?

[00:21:47] Kyle Risi: On a bicycle.

[00:21:49] Adam Cox: Was he wearing any protective?

[00:21:50] Kyle Risi: Probably not. It's like the eighties. Right? That's, that's, you die. You die.

[00:21:54] Adam Cox: That's scary.

[00:21:55] Kyle Risi: It is. he is like just a young preteen or a teenager, right? Mm-hmm. So his neighbours are watching him ride up and down this cul-de-sac, a dangerously fatal speed, which does become a serious problem to the point that the police are called in to just shut this down.

But either way, this doesn't deter him. And so this becomes a foundational moment that sparks this acute interest in science and engineering.

[00:22:16] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:16] Kyle Risi: And so after graduating with a master's from MIT and Caltech, bob settles into a job as a physicist at Los Alamos.

This is a major US nuclear and science research lab in New Mexico. But just because he was now a serious physicist doesn't mean that his fascination with rocker propel vehicles went away.

If anything, now that he had money, he could just take this a step further.

And so Bob decides to retrofit his family's Honda into a rocket car. Basically, he fits a jet pack to it.

[00:22:46] Adam Cox: Where does he get hold of a jet pack?

[00:22:47] Kyle Risi: he is in that world, so he knows how to get the parts and stuff. I don't know.

[00:22:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like where do you start with this? But clearly he's got like this inclination this kind of curiosity, he's actually really quite intelligent and quite creative.

Exactly.

[00:22:59] Kyle Risi: Now he's a physicist, but he is obviously playing and dabbling with rocket kind of science. Mm-hmm. And he's largely self-taught. That's impressive.

[00:23:06] Adam Cox: That is, yeah.

[00:23:07] Kyle Risi: So with his rocker car, he would normally head out into the desert. He would cruise the car up to 90 miles an hour on the normal engine. And then he would engage the jet pack, which would then send him up to speeds of 200 miles an hour. And in documentaries they make about his life, it literally looks like the DeLorean from back to the future. Oh

[00:23:25] Adam Cox: really?

[00:23:25] Kyle Risi: Can you imagine that? It's really cool. And he's just one guy doing this all by himself. It even has a personalised number plate on it at Red Jet. You bet.

[00:23:38] Adam Cox: That's the best he could come up with.

[00:23:39] Kyle Risi: I think that's so good. That's so good.

[00:23:42] Adam Cox: That's true. I like it. It's cheesy.

[00:23:43] Kyle Risi: And so around town in the early eighties, Bob becomes a bit of a celebrity. He's known as this eccentric inventor type. He's in his early twenties, he's got a jet car.

He's the jet car guy.

He becomes a big enough deal that the local newspapers write a story about how this local physicist working at the Los Alamos Research Centre, who in his spare time, built a jet powered car.

It's really cute because in the article they ask him, why he did it.

And he's quote is saying, um, there's no real reason except for going really, really fast.

[00:24:15] Adam Cox: I just wanted to

[00:24:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Which is a really good answer.

[00:24:17] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:24:18] Kyle Risi: It's like, why did you do it? Um, just look at the number plate jet. You bet.

[00:24:23] Adam Cox: Pick up girls.

[00:24:25] Kyle Risi: So when this particular article comes out, Bob is at work at the Los Alamos Research Centre.

That same day, a guy called Edward Teller is scheduled to give a talk in one of the lecture halls, and Bob is very keen to go and listen to him.

Now, Adam, this Edward Teller guy, he's a really big deal.

He has dubbed as the father of the hydrogen bomb. So if you've ever watched Oppenheimer, he's the guy played by Benny Safie. He's one of the key physicists at Los Alamos at the time.

So this is the real life guy.

[00:24:54] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:24:55] Kyle Risi: So Bob arrives at the lecture hall really early and he sees Edward reading the local newspaper, specifically the article that they've written about Bob and his jet car.

Bob apparently introduces himself to Edward and he's like, oh, by the way, that guy on the front page, that's me, He's like, you think you're a big deal?

[00:25:11] Adam Cox: Oh, no, they're gonna have like a show off.

[00:25:13] Kyle Risi: No, actually, Ed's really amused by this, but also super impressed. Like This is a, a, a physicist who just built like a rocket propel car, right? Mm-hmm. They chat for a bit. Then Edward, of course goes ahead, gives his lecture, and that is the last Bob sees of him.

Now, a few years later, Bob gets wind of a job working on a propulsion project. The listing is labelled as classified, and the details of where the job was or what he would be doing are very vague, which only adds to the intrigue for him, but also this is a job that was right up his street. It was a job that effectively leaned into his passion for rocket propulsion and the prospect of being paid to do it.

[00:25:49] Adam Cox: Yeah, sure. So

[00:25:50] Kyle Risi: Bob sends his CV in, he doesn't hear anything back, but then he gets the idea to contact Edward Teller to see if he knows anything about it.

Edward doesn't know the specifics, but he does know the area very well. In fact, this is where he worked when he was doing a lot of the testing on the hydrogen bombs in his career.

And so he offers to speak to a few people and vouch for Bob. And so a few weeks later Bob gets a call. The caller is interested in meeting him, they didn't tell him much about the job.

All they say is that it's south of a place called Groom Lake in the Nevada desert in an area called Area 51. This is the first time that Bob is hearing about this area.

[00:26:28] Adam Cox: So do we know at this point when Area 51 was created?

[00:26:33] Kyle Risi: I'm just about to tell you.

[00:26:34] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:26:35] Kyle Risi: But my first question before I did was what do you know about Area 51?

[00:26:40] Adam Cox: Well, it's the 51st area.

I, I always get the sense it's got the name because of like the 51st state. So it's an area whereby they do experiments, whether it's bombs, whether it's new technology, it's top secret. It's where the aliens are supposedly kept. But yeah, it's a government kind of research facility where they can just do stuff without anyone else knowing.

[00:27:02] Kyle Risi: Okay, you're completely wrong.

[00:27:04] Adam Cox: Oh, what,

[00:27:05] Kyle Risi: Apart from the research stuff.

But you are need to understand the context of it. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna tell you just a little bit about it because AREA 51, as we know today, is actually a very, very small part of a much larger landmass belonging to the Atomic Energy Commission.

The entire area is around 2.1 million acres in size. So for perspective, that's like like three times the size of Rhode Island. It's huge

[00:27:29] Adam Cox: like a state.

[00:27:30] Kyle Risi: Don't, don't,

[00:27:31] Adam Cox: I mean, this is everything I said, but fine. Carry on.

[00:27:35] Kyle Risi: Of course, as the name suggests, this is where the US built and tested nuclear weapons before 1945, but also right up until 1992.

So big stretch of time and apparently during this time they tested more than 900 nuclear detonations roughly in an area of 1,350 square miles.

It's in this area that in 1955, and this is where kind of the American Horror story kind of angle comes into it, president Dwight Eisenhower instructed his administration to look for a secret place to test a new high altitude aircraft at the time. the fear was that the Soviets were making serious advances in military technology.

Which was extremely worrying since obviously tensions at that time were now beginning to escalate as we went into kind of the Cold War.

And so Eisenhower basically wanted somewhere remote enough, secret enough and secure enough to develop these planes without being spied on by the Russians.

And so the Atomic Energy Commission sections of a little bit of land for this purpose, which on the maps were labelled simply Area 51.

[00:28:35] Adam Cox: Oh really?

[00:28:36] Kyle Risi: So I guess there's like Area 49, area like 21, area 59. So there's a bunch of them I guess. Oh, okay. But it's basically a little grid of land in this 2.1 million acre area.

[00:28:47] Adam Cox: And I guess it's uninhabitable I, or people don't live there.

[00:28:50] Kyle Risi: There are a few people live there, and people could access it, but it's so remote that they didn't need to really worry too much about it. Yeah. Over the years they have obviously put perimeters up.

Mm-hmm. And they've made it more secret and kind of cornered things off. But yes, you can still go into kind of this land mass, but area 51 of course is very much closed off in secret.

[00:29:07] Adam Cox: Sure. And is the land there if they've been testing like atomic bombs and stuff? Is it radioactive? I guess it would be, right?

Yeah. Or some parts of it are.

[00:29:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So the area where they were testing the nuclear bombs was a, section of area of like 1,350 miles. Mm-hmm. That's probably like quarantined off.

[00:29:24] Adam Cox: Ah, I see.

