Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JoJo Anthrax (talk | contribs) at 18:17, 20 July 2023 (→Semi-protected edit request on 18 July 2023: please read WP:RS). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Bob Lazar article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4Auto-archiving period: 2 months

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Biography This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Skepticism Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Paranormal Low‑importance This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.ParanormalWikipedia:WikiProject ParanormalTemplate:WikiProject Paranormalparanormal Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Pandering charge

What I understand this was, he installed a computer network or computers in a brothel, not that he was involved with prostitution directly. 24.51.192.49 (talk) 08:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

that was all a lie the government set that up, if he didn't worked at groom lake in a facility called A-4,how would he had know when they were doing test flight,,pendejo Wolfman8142 (talk) 10:39, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

More importantly, why is his criminal record in his quick bio (whatever you