Robert Lazar | |
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Born | Robert Scott Lazar January 26, 1959 Coral Gables, Florida, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Owner of United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies |
Criminal charges | Pandering, trade of illegal goods |
Spouse | Joy White |
Robert Scott Lazar (/ləˈzɑːr/; born January 26, 1959) is an American conspiracy theorist. In 1989, Lazar claimed to have been part of a classified US government project concerned with the reverse engineering of extraterrestrial technology; he also purported to have read government briefing documents that described alien involvement in human affairs over the past 10,000 years. A self-proclaimed physicist, Lazar supposedly worked at a secret site near the United States Air Force facility popularly known as Area 51. His story brought additional public attention to the facility and spawned conspiracy theories regarding government knowledge of extraterrestrial life.
Lazar has no evidence of alien life or technology, and his claimed education and employment history is replete with fabrication. Lazar is also a criminal: he was convicted in 1990 for his involvement in a prostitution ring, and again in 2006 for selling illegal chemicals. As well as being dismissed by skeptics, Lazar has been renounced by some ufologists. Journalist Ken Layne states, "A lot of credible people have looked at Lazar's story and rationally concluded that he made it up."[1]