[00:29:25] Kyle Risi: The area itself features an ancient salt flat called Groom Lake. So it was extremely flat and open, but because it's deep within this area, it meant that it was also really remote.

Adam, within eight months of this project, starting the US developed the U2 bomber, which is an aircraft capable of flying at 70,000 feet, which at the time was well above Soviet radar missiles and fighter aircraft.

The US basically start using this new plane to spy on the Russians. But in 1960, unfortunately that U2 plane is spotted flying over Russia.

But not only that, Adam, the Soviets actually managed to shoot it down, which means that they can now reverse engineer that to make their own.

[00:30:06] Adam Cox: Ah, I see.

[00:30:07] Kyle Risi: So the US needs to start scrambling to build the next generation of planes that are even better than the U2 just in order to stay ahead of the Russians.

Right?

[00:30:15] Adam Cox: Sure. It's like the space race, but obviously with military as everything, isn't it?

[00:30:19] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yes. And this results in the A 12, it's completely undetectable to radar. It can fly over 90,000 feet at 2,200 miles per hour, which is incredibly fast. Like you can get like across the entire USA in like 50 minutes.

[00:30:35] Adam Cox: That's really, that's like, is that Concord fast or is that faster than Concord?

[00:30:38] Kyle Risi: Who knows? Who

[00:30:38] Adam Cox: It's fast. It's

[00:30:39] Kyle Risi: damn fast. Basically, they also fit it with a steady arts camera as well, that is capable of capturing objects on the ground that are just one foot wide.

[00:30:48] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:30:49] Kyle Risi: This is is in the sixties.

[00:30:50] Adam Cox: You just think if they could do that, then what the hell can they do now?

[00:30:53] Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah. Like they, I'm sure they can do some pretty extraordinary things.

And so during the period, some of the US' greatest military advances in aircraft were being developed in this little area known as Area 51.

[00:31:05] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:05] Kyle Risi: And so, as you can understand, the secrecy and the reluctance by the US government to even acknowledge that this place existed would be pretty damn high.

[00:31:13] Adam Cox: Sure.

[00:31:13] Kyle Risi: So much So, Adam and I didn't actually know this, it's not until 2013 through a freedom of information request, that the US government officially acknowledged that area 51 even existed.

[00:31:25] Adam Cox: Really? So it took from like what the eighties, like 20 odd years for them to actually admit. Yeah. It's real.

[00:31:32] Kyle Risi: The whole time they were going, can't talk about it or Yeah. It doesn't exist.

And so again, at the time Bob Lazar is saying this AREA 51 exists. It's a real place. Mm-hmm. I know it is.

The government are going, nah, it's not. And people are going, the government says it's not. You're a quack. Mm. And now all of a sudden in 2013, the government go, yeah, it exists.

[00:31:49] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:31:50] Kyle Risi: What does that do to Bob Leazar's credibility in the story?

[00:31:52] Adam Cox: Well, with the government now saying it exists, people are gonna probably go back to what Bob Lazar was saying at the time and going, okay, if they've now admitted to some of the stuff that Bob was saying.

[00:32:01] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:01] Adam Cox: What else was Bob saying?

[00:32:02] Kyle Risi: And I mean, you can almost pinpoint this to the resurgence in the kind of the 2010s of when UAP and UFO kind of interests came back basically. Mm-hmm. And it's because it's around all these files being revealed through the freedom of information request Act a lot of people now potentially believing what he was saying is true.

[00:32:21] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[00:32:22] Kyle Risi: So in that time between 1955 and 2013, you can appreciate that is a huge amount of time for people to speculate about what was physically going on in that area, right? Mm-hmm.

If the government are refusing to admit that it exists, the only thing that you've got is speculation and conspiracy.

And so by the time Bob comes along, he's now saying that at some point, Area 51, stop being a secret military testing ground and basically became something entirely different.

And it's an explanation that many people did find plausible, that speaks to the populis wider imagination. This notion that they want aliens to exist. But also there are weird things being seen in the area.

The area doesn't even have a name. And also to the public, it's off limits. So naturally when you're in this area of land, you're gonna be like, well, I saw some weird shit. And also the place doesn't really have a name. And also I'm not allowed to be here. And also I keep seeing army trucks everywhere. What are you gonna think?

Do you know what I mean?

[00:33:15] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:16] Kyle Risi: And so it's not just the sightings of these aircraft that led to the speculation because before Bob Lazar, there was a guy called John Lee.

He is basically a career pilot and a military guy with the CIA. And he does a lot of cargo flights out to Vietnam with the US government.

And it's actually in the early 1980s that he came forward to say that the US harbouring aliens and their technology.

And he also talked about the sort of collaboration between them as well.

[00:33:44] Adam Cox: Oh, interesting.

[00:33:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:33:45] Adam Cox: So he, was he the first to publicly say that then?

[00:33:48] Kyle Risi: He was Yeah. Kind of. or the most kind of seemingly credible because he worked for the government. And so people thought, well, actually

[00:33:54] Adam Cox: has he got a point?

[00:33:55] Kyle Risi: And so by the time Bob appeared on TV in 1989, all the years of rumours and speculations were finally able to take hold into the mainstream. And it's literally thanks to Bob Lazar that we have things like the X-Files and Independence Day.

[00:34:08] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:34:09] Kyle Risi: Because they're all inspired from that without Bob Lazars story in his claims. The notion wouldn't have been pushed into the mainstream and we wouldn't have all that stuff.

[00:34:16] Adam Cox: It's, it'd still be like a conspiracy right now.

[00:34:18] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. But also American Horror Story with Season 10, title Death Valley. Right. Except with Bob, he was saying, I worked there and I saw stuff

[00:34:28] Adam Cox: with the head popping

[00:34:29] Kyle Risi: possibly Yes.

[00:34:31] Adam Cox: That there was head popping,

[00:34:32] Kyle Risi: wasn't it? You didn't see it. But I'll explain about that in a minute. You're talking about a scene from American Horror Story where some of these aliens, they would like be able to kind of grab your mind and control you and then explode your head or something.

Yeah. And he's saying something very interesting that American Horror Story took a little bit too far.

[00:34:47] Adam Cox: Took some liberties.

[00:34:48] Kyle Risi: But do you want to hear about what Bob said happened inside the space? I bet you're itching for it.

[00:34:53] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. This is the bit that everyone's tuned in for, right?

[00:34:56] Kyle Risi: And so where we left off, it was late 1988, and Bob says that when he was first contacted about the job as a propulsion engineer, after Edward Tele for him, he was told that they were gonna be putting him in contact with a recruiting manager at a place called EGNG.

After this. They decide to fly him out to Las Vegas to meet up with several government representatives, where in front of the panel he's put through a bunch of different interviews.

He says they are mostly focused on behavioural aspects and his psychology rather than his actual technical expertise, which I think is odd. That's odd, right?

[00:35:31] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:35:32] Kyle Risi: After that he says that he has a medical check and then he has to go through a polygraph test as well.

[00:35:38] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:35:39] Kyle Risi: When that's finalised, he has one more final interview with another panel, but this is also where he gets to meet his project supervisor, a guy called Dennis Mariani.

[00:35:48] Adam Cox: Oh, the dentist that he, took the name from?

[00:35:50] Kyle Risi: This is the guy Bob says, called him up to basically threaten him over the phone after he came forward.

[00:35:55] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:56] Kyle Risi: When that is done, Adam, he's taken to a secure location where he literally just spends days filling out paperwork.

This is basically him going through security clearance.

When that is done, he is told to just wait at his hotel in Las Vegas and Adam, he waits four weeks. He's like, what is happening? There's too much time. I don't know what's happening. Am I gonna be murdered?

[00:36:19] Adam Cox: That's a long time. Do you think that's kind of part of the process to make people wait to put them on a certain edge or how important this is or

[00:36:25] Kyle Risi: could be? but Adam, eventually, it's like 11:00 PM one night the phone rings and he is told that a car will be picking him up in 30 minutes.

this is how all of his shifts physically worked. Right. There is no schedule or rotor. You are just on standby waiting around for the government to call you. from the hotel. He is then driven to McCarran airport, where he boarded usually a Janet 7, 3, 7 aircraft and was taken to the groom Lake main base.

From there, he was transferred to a windowless bus where they make, a 30 minute journey along like a bumpy dirt road to a site within area 51 called S four.

He says when he got there, the S four facility was built in such a way that all the buildings seemed to blend in with the surroundings.

