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Bob Lazar and Area 51

I was given to understand that the invasion was mostly people having a laugh, rather than anything that people were sincerely planning to do.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I was given to understand that the invasion was mostly people having a laugh, rather than anything that people were sincerely planning to do.
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Yeah, I think it was begun by people having a laugh, but it is pretty irresponsible really given that that is also how the whole Flat Earth thing got resurrected and that Area 51 is a military base.
 
I think Bob Lazar threads belong in the nutbar section of the forum.
 
I saw a CNN story about the owner of a motel and campground, the closest lodging to Area 51 who said she was booked solid for the dates around the proposed event.
 
mgidm86 said:
I think Bob Lazar threads belong in the nutbar section of the forum.
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Agreed, needs to be moved to Paranormal.

Skeptic's Magazine did an excellent take-down of Lazar. The guy who wrote the piece and did the work posts here from time to time, and I think a search of the board should turn up multiple threads.
 
Craig4 said:
I saw a CNN story about the owner of a motel and campground, the closest lodging to Area 51 who said she was booked solid for the dates around the proposed event.
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Not unlike why, in the days of the Romans, you couldn’t book a room anywhere near a coliseum on a games weekend?
 
Axxman300 said:
She's got 6 rooms, the rest will have to camp out:

http://www.littlealeinn.com/

She could sell the place out just by having a van load of tourists break down.
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I had lunch there once. Chicken salad sandwich with potato chips. They couldn't use the grill or deep fryer due to some health and safety paperwork.

Beatty and Tonopah are the next two closest towns and have more rooms, they could use the business. When I lived in Beatty the unemployment rate was around 50%.
 
I watched about half of his interview on Joe Rogan. The point at which I turned it off is when he started saying that the detection of gravitational waves proved him right. He went on to say that in the 80s everyone in physics thought that gravity came in gravitons and not gravitational waves, but from working on this alien spacecraft he knew that there were gravitational waves, so the discovery of gravitational waves was confirmation.

That's just ridiculous. Gravitational waves are a straightforward prediction of general relativity. Their experimental discovery is groundbreaking, but no physicist was surprised that they exist. They are also completely consistent with the existence of gravitons, in exactly the same sense as electromagnetic waves are consistent with the existence of photons.

So either he doesn't understand physics or he's ********ting.

He said a bunch of other things that probably sounds reasonable but that make no actual sense, but that was the last straw for me.

The video linked in the OP is supposedly an analysis of his body language to determine whether or not he's lying. I think there are better ways.
 
Roboramma said:
I watched about half of his interview on Joe Rogan. The point at which I turned it off is when he started saying that the detection of gravitational waves proved him right. He went on to say that in the 80s everyone in physics thought that gravity came in gravitons and not gravitational waves, but from working on this alien spacecraft he knew that there were gravitational waves, so the discovery of gravitational waves was confirmation.

That's just ridiculous. Gravitational waves are a straightforward prediction of general relativity. Their experimental discovery is groundbreaking, but no physicist was surprised that they exist. They are also completely consistent with the existence of gravitons, in exactly the same sense as electromagnetic waves are consistent with the existence of photons.

So either he doesn't understand physics or he's ********ting.

He said a bunch of other things that probably sounds reasonable but that make no actual sense, but that was the last straw for me.

The video linked in the OP is supposedly an analysis of his body language to determine whether or not he's lying. I think there are better ways.
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It's been a while since I listened to the interview but my recollection is that Lazar says that gravitational waves were detected by scientists at some government agency which he can't remember. Actually, LIGO was a collaboration between scientists at MIT and Cal Tech funded by NSF. MIT and Cal Tech are the two universities that Lazar has claimed to have master's degrees from but he doesn't know that scientists from the same universities made the discovery that supposedly confirms what he's been saying all these years.

Lazar has claimed to have a master's degree in physics from MIT. Today, you can't apply to MIT to get a master's degree in physics. It's very likely that was also true in the 80's when Lazar would have gotten the degree. That is very typical of hard science departments at major research universities. If he really did have a master's degree in physics from MIT, a likely explanation was that he was had to leave the Ph.D. program and was given the master's degree as a parting gift. If it was real, the master's degree would be a red flag that he had not been successful at MIT.

On another note, he describes his coworker at area 51 as his "lab partner" as if it were a high school biology class.
 
WhatRoughBeast said:
From http://web.mit.edu/physics/current/graduate/faq.html#faq.acad7
"The Department of Physics does offer the option of a Master's Degree."
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That's interesting, but I don't believe it contradicts what I said. Anyone who receives a master's degree in physics from MIT originally applied to the Ph.D. program and then, for some reason, did not complete the program. In my experience the choice to not complete the Ph.D. and receive a master's degree is often made with the encouragement of the faculty.
Here's the full quote from the MIT website:
"I am not sure that I want to continue in the Ph.D. program--can I receive a Master's Degree instead?
The Department of Physics does offer the option of a Master's Degree. Students who would like to switch to Master's Status should send an e-mail to Academic Programs requesting the change in status. The Registrar's Office will be notified and your terminal degree will be changed."
 
I found this on the MIT Graduate Admissions website:
*The Master's Degree in Physics is available in special cases only (e.g., US military officers).
So "in special cases" you can apply to MIT to get a master's degree in Physics. Certainly Lazar doesn't have a master's degree in anything from either MIT or Cal Tech. His claim to have a master's from MIT in physics demonstrates how deeply unaware he is of the culture and practice of science.
 
I tried to watch this out of boredom and hopeful entertainment value. I lasted about 15 mins. No entertainment value to be found. It was boring, very sloppy and choppy, and whoever was in charge of the cameras should be fired. Wait, shot in the kneecaps then fired.
 
angrysoba said:
Yeah, I think it was begun by people having a laugh, but it is pretty irresponsible really given that that is also how the whole Flat Earth thing got resurrected and that Area 51 is a military base.
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? It is. Or more precisely, a military "installation" (not a full-up base).
 
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