HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Is this a submarine[1] article? Honestly reads like CIA agitprop regarding UFOs and the like. I mean, he quite literally says in the subtitle:

> should remind us that seeing shouldn't mean believing.

It's clear to anyone who has done research into UFOs that the whole phenomena was a US military psyop (I can provide sources if anybody asks). However, the new stuff coming out from the community may finally reveal the truth: [2][3]

[1] http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ

⬐ ksaj

Paul's got a point there. Remember for a while they kept telling us that boy skirts were becoming the norm. Other than the occasional and very rare Utilikilt that I saw in one season and never again since, nope, there was no "norm" attributed to boy skirts.

But they kept hammering at it for a few years, and even had a few male runway models wearing boy-skirts. You still never see them out in the wild. A lot has to change before you will.

This is the other use of the term "social engineering." It doesn't always work. But it is always obvious in hindsight.

I watched Joe Rogan interview Bob Lazar [1] which seemed mind blowing if everything he said was true. But then I went and researched it and seems more likely he came up with some fantastic stories to keep himself out of prison after he got caught taking a bunch of friends up to the mountains to watch some classified experiements of a particle beam device. It's not my field of study, but some opinions I read were that the government is developing, not offensive weapons, but devices to confuse enemy sesors (radar, FLIR and visible light sensors, including human eyes). They claimed that a beam of charged particles could be focused such that it would create a glowing ball of plasma(?) at a distance and sensors would interpret is a craft of some sort. Since it is a particle beam it can be moved around in ways no solid object could.

So these things are tests of this particle beam confuser, not alien spacecraft. I dunno. With my limited understanding is seems more likely.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ

⬐ duozerk

I'm partial of Jacques Vallée explanation of the Lazar testimony; that is, that he's completely truthful but what he saw and witnessed were models / fakes in some sort of psy op. Especially when you get deeper into the specifics of his testimony; little of what he describes makes sense, like the fact he was asked to investigate supposedly "alien crafts" with little more than a multimeter and an oscilloscope, and with nowhere near the expertise that'd be expected of someone in charge of such a thing.

⬐ Pyxl101

I'm pretty skeptical of Lazar. See this article for an investigative counterpoint of many of his claims:

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...

> A last item for your consideration to assess Lazar’s veracity is his academic background. He claims Masters degrees from BOTH Caltech and MIT in subjects they don’t offer and during time periods he couldn’t have physically been at either campus. In response to questions at the “Ultimate UFO Seminar” in Rachael, NV in May of 1993, Lazar was so kind as to offer up the names of two of his instructors at Caltech and MIT, a “Dr. Duxler” as well as “Hohsfield”. He even spelled them. Stan Friedman told me he went searching for Duxler and no such person ever taught at Caltech or MIT. However he did find a William Duxler who taught Math and Physics at the previously mentioned Pierce College and confirmed to Friedman that Lazar had taken at least one of his courses in the 1970s.

> As for finding Hohsfield, Friedman rolled snake eyes, beyond confirming no one by that name ever taught at Caltech or MIT. However did you know that in this amazing 21st Century you can buy reprints of all sorts of old high school yearbooks? Like, for example, the 1976 yearbook for W. Tresper Clarke High School? And if one were to do so, one would find that there was a Technical and Vocational teacher there by the name of Frederick Hohsfield. Looks like he was teaching electronics. Interesting, no?

Falsely claiming academic degrees is all by itself extremely damaging to his credibility. According to Wikipedia:

> Lazar claims that his academic records were erased in an effort by authorities to discredit him

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar#Education_and_qualif...

Even if his academic records were erased, it should be easy to identify professors who had him in their class, or classmates who attended with him. If Lazar was willing to prove his claims, he could provide the name of a classmate or professor who did verifiably attend either institution, and who is willing to name Lazar as a student. Applying Occam's Razor to the situation is not favorable to Lazar.

⬐ hilbertseries

The whole element 115 thing is even more damning. It’s clear that he just made something up and then when we discovered the 115 element he said it vindicated him. But the element 115 we discovered has a half life of .65 seconds.

⬐ akhilcacharya

The idea that it’s a guinea pig test of a submarine directed anti-FLIR system is the only plausible explanation to me.

But again Lazar has been a crank for decades (I think the first reference to an alien at Area 51 named Elvis is from him, later popularized in Perfect Dark), so even that theory is a bit out there.

⬐ cheez

Sadly, this is probably the right answer.

⬐ ozzmotik

oh i was always wondering where Elvis' name came from in that game. thanks for sharing a potential bit of provenance

⬐ starpilot

I think Lazar is 100% fraud. Consider how "he doesn't like the attention" (quoting from his Netflix documentary) from the UFO stuff while accepting every interview and selling Area 51 merch on his website, United Nuclear. He is profiting from the attention. Also zero records of his claimed degrees, can't even name a prof from his alleged alma maters. Any university degree leads to a paper trail a mile long. He should have a notebook, a transcript, ID card, receipt from a campus bookstore, or something.

⬐ lostmymind66

A very interesting listen. I'm still not sure if I believe all of his stories.