They were like, kinda like built into the side of the mountain and he described like a row of nine semicircular hangar doors that were kind of sculpted into the hillside with a sand texture. Over the front of them to make them blend in with the surroundings.

[00:37:23] Adam Cox: It feels very much like Thunderbirds in a way.

Yeah. Where they've got like these, secret doors and stuff like that where the, you know, the Thunderbird vehicles would be hidden away.

I guess any spy planes or anything like that, they wouldn't be able to see. Right.

[00:37:35] Kyle Risi: That's exactly it. It's so they look invisible from the sky, right?

[00:37:37] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:38] Kyle Risi: So from the moment that he gets out of this bus, there are just arm guards everywhere. A couple of them are assigned to follow him at all times so he can never be alone, which apparently was normal.

From there he says that he's taken to a secure reading room where he's presented with around 120 blue folders, like stacked with paperwork. He says that there must have been maybe 10,000 pages in them and he's instructed to go through them all. Oh,

[00:38:03] Adam Cox: that's so many.

[00:38:04] Kyle Risi: That is such a lot. Can you imagine that? Here's your homework.

[00:38:07] Adam Cox: How much is he getting paid for this?

[00:38:09] Kyle Risi: Who knows? That's a very good question. I didn't even think to research that.

And basically, Adam, these 10,000 pages outlined all the key information about the US' history with aliens and their research.

The thing that stands out to him though, from reading these 10,000 pages in this documents, is how they described aircraft that the US government had, had come from a planet orbiting a binary star system called zeta reticuli.

[00:38:31] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:38:32] Kyle Risi: So they know where the spacecraft came from basically.

[00:38:35] Adam Cox: So this was in the documents?

[00:38:37] Kyle Risi: Yes. It included descriptions of the life forms from this planet. It says that these beans had been visiting Earth for the last 10,000 years, and Adam, that they had been involved in a cooperative exchange programme with humans up until 1979.

It does not say why they're no longer in cooperation with the US government. Maybe they fell out. Maybe the US governments kind of killed them all. Who knows? I

[00:39:04] Adam Cox: overstepped the mark.

[00:39:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He talks about how these creatures are referred to as greys and describes them as having the ability to anaesthetise humans remotely by affecting the human brain.

Basically putting you into kind of a state of hypnosis

[00:39:18] Adam Cox: So 10,000 years. So They couldn't have always been talking with American humans. Does it tell us anything about who they've been speaking to this whole entire time?

[00:39:26] Kyle Risi: the documents describe how humans were, the direct product of externally corrected evolution where our species had apparently been genetically altered 65 times across that 10,000 year period.

And the greys refer to humans specifically as containers. So it could be that, from what I'm referring is that these greys had selectively bred us genetically to get us to a point where maybe this collaboration was impossible.

[00:39:52] Adam Cox: Oh. So like ever since we were

[00:39:54] Kyle Risi: Hunter gathering.

[00:39:55] Adam Cox: Okay, fine.

[00:39:56] Kyle Risi: Just at the dawn of like agriculture. Do you know what I mean?

[00:40:00] Adam Cox: I see. So they were like, you need a kickstart because you're taking too long.

[00:40:03] Kyle Risi: Possibly. And like the reason why we then shifted the way that we exist as a species, could it be because of this genetic engineering, if you will.

[00:40:11] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[00:40:12] Kyle Risi: That's what he's saying.

Now the documents also talk about a set of greys that were actually being kept there at the base. Who the documents refer to as the kids.

[00:40:23] Adam Cox: Okay. So does Bob meet the kids?

[00:40:26] Kyle Risi: He doesn't meet them. He sees them apparently this is when he's been escorted through the facility and he kind of sees through a set of doors that are just about to close and he says that he sees the kids like these small grey humanoid creatures, like maybe three to four foot tall. And they are standing collaboratively with scientists in lab coats near some equipment and they're inspecting it together.

[00:40:48] Adam Cox: That's so weird.

[00:40:49] Kyle Risi: It's so weird, isn't it?

[00:40:50] Adam Cox: I dunno if I believed

[00:40:51] Kyle Risi: that.

Exactly. That's my point. Like what point did you stop believing it? The point that, okay, we have aliens and we've got their bodies, or is it like.

Well, they're standing there in lab coats with scientists. That's a very regular thing for scientists to do.

[00:41:03] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:41:03] Kyle Risi: And yet that's unbelievable for us. That's really strange, isn't it?

[00:41:07] Adam Cox: I think that's it, isn't it? We saying oh yeah, they probably are working with aliens or something. Or doing something with aliens and then as soon as you say, yeah, they're working with them and like a room together, it's like, Nope. Too much. Yeah. And also 10,000 years. I just, that's the bit I'm like, I'm not sure.

[00:41:20] Kyle Risi: exactly. It's strange, isn't it?

[00:41:21] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:22] Kyle Risi: He says that while he was looking at them, his escort guard, nudges him forward and says, just look forward and try not to look around too much. So it's really weird.

The documents also describe what he says. Were autopsies, including images of some of the greys where he says that instead of having like separate organs like humans do, they had a single fused organ system.

but maybe it's just like one big sack.

[00:41:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's why I'm thinking like a giant stomach.

[00:41:44] Kyle Risi: Again, if we are supposed to be in some sort of collaboration with these greys, why are they doing autopsies on them? Or Adam, is this the reason why the collaboration ended in 1979?

[00:41:54] Adam Cox: Possibly. It sounds like this is when they would, might get a little bit pissed off of us.

[00:41:58] Kyle Risi: And why did it end? That's the question. So Adam is pretty outlandish stuff, right?

What is really fascinating is that over the last 30 years, Bob Lazar has been very, very consistent in the telling of this story, which I find very interesting.

A lot of people point this out as evidence to his credibility, but also he doesn't seem to be cashing in to try and make money from the story.

he is the grandfather of this modern day kind of understanding of AREA 51 and this concept that Americans are reverse engineering aliens, right? He was the one who brought it to the forefront. However, have you heard of him?

[00:42:32] Adam Cox: No, not really.

[00:42:32] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Why is he out there cashing in and doing a tonne of interviews and trying to make hundreds of documents, documentaries and selling loads of books and always being in the media? No, he's not.

[00:42:43] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:43] Kyle Risi: So a lot of people do think that kind of speaks to his credibility. Like he was telling the truth when he said, I just wanna get this information out there. It is important for humanity. Mm-hmm. Do you agree with that?

[00:42:53] Adam Cox: I think so. But then I also think like sometimes if you push a narrative too much, people then start to not buy what you're saying.

[00:43:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:43:00] Adam Cox: So you've gotta strike the right balance. But I think I do lean more with what you are suggesting that okay, this adds to its credibility. Yeah. He is not cashing in at least,

[00:43:08] Kyle Risi: but Adam, it's also the calmness and the matter of fact way that he talks about these claims as well, other than how wild the story is itself.

You don't get the sense that he is a whack job. Especially when you look at some of the interviews of him talking on television and you can actually listen to him because as recently as 2019, he actually appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast where he literally goes through his story from his account.

And I know people have mixed feelings about Joe Rogan, but with that aside, it is so gripping to hear him recount all of this, regardless of whether or not you think he's telling the truth or whether or not he's lying.

Mm-hmm. It's definitely worth a listen.

but here's the thing. When it comes to what he says about what he reads in these documents, even Bob doesn't know whether or not it is the truth.

And he says later that when he gets introduced to his lab partner, a guy called Barry, the details that he had read through were slightly different to what Bob had read through.

[00:43:59] Adam Cox: I was just thinking this, are they giving him slightly false information? So like they do this like with within Hollywood studios and films and productions like that, they will perhaps leak certain information or tell certain information to certain people that if that does then leak, they know it's come from them specifically.

[00:44:16] Kyle Risi: That's exactly the reason.

[00:44:18] Adam Cox: And you said they knew that it was him. 'cause when you went undercover for the first television interview, they knew it was him pretty much straight away, right?

[00:44:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:44:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:26] Kyle Risi: Also this relationship that he has with Barry is very interesting.

Bob says that he hoped that Barry would also come forward after he did, but based on how Bob's life fell apart, Barry just ended up chickening out and he just didn't come forward.

But when Bob is introduced to Barry, he tells him that he was actually there to replace his previous partner who was killed in an explosion while attempting to cut into a reactor from one of the spacecraft that they were studying.

So, can you imagine? , Yeah, you are, You're the replacement for the dead guy.

