page_title: Bob Lazar
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Bob Lazar / Background
caption_attribution_description: Groom Lake and Papoose Lake, both in the Nevada Test and Training Range. Groom Lake is also in Area 51. Note that some of the lines you see beside Groom lake are among the longest runways on Earth.
context_page_description: Robert Scott Lazar is an American conspiracy theorist who claims to have been hired in the late 1980s to reverse-engineer purported extraterrestrial technology at what he described as a secret site called "S-4". Lazar alleges that this subsidiary installation is located several kilometres south of the United States Air Force facility popularly known as Area 51.
  Lazar claims he examined an alien craft that ran on an antimatter reactor powered by element 115, which at the time had not yet been synthesized. He also claims to have read US government briefing documents that described alien involvement in human affairs over the past 10,000 years. Lazar's claims resulted in bringing added public attention to Area 51 and fueling conspiracy theories surrounding its classified activities.
  Lazar's story has since been analyzed and rejected by skeptics and some ufologists. Universities from which he claims to hold degrees show no record of him, and supposed former workplaces have disavowed him. In 1990, he was convicted for his involvement in a prostitution ring and again in 2006 for selling illegal chemicals.
context_section_description: Lazar attended Pierce Junior College in Los Angeles. He filed for bankruptcy in 1986, where he described himself as a self-employed film processor. Lazar owns and operates United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies, which sells a variety of materials and chemicals.
caption: Groom Lake (left) and Papoose Lake (right)
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