[00:44:53] Adam Cox: And we still need to cut into that reactor. Yeah, off you go.

[00:44:56] Kyle Risi: Bob talks about other groups of scientists and engineers that are working there, but that they all worked in complete silos. Like they are forbidden from speaking to each other, but also how a scientist could be there one day and then be gone the next, never to be seen again.

And this was usually after they'd made like a major breakthrough. And so like the government were like, okay, great, you've done this bit, you know, now too much. Get rid of you. Bring the next set of scientists in, tell them very little and say, now reverse engineer the next bit.

[00:45:24] Adam Cox: I see. So they never are there for the entire job.

[00:45:28] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:45:28] Adam Cox: Again, this feels like a Hollywood movie where they would like give you part of a script. They wouldn't give you the full script if they wanna keep a, um, plot top secret.

[00:45:36] Kyle Risi: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So when Bob is finished going through the 10,000 documents, he says that he's taken out to one of the hangers, which he says contained nine individual flying craft.

He says they were all disc shaped, all different designs, all in varying conditions. And he says that one of them even looked like it had been crashed or been shot down.

The ships that they were assigned, which Barry had already been working on, was called the sport model, And I assume it's because it was more compact than smaller than the others. Right.

And He describes it as being around 16 feet tall and 52 feet in diameter. And that the ship itself was made from like a smooth metallic substance, possibly like a ceramic. it was almost like a single thing rather than being made up of like panels except for a small hatch that was on top of it.

He says that inside there were seats, which were essentially child size. So to him they were not built by humans, for humans, unless of course they were sending kids up into space as,

[00:46:33] Adam Cox: The way that you described that is the way that I guess we grew up. Did we see cartoons in the sixties and seventies where you would see these little green men in like a, flying saucer

[00:46:41] Kyle Risi: in the sixties and seventies? Were we born in the sixties

and

[00:46:44] Adam Cox: seventies? No. If I watch old episodes of like the Flintstones, I don't remember when that was. Or maybe Looney Tunes. There's the Martian guy, right? When did they start depicting aliens in these flying sources?

[00:46:55] Kyle Risi: I, it's a very good question. I don't know. I don't know if it was the nineties or the eighties, so

[00:46:59] Adam Cox: I'm trying to work out if

[00:47:00] Kyle Risi: what came first.

[00:47:01] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah. Did we use Bob's, account to inspire how we portray aliens in the media? Yeah. Or did some of that come before what Bob saw?

[00:47:10] Kyle Risi: It's such a good question if one of our freaks will look into it. ' cause

[00:47:13] Adam Cox: you don't want to.

[00:47:14] Kyle Risi: No, I do. But it'd be interesting to see what our freaks think because I don't know if I believe the story and I'm really intrigued to see whether or not our freaks would believe the story or I'll convinced by it.

He says Adam, that the interior was made up of a series of archways. Initially they looked decorative, but actually they acted as wave guides, which were designed to channel a gravity field when the ship was turned on.

So like emitted downwards and around the ship.

When they were turned on, some of the archways also became opaque, displaying a series of slow moving backwards and forwards symbols, which he thinks were

some sort of navigation or ship telemetry that was being displayed. He says that the ship's flooring was a sort of a honeycomb structure, which if you press one edge, the cells would collapse inwards revealing like a compartment underneath the floor.

It's here, that he says there were three black gravity emitters that were used to power the physical ship. And these were specifically what he was there to try and reverse engineer.

[00:48:11] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:12] Kyle Risi: Before Bob arrived. They had already worked out that the gravity emitters, they were powered by substance, recovered from the nine ships in total. They had 500 pounds of this stuff.

And the key thing they all had in common was that it was an atom that contained 115 protons and so on the periodic table, this would've made this element 1 1 5.

But in element 1 1 5 had never been found naturally on earth And so as a fuel source, Bob's conclusion was that this must have come from somewhere outside of the solar system, right? Mm-hmm.

Now, one of the big puzzles is that when the gravity emitters were removed from the ship, there was no way to physically turn them on. Like there's no wires, there's no switches or anything. The only way to turn them on was inside the ship when they were in place underneath the floor.

So it was sort of load sensing outside of the craft. They just didn't work.

[00:49:02] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:02] Kyle Risi: His goal was to work out what was activating it. But he says that when it was turned on, it generated an incredible, powerful repulsor field around it, which he says was like elastic in nature.

So for example, when you put your hand near it, it was like this bouncy elastic force preventing you from touching it like gravity. But in reverse.

[00:49:23] Adam Cox: What I feel like is when you get two magnets and you put the same ends next to each other, and you feel that kind of force, right?

[00:49:29] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. That's how a lot of other people explain it as well.

[00:49:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. And you see this in science fiction all the time. These fields, whatever people push against and stuff like that. So again, I get an idea, it feels very sci-fi. Not sure I buy it.

[00:49:42] Kyle Risi: So whatever this was, it clearly needed like a tonne of energy. But what is interesting to him is that based on the laws of thermodynamics, this, this should have generated a tonne of heat. But the reactor never raises more than one degree above ambient temperature, which indicates to him just how efficient these things were.

He says that when the ship was not activated, it sort of laid flat like a dinner plate on a table. But when activated the craft first emitted a faint hissing noise and then a soft blue glow before lifting off the ground around 10 feet and then correcting itself laterally like a steering wheel, which is how it flew.

[00:50:19] Adam Cox: Oh, I see. So it's almost on its side.

[00:50:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Is that bizarre?

[00:50:23] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:50:25] Kyle Risi: So like it doesn't fly flat like a disc. It lays flat like a disc, but then corrects itself like a steering wheel and flies forward.

I dunno if that kind of disc shape helps with moving kind of space time around itself.

Who knows?

[00:50:38] Adam Cox: I don't know. This is bizarre though.

[00:50:41] Kyle Risi: So Adam, in total, Bob says that he visited S four across seven different shifts, spending maybe a total of 40 hours there. Again, each visit was always last minute, usually being called later night.

And he does talk about why he thinks that he was picked for this job. Speculating that the previous teams hadn't actually managed to make a breakthrough in terms of reverse engineering this technology.

And then after Barry's partner was killed in that explosion, they decided to bring someone in who wasn't necessarily trained or educated in the classic sense.

[00:51:11] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:12] Kyle Risi: They wanted someone who could basically think outside of the box. And that was Bob. Remember he'd built a rock of powered car all on his own.

[00:51:19] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:51:20] Kyle Risi: they were like, Let's just give this guy a crack.

So Adam, there is a very good reason why Bob only visits seven times, and that's because he becomes a massive security risk.

There is a lot of time in between being called up to visit S four and he ends up getting really impatient.

for him, this was one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to him in his life. And so he wants to be inside the action.

[00:51:43] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:44] Kyle Risi: He talks about after being invited to watch a test flight of one of the crafts, it's a Wednesday. He learns that this is typically the day that they brought in a team to do these tests. And so when he wasn't working, he starts to visit the outskirts of area 51 from like an area called lake Papoose, to basically watch from his car.

Eventually Adam, he tells a mate and he wants to see what's going on. And soon after that, Adam, it's not just him and his buddy. Instead he's taking like two others with him as well.

[00:52:16] Adam Cox: He got a whole coach full by the end of it or something.

[00:52:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's so bad. Apparently they record some of this being carried out and they describe the different manoeuvres that the ship makes, like how it would sort of rapidly move up and then laterally like is climbing stairs but super fast almost instantaneously.

[00:52:31] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:32] Kyle Risi: They describe how the craft would also suddenly just disappear without a sound. It's just that it's moving so fast, And it doesn't seem to have any effects on the air around it. So it's not causing like a sonic boom or anything.

[00:52:42] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:43] Kyle Risi: I did watch some of the footage. You can clearly see something is happening, but this is also 1989, so it's very grainy, very dark. But what is very clear is how amazed they are in terms of the commentary that you hear in it that're just like flabbergasted.

So, Adam, it's during one of these trips that Bob and his friends are busted by a state trooper.

Now they end up being questioned. All their ID is checked. And so for Bob, he thinks this is it. He is in deep trouble.

So Following this, sure enough, he's called in for a shift, but instead of being taken to S four, he's taken to Indian Springs where they pull him basically into an interrogation with his supervisor Dennis, and a bunch of guards.

He has questioned about who he's been talking to, but what is interesting is that it is not this that leads into being essentially sacked when he talks about the process of going through security clearance.

A big part of this was the psychological screening, one of which was to see if he was keeping a stable. Family life apparently. This is to reduce any personal instability that could create a security risk.

This is bizarre to me. I don't not sure about by it seems weird. it's during this interrogation that they read to him a transcript of a conversation his wife is having with her lover.

[00:53:58] Adam Cox: What?

[00:53:58] Kyle Risi: they tell him that your wife has been cheating on you and Adam. It is true.

[00:54:03] Adam Cox: And so they had tapped their phones or followed her or something

[00:54:07] Kyle Risi: Just for clarity. He 100% knew that his phone was tapped. It was part of the security clearance.

[00:54:12] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:54:13] Kyle Risi: Okay. And possibly his family members, but I don't think she knew, like he couldn't tell his wife about what he was doing.

[00:54:19] Adam Cox: Sure.

[00:54:19] Kyle Risi: And so the programme is now worried that this is gonna make him emotionally unstable, and as a result his security clearance is completely revoked.

That just doesn't make any sense to me.

[00:54:28] Adam Cox: So they break the news to him that his wife is having an affair.

[00:54:31] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:31] Adam Cox: Then they're like, well this isn't gonna look good 'cause you're not gonna be able to, keep down your job. You're out.

[00:54:36] Kyle Risi: What about the fact that he was taking his friends who do not have security clearance to the outskirts of Air 51 2 watch and record these space flights. Why is that not a massive issue?

[00:54:46] Adam Cox: That does seem like a big issue. Did they get called in?

[00:54:49] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I don't think so.

[00:54:50] Adam Cox: But equally that's also helpful because he's now found a flaw that people can actually watch this from a distance if they know where to go.

[00:54:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. It's just so bizarre to be, I think that it's weird that that is the reason

[00:55:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:55:02] Kyle Risi: That his wife is having an affair and not the other thing the fact that he's basically revealed secrets.

[00:55:07] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like you should be out straight away if that happened.

[00:55:09] Kyle Risi: Anyway, Bob is taken off the project and he never returns. And so following this, Bob realises that what the US government was keeping a secret from the world was wrong.

From what I could make out from the timeline, he sort of looks around for other people who had previously come forward.

[00:55:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:25] Kyle Risi: Maybe it was just to kind of connect and discuss. Like, imagine knowing this information, not having anyone to talk to about it. Naturally you're gonna wanna find other people.

Right.

[00:55:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. That I know exactly what you're talking about and you can discuss. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise everyone's just gonna think, well you're crazy.

[00:55:41] Kyle Risi: But I mean, this is a big secret to now be expected to go to your grave with.

[00:55:46] Adam Cox: I know.

[00:55:47] Kyle Risi: That's wild.

[00:55:48] Adam Cox: You'd just be getting drunk in bars and going like, there's aliens.

I've seen them.

[00:55:53] Kyle Risi: I swear to God,

[00:55:54] Adam Cox: But then I have a question. 'Cause he was obviously trying to, reverse engineer these reactors, but if there were aliens, assuming the same aliens mm-hmm. Working on an autopsy. Could they not just ask them? So how does this work

[00:56:08] Kyle Risi: That's a very valid question. I dunno why.

[00:56:10] Adam Cox: Yeah, I don't know unless, part of me thinks because he's got a 10,000 document that he had to read, which obviously had some red herrings in there. Mm-hmm. Did they put red herrings, things that he would've seen? I dunno, that feels quite elaborate to dress up certain scenes. But did they do things?

[00:56:29] Kyle Risi: Who do they have dress up as a little alien?

[00:56:31] Adam Cox: They're little, you know, they bring their kids to work and they're like, we just need to stage a few things. To make sure he thinks this is real or whatever it is.

[00:56:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:56:40] Adam Cox: Could they have done that? I dunno.

[00:56:41] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, it's a rational bit of thinking from you to kind of think, well,

[00:56:45] Adam Cox: is it

[00:56:45] Kyle Risi: ' Cause I mean, actually seeing the aliens, and based on what you said there almost takes away from your story. If he said that he'd never seen the aliens, then I think maybe that would come across a bit more credible. Do you know what I mean?

Because then exactly, you're right. Why not just ask the aliens if they were sitting there collaborating over a bit of equipment? Just ask Dam Alien.

[00:57:02] Adam Cox: Yeah. They're gonna wanna be the ones that tell you, aren't they?

[00:57:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But apparently this collaboration abruptly stopped in 1979. Why is there an alien there?

[00:57:10] Adam Cox: So unless they're keeping them hostage and they're like, tell us,

[00:57:13] Kyle Risi: it didn't seem like it did it.

[00:57:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. But I don't know. And also even like the makeup and like costume for 1980s, if there was prosthetics and all stuff. Wouldn't have been that great.

[00:57:23] Kyle Risi: No, it wouldn't have been, would it?

[00:57:24] Adam Cox: I don't know. It's just some bits that are a bit fishy. Yes. Maybe he doesn't wanna reveal everything. I don't know.

[00:57:30] Kyle Risi: Anyway, so he's out on his ear, right? Mm-hmm. He's desperate to connect with someone and discuss this. I have so much to say. And so he connects with a guy called John Leah, that military pilot who had come out a few years before saying stuff was going on at AREA 51, right?

Mm-hmm. They clearly talk and it's exciting for John because if Bob now comes forward, he doesn't look like a quack, right? Because at the time he's pretty much the only one saying this. Now he's got someone else who's also been on the inside and he's like, go forward and come forward, come forward.

There will be someone else corroborating what he was saying. And so John connects Bob to George Knapp, the journalist.

[00:58:06] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:58:06] Kyle Risi: George speaks to Bob. He initially thinks his story is wild, but he is like, do you have any proof? And Bob says, yes. He had actually stolen a piece of Element 1 1 5 and he shows it to George Knapp.

[00:58:19] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:58:20] Kyle Risi: Now, here's the interesting thing. There seems to be some sorts of intention to show the world this piece of element 1 1 5.

But George starts looking into Bob's background and what he discovers makes Bob change his mind about actually showing the world this element 1 1 5.

he thinks that whoever verifies it would just have the government order them to swap it out, tell the world it was just some sort of a already known substance. And then Bob would look like a quack and would be left without his proof.

[00:58:47] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:48] Kyle Risi: Now people say, oh, well this change of mind is clearly proof that he's lying. But over the years, Bob's businesses and his home have been raid by the FBI on three occasions. Like this is not something the government would do if he was telling the truth about this.

Right.

[00:59:03] Adam Cox: And do we know it's them that have raided the place?

[00:59:05] Kyle Risi: We'll get into that and we can decide for ourselves. I'm just going based on the timeline and what has been, what's out there. Mm-hmm. And we will get into why what George discovers causes Bob to change his mind in a minute.

But before George even believes his story, he wants to verify what he's saying is the truth. Right. Naturally. 'cause this is before he does the TV interview.

He interviews Bob at length, he asks him a tonne of questions, including with so many people involved. Why has nobody else come forward other than John Lear?

Right. And Bob is like, well, look what happened to John Lear himself. Mm-hmm. They made him look like a quack.

Bob says that even he superiors jokes about how they weren't bothered if someone leaked the story. They had a systemic process to discredit you, to make you look insane.

[00:59:52] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:52] Kyle Risi: He is saying that what they were doing was so unbelievable to the mainstream that the truth almost protected itself.

[01:00:00] Adam Cox: I think that's the thing, because it seems so far fetched, it's so easy in a way for the government or whoever these people are to just play that down as crazy.

[01:00:10] Kyle Risi: Exactly. You know what I mean? That is exactly what he's saying here.

And so George gets Bob to agree to a series of four polygraph tests with all different examiners, including a guy called Terry Zanetti.

the first two tests come back inconclusive. But the third and fourth say that there is no indication that he's lying.

It is actually the polygraph that Terry oversees, where at the end he is like, I didn't believe before. But now I do.

[01:00:35] Adam Cox: But can't, polygraph tests be forged or they can't be upheld in court.

[01:00:39] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you have to see it almost as a circumstantial.

[01:00:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:44] Kyle Risi: Whereby the polygraph test and the other Suffolk, Georgia is going to uncover is going to provide him the credibility and make him believable. And immediately following these revelations, people in the area do start coming forward describing similar things of what Bob described. Lights buzzing around, moving at incredible speeds, darting up and down across the sky, et cetera.

[01:01:02] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:02] Kyle Risi: So intrigued by this, George of course, as an investigative journalist, looks into Bob's credentials.

Remember Bob said that he graduated with a master's from MIT and Caltech and he worked as a physicist at the Los Alamos Research Centre.

Yeah. Well, when George tries to verify this, MIT Caltech and the Los Aams Research Centre say they have no record of Bob Lazar ever attending the schools or working as a physicist at the Los Aus Research Centre.

[01:01:34] Adam Cox: Really? But how is that then?

[01:01:36] Kyle Risi: Well, when Bob hears this, he's not that surprised and he says he figures this would be the case and he explains it's because the government was doing everything they could to discredit him.

Now, like what do you think of that? Do you think like, oh, well that's exactly what a quack would say.

[01:01:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. But then I dunno, as he got a certificate or something or

[01:01:55] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm but again, I've gotta ask the question. Do you think that this is something that the government is capable of doing?

[01:02:00] Adam Cox: I think they are capable. Do they have the time? Are they that bothered? I

[01:02:04] Kyle Risi: don't have the time. I've got lunch at one.

[01:02:07] Adam Cox: Yeah, and but like, can you just go destroy all the files that you ever went to this call? I dunno. Maybe

[01:02:12] Kyle Risi: it depends what's at stake, right? Possibly if you're saying like the reverse engineering technology to compete with their adversaries, then if that gets out there, then they're just gonna cause their adversaries to ramp up their spying on the government

[01:02:23] Adam Cox: ultimately. If you took UFOs out of this aliens

[01:02:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:02:26] Adam Cox: Then I think they would do that you can look at it two ways. I think if you just separate aliens for the time being and just said about like national security and being ahead of other countries, whatever enemies, then yes, of course they'll do everything to protect, country secrets and stuff.

But then when you add the UFO part, I feel like would they bother doing that when people wouldn't be quite sceptical about it anyway? So I think they would do that to protect the stuff in area 51 and S four that would be damaging if it leaked to America.

[01:02:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I honestly don't know. Is this something the US government would do or is this just an excuse that he's using when he knew that journalists would inevitably look into his past and he's like, I've got an answer for that.

So for me, when thinking if the government was capable of doing this, I think it's possible. Remember this is also the 1980s at a time where everything is largely paper-based. So it's not a stretch for me to believe that the US government who work with a lot of the alumni from these universities could easily have an insider just go in and wipe those records. Mm-hmm. Just grab that file and burn it.

[01:03:30] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:03:31] Kyle Risi: So next George tries to request Bob's birth certificate and the hospital tell him that there is no record of a Bob Azar being born at that hospital.

[01:03:41] Adam Cox: That's weird.

[01:03:42] Kyle Risi: So to George, this looks very suspicious. George does some more digging. He speaks to a bunch of people who graduated the same year as Bob and he finds a bunch of people who say not only do they remember Bob, but they also attend classes with Bob.

In fact, some people say they drove him to class and other people say that they hung out with him. And some people even say they dated him.

[01:04:02] Adam Cox: I mean, if there's multiple people saying that, then you kind of go like, well they can't all be lying.

[01:04:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So to them it was not possible for him to have not gone to that school.

[01:04:10] Adam Cox: Wow.

[01:04:11] Kyle Risi: He also speaks to Bob's parents where his mother shows him a copy of Bob's birth certificate and shows him very clearly on their birth certificate, the hospital that he was born at.

[01:04:21] Adam Cox: This is what I mean, like surely there is that evidence and he's got, there'll be photos, imagine. Yeah. And stuff like that as well.

[01:04:28] Kyle Risi: Like how can it be possible for all these people to vouch that he went to these schools and yet not just one, but both of these schools have no record of him. It's just weird.

[01:04:38] Adam Cox: That must be so strange to almost feel like your identity is being erased.

[01:04:44] Kyle Risi: So weird.

Next George gets creative, he gets hold of some old phone books from a local library between the years. Bob says that he was working at Los Amos as a physicist, right there in black and white. It lists Bob Lazars direct contact telephone number at Los Alamos, and when he rings it, it's disconnected.

[01:05:04] Adam Cox: Hmm.

[01:05:04] Kyle Risi: So he clearly worked there. But also remember Adam, there is that article in the local paper about him and his jet car that said that he was a physicist at the Los Alamos.

[01:05:14] Adam Cox: So if the government are trying to destroy these records of him mm-hmm. Surely if someone dicked into it enough, they would know that, okay, there is a coverup or something. But is it just enough to put people off

[01:05:25] Kyle Risi: a, a seeded doubt? Maybe that's all they need. Yeah. They just need a small seeded doubt. They want people to be divided.

[01:05:30] Adam Cox: Yes, you're right.

[01:05:31] Kyle Risi: So for George, this is enough. He believes Bob is right. And someone had to deliberately try to erase his entire life in order to destroy his credibility.

And so Adam, on the 15th of May, 1989, George Knapp, one of the most celebrated, investigative journalists of his generation, puts Denis on live television to tell his story.

And this is the moment this entire idea first bursts into the mainstream that the US government were testing alien technology and a secret place called Area 51.

And according to Bob, following the broadcast agents immediately start tailing him. It doesn't take them long to work out who this mysterious Dennis was. Perhaps because like you said, they were able to trace back the leak to him based on the specific details that he had shared.

So possibly, and even Bob acknowledges that not everything he said was real. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Is after this, that Bob comes forward to reveal his actual identity in order to protect himself as a reassurance, essentially saying, if I go missing, I did not kill myself. I've got no intention of getting rid of myself.

But I wanna quickly come back to this element 1 1 5, which Bob supposedly had, right? Mm-hmm. The evidence at the time it existed in theory, but we've never observed it naturally.

Well, Adam, in 2003, scientists managed to synthesise this in a lab. And as a result, this element 1 1 15 now officially exists on the periodic table.

[01:06:56] Adam Cox: And so what is one one five?

[01:06:58] Kyle Risi: So we call it mosco today, but as Bob said at the time, what makes it element 1 1 15 is that it has the telltale 115 protons in its nucleus. That's how we define element 1 1 5.

[01:07:11] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:12] Kyle Risi: But the problem is element 1 1 5 is extremely radioactive. And in the lab it can only exist between like 650 to 2,200 milliseconds before completely the case. It's a very different substance to what Bob is describing, saying that he had

[01:07:27] Adam Cox: Yeah. Because otherwise, how would he still have that? And if it's that radioactive, he wouldn't be, he'd be dead. Right?

[01:07:32] Kyle Risi: His response to this is that the version he has is an isotope of element 1 1 5. Scientists just haven't managed to synthesise a stable version of it yet.

[01:07:42] Adam Cox: And.

[01:07:43] Kyle Risi: Bob is right.

We have previously talked about how isotopes work in the Chernobyl episode where for example, hydrogen is element one on the periodic table, right?

[01:07:51] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:51] Kyle Risi: It's one because it has a single proton, one electron and zero neutrons. But there are variations of isotopes of hydrogen. For example, hydrogen three has one proton, one electron, and two neutrons.

Now with each variation, an element can become more or less stable.

And so since 2003, scientists have been experimenting with trying to synthesise different isotopes of element one 15, and so far, the longest they've been able to achieve is around about two seconds before it completely deteriorates.

Scientists agree in theory it is possible to synthesise a version that could last hours even years. You just need to synthesise the right, the right isotope.

[01:08:34] Adam Cox: I see. So they knew that 1, 1 5 could exist in the eighties So where is that piece now then?

[01:08:40] Kyle Risi: Well, yeah, that's the thing, right? He has it, but he's also changed his story about where it is.

[01:08:46] Adam Cox: Okay.

[01:08:47] Kyle Risi: But none of this definitively proves that this isn't just a hoax, right? But if it was a hoax, people do question what Bob had to gain from this story.

And honestly, Adam, the amount of attention he attracted over time, he could have really cashed in like massively, Mm-hmm. He is the grandfather of all of this, and yet nobody knows who he is.

Bob Azar is basically responsible for thrusting the modern conspiracy movements around AREA 51 and extraterrestrials into the mainstream.

So if money and fame were his goal, he was perfectly placed to take advantage of it. But Adam, he never does. And probably one of the reasons why, in spite of knowing loads of stories and conspiracy theories about extraterrestrial and UFOs, that you've likely never heard of Bob Lazar.

[01:09:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:33] Kyle Risi: Instead, after everything Bob just ends up leading a relatively boring life.

It's only after nine years, I think, like in 1998, that he finally opens up a business that he calls United Nuclear. It's basically a shop where he sells artwork, fireworks, but also chemical compounds.

Now, a decent percentage of his customers are people who are deep in the UFO law and basically just want to buy something from Bob Azar. And so they argue this is kind of him cashing in. But here's the thing, this isn't a hugely profitable business, it's a good enough for an income, maybe a little bit more. So as far as cashing in goes, he could have done a lot better.

[01:10:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. He could set up all sorts.

[01:10:15] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Remember he opened the store nine years after the fact. Not when it was all in his heyday.

So people are divided on that now in 2019, however, the whole idea of he had nothing to gain really gets challenged when he goes onto the Joe Rogan experience.

By far, one of the biggest podcasts on the planet, the episode that he's on gets like 70 million views. And to be fair, on the surface, it does look like he's cashing in. He's on one of the biggest platforms in the world talking about the story that made him famous while promoting a documentary about his life.

So yes, you could argue that this is him finally cashing in on his story.

But I do think there is a bit more nuance in that because when you actually watch the interview, it doesn't feel like someone is gleefully stepping into the spotlight. Guys, go and watch it, even if it's for 10, 15 minutes, the first bit, you'll get a very different sense of who he is as a character.

Joe Rogan in it is constantly reassuring him because Bob is repeatedly saying that he didn't wanna be there. He hates the attention. He doesn't enjoy talking about this stuff.

He comes across less like someone who's trying to elevate his profile and more like someone Adam, who is reluctantly going along because he has agreed to do this as part of the release of the documentary.

[01:11:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, could that be part of an act going, oh, I don't really wanna do this, but then why is he doing the documentary?

[01:11:33] Kyle Risi: Do. You know what, I guess maybe if you are a scientist, trained as a scientist and you are struggling to get work, or you've been discredited and you've lost all your qualifications, is this the only way that he can really get decent money maybe to support his family?

[01:11:45] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:11:46] Kyle Risi: You find like a lot of people who get huge amounts of notoriety, like for example, Meghan Markle. Can Meghan Markle ever go back to being an actress anymore?

[01:11:56] Adam Cox: No,

[01:11:56] Kyle Risi: absolutely not. The royal family have literally cut us off, right? I'm one of the most highest profile kind of royals on the planet. We need money in order to pay for security, otherwise our lies are in danger. what are you gonna do? Well, do you know what the most logical thing for me to do is to sign a deal with Netflix?

[01:12:15] Adam Cox: And that is why she put bloody dried flowers in virtually everything.

[01:12:19] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So it makes sense, like people criticise her for it, but actually that sometimes that's the only way that she can actually draw an income.

[01:12:26] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. That's fair.

[01:12:27] Kyle Risi: And this could be the same situation with Bob Lazar.

[01:12:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:12:29] Kyle Risi: But also remember this is 30 years after the fact, right? It's not like he's done all this immediately after these revelations. This is 30 years later, maybe that money has run out.

[01:12:39] Adam Cox: Well, yeah. I mean, Cher will do like a final tour.

[01:12:42] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:12:43] Adam Cox: Kind of like that. Still need to pay the bills.

[01:12:45] Kyle Risi: So if he is cashing in, he's playing the unbelievably long game here.

But at the same time, I do understand the council arguments. If Bob's credentials were destroyed and he couldn't really work as a physicist, that maybe 30 years later telling his story is one of the ways that he can make just some money.

Do you know what I mean? So I don't think it proves he never benefited from it, but he certainly has never cashed in, in a way that would've made him millions and millions and millions.

But Bob, Adam isn't squeaky clean. He does get in trouble over the years, which does speak to his character and does raise some questions about his credibility.

But Bob will say that these run-ins with the law were just part of the government's harassment campaign against him.

Alright. So you can decide what you think about it.

The first incident happened one year after the broadcast where Bob says that the government had intervened after he'd got in trouble to keep him physically outta jail because they needed him free.

[01:13:41] Adam Cox: Why? They need him free.

[01:13:42] Kyle Risi: Because they were after this elusive element, 1 1 5 that he said that he was hiding, if he was in jail, then they couldn't get access to this and they needed to be able to follow him. That's what he's saying.

Basically, Adam, he gets busted after helping a local sex worker set up a brothel in his neighbourhood.

[01:13:59] Adam Cox: Has he got experience with

[01:14:01] Kyle Risi: this? Oh, I have no idea.

Basically when the brothel is raided, Bob is charged with aiding and AB betting Adam. He's looking at serious time in jail. But at trial almost had a left field. The judge downgrades his charge to pandering and all he gets is community service.

Right? It's a surprise bob says this is the government's doing

[01:14:18] Adam Cox: what he was stitched up or that he Lesser sentence.

[01:14:21] Kyle Risi: Lesser sentence. Yeah. They needed him free so they could recover the element 1 1 5 fragment that he says that he has.

Now, the next run in with the law comes in 2003, so five years after he opens up his business among other things, remember he sells chemical compounds.

this is also the year that the scientists managed to synthesise element 1 1 5 in the lab.

So all of a sudden they got, Let's go and see if this element is the same thing.

[01:14:45] Adam Cox: I see.

[01:14:46] Kyle Risi: And basically his business is rated off the FBI accused him of shipping illegal chemicals across state lines.

During that raid, they seize a bunch of documents and a bunch of items from his store. This happens again for the same reason in 2007, and again, they seize more chemicals and more documents.

The third time happens in 2017.

This time he's raided as part of a murder investigation.

What? Yeah. Well, it turns out that someone was poisoned using something called thallium. Now, according to the FBI, they had reason to believe that the poisoner had bought the thallium from Bob's store.

So it wasn't him who had kind of done this. I see.

so, the raid was legitimate. He fully cooperated. But Bob said that during the raid, two of the agents didn't seem like the others. They seemed more interested in asking questions, irrelevant to the case, and were very eager to search through his shit.

[01:15:41] Adam Cox: So do we think that some of these raids were unjust then in a way because they were like, oh, it could have come from his store, whatever. That's what we'll say, and they're just looking for reasons to search For the 1 1 5,

[01:15:54] Kyle Risi: again, I'm on the fence because if he is selling chemical compounds and he's breaking the law and sending them across state lines. That's, yeah. You're gonna get raided.

[01:16:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:16:03] Kyle Risi: Right. But he's saying that they were looking for an excuse to rate him I don't buy that.

[01:16:06] Adam Cox: I dunno. I feel like he was really credible, but now has he gone a little bit off? I don't know. Maybe things haven't quite gone to plan in his life and maybe he is taking more risks. I don't know.

[01:16:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I still think that he could have leaned into it if he wanted to.

[01:16:18] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:16:19] Kyle Risi: Why set up a brothel?

[01:16:20] Adam Cox: That was a weird thing to do. Yeah. For a scientist.

[01:16:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He was just a good guy.

[01:16:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. He saw a, a lady and she wanted to start a business.

[01:16:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:16:29] Adam Cox: And he was like, do you know what? I can invest in this.

[01:16:31] Kyle Risi: He's like, she's good. She can go places.

So Adam, it's after this, for the first time in 30 years that he actually changes part of his story that centres around him having this element 1 1 15.

He still maintains that the element one five was the fuel source and that it was a stable version of which the scientists have thus far not been able to synthesise.

But he stopped saying he explicitly had it and instead says that if I hypothetically had it, I wouldn't tell you even if I did.

[01:16:59] Adam Cox: So is he using this as a way to keep alive?

[01:17:03] Kyle Risi: So in a nutshell, he's saying, I'm not saying I do have it. I'm not saying I don't have it. He says this because he wants the feds to stop, basically raiding his business because every year he feels like he's in more and more danger.

[01:17:14] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:14] Kyle Risi: Now I, I get that. I get why you would change a story for that And remember he knows that turning over the element to the public won't bode well for him This is why he's saying he hasn't handed over his proof. 'cause remember he said, I have proof.

Mm-hmm. But then he never gave it.

He's asserting, based on what George Na said, that the government will just test it and spin it as, oh, our analysis shows it's just a lump of steel.

[01:17:37] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's actually 1 1 4.

[01:17:38] Kyle Risi: yeah. Or whatever. And this would basically kill his credibility.

So it's sad because if he's telling the truth, he has spent the rest of his life carrying one of the strangest, most important secrets imaginable.

[01:17:50] Adam Cox: Maybe he's just got on a key chain.

[01:17:53] Kyle Risi: It's a little chunk. It is like a perfect triangle.

[01:17:56] Adam Cox: Is that what you said it looks like?

[01:17:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

It's cut into those types of fragments. it goes in like a little piggy bank from what I've seen in some of the footage.

[01:18:02] Adam Cox: How did he get that out? Because I feel like that'd been top security.

[01:18:05] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So he says that he smuggled out using like an air gel and I don't, like in a sock or something, I don't know.

But he managed to get it out.

[01:18:13] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. But he only went like that seven times. It's quite risky to go, do you know what, I'm gonna take this souvenir?

[01:18:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Very. Yeah.

[01:18:20] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[01:18:21] Kyle Risi: So I talked about the documentary he was promoting on Joe Rogan in 2019. If you wanna watch it, it's called Bob Lazar, area 51 and Flying Sources. So

[01:18:32] Adam Cox: Nicely named.

[01:18:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Says what it is.

And Adam, it has received mixed reviews from critics and audience, but I don't think that necessarily down to the production.

I think the split in reviews reflects how divided people are on Bob Lazar himself. it has a critic score of 20% on Rod Smarts and the critics basically dismisses as a pseudo intellectual nonsense.

However, the audience score is close to 50%, which I think is a bit better. And that makes sense because a lot of the positive reviews seem to come from people who either want to believe him or already do believe in that kind of universe.

[01:19:09] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:19:09] Kyle Risi: Whereas a lot of the negative reviews come from people who have watched it off of his appearance on Joe Rogan and just aren't really convinced.

But honestly, I think the audience score perfectly reflects where I sit with Bob Lazar. Like it is literally 50 50 with me.

It rides that fine line between something that feels possible and something that feels completely fantastical.

[01:19:29] Adam Cox: And maybe it's a bit of both, to be honest.

[01:19:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I think most people can get on board with the idea that there must be life out there somewhere.

But the story takes us so much further and I can't work out where the point is. Where I flip it says that not only that life is already here, but the government knows about it and they've been covering it up.

There's just something there for me to think, maybe this is true, but there's also enough of me to think this can't possibly be true.

[01:19:58] Adam Cox: I feel like it is plausible that a government would cover this up. Mm-hmm. Particularly if they're harvesting the secrets or whatever.

But why is it just America generally? That's where we look at aliens in Area 51. Why is there not an Area 51 in Russia? And then maybe we'd never know about that.

[01:20:15] Kyle Risi: there is, I think we get a load of UFO speculation and conspiracy theories here in the uk. Australia's also another big one.

[01:20:21] Adam Cox: There's a UFO site in Suffolk, isn't there?

[01:20:23] Kyle Risi: yeah, yeah,

[01:20:24] Adam Cox: so I was also listening to a podcast. It was a guy, his name was Louis Elizondo.

Oh, he was on, the Diary of a CEO.

But he used to work, within the US military, He released a book and he had to show the book to the military in order for them to kind of sign off it before he could release it.

But essentially what he was getting at is that yes, the US does have this intelligence does have top secret, military, developments that they're doing. And that's some of the videos that you see of these flying sources that do move erratically across the sky are true.

But he also says there's a lot of things that the US wouldn't say because these unidentified flying objects might not necessarily be aliens, but it's actually the US Yeah. And they don't want to admit that they are flying in airspace that they shouldn't be in at the time.

[01:21:15] Kyle Risi: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:21:16] Adam Cox: So they're trying to one, hide actually the technology that they have. Mm-hmm. It's not aliens, but it is, us,

[01:21:21] Kyle Risi: which is why the government had kept AREA 51 and Secret for so long because they were using it to test high grade military aeroplanes . Right?

[01:21:28] Adam Cox: Yes.

[01:21:28] Kyle Risi: Which is really important for defence.

[01:21:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. And so I do believe some of the footage that we see are unidentified flying objects because to the public we don't know what they are.

[01:21:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:21:37] Adam Cox: But they aren't necessarily from aliens whether they're using alien technology. Well, that's the big question.

[01:21:43] Kyle Risi: Sure. That's what the whole process was of reverse engineering. This alien tech was so that we could build our own. And maybe after Bozar They have got those gravity emitters working and the UAPs that we see are, are the results of that?

[01:21:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. Are using that. Because I think it is the, again, this guy, he says like the fact that uh, these aircraft can move ira, you know, like they move forward and backwards, up and down, that is a result of some of the US technology that they've been able to develop.

Mm. They don't want the Russians or the Chinese or whoever getting access to that.

But he does also say that the us do possess or have recovered non-human material. So that's interesting.

[01:22:21] Kyle Risi: That could be anything.

[01:22:22] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:22:22] Kyle Risi: That could be a bird's nest.

[01:22:24] Adam Cox: Are you saying birds? Other ones that I like have,

[01:22:29] Kyle Risi: that, or dolphins.

[01:22:30] Adam Cox: Dolphins. They are supposed to be one of the most intelligent animals.

[01:22:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Mice as well.

[01:22:35] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:22:35] Kyle Risi: That we test on in the lab.

[01:22:38] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:22:38] Kyle Risi: They're actually testing on us.

[01:22:40] Adam Cox: They're making us test them.

So yeah, I don't know, but I do. I want to believe it. And also he does say like, the thing that the government needs to just do is just plant that seed of doubt that these are crackpot theories, whatever, and people won't take them serious.

[01:22:54] Kyle Risi: Yeah. You just need a small seed of doubt is basically

[01:22:57] Adam Cox: what you're saying. But I do feel like there's enough people out there that do corroborate some of the same evidence to say that yeah, there's definitely something there. Maybe we'll know in 50 years, I don't know.

[01:23:06] Kyle Risi: Who knows?

Hopefully soon, because of course a lot of this stuff is now reaching that 70 year limits where you can request this information by the Freedom of Information Act. So it could come out. Donald Trump unfortunately, said that he would release some files.

[01:23:20] Adam Cox: He says a lot of

[01:23:21] Kyle Risi: things he does, he's so full of shit.

But actually this year Bob Azar is releasing another documentary called, the Bob Azar story released in 2026. It's an adaption of the first one. But this time he works with a team of CGI experts who want to visually bring to life what he'd been describing for years, the facility, the spacecraft, the aliens, all of it.

And what's really interesting is like they obviously took his story, they brought it to life using CGI and just seeing what they created for him brought back even more memories that he had forgotten. He was like, oh yeah, that's, that, that's exactly how it was.

But actually there was also this little bit here, which I forgot about.

So they were able to enrich the story even more, visually through it's almost like being hypnotised and bringing these memories to the forefront.

[01:24:07] Adam Cox: Yes, I wanna believe that. But I don the sceptic goes like always just adding to this.

[01:24:12] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[01:24:13] Adam Cox: But I dunno, I feel like that's what I'm led to believe.

[01:24:16] Kyle Risi: Bob himself says that he, they did an amazing job recreating what, he claims he experienced. So I'm intrigued. I probably will watch it.

Anyway, Adam, we could keep going for hours, but we have to end this episode somewhere and so I'll force myself to say, Adam, that is the story of Bob Lazar and Area 51.

[01:24:34] Adam Cox: That was so fun. I really enjoyed that. Did,

[01:24:37] Kyle Risi: yeah. Oh good. There's so much that I couldn't add into this, otherwise I sort would've been so long. But yeah, if we've missed anything really important that you think that we should have covered, let us know. Um, in the comments. 'cause we'd love to know. But yeah. Such a wild story.

And again, 50 50, I just don't know. I want to believe

[01:24:54] Adam Cox: yeah. What is, but then he perhaps doesnt know what's true and what's not true.

[01:24:58] Kyle Risi: Exactly. He can o based on what he's read, all the information that he has been given. Mm-hmm. But what he's physically seen, he can be committed.

[01:25:04] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[01:25:05] Kyle Risi: That's true.

[01:25:05] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:05] Kyle Risi: But yeah. Interesting. Anyway, do you fancy, uh, running the outro for this week.

[01:25:10] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:25:11] Kyle Risi: And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We hope you guys have enjoyed the ride as much as we have.

[01:25:19] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favour and follow us on your favourite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

[01:25:30] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget that next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon.

And as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:25:38] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek of what's coming next.

[01:25:47] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, and extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, and preferably fewer missing records.

[01:25:55] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[01:25:56] Kyle Risi: we'll see you next time.

[01:25:57] Adam Cox: See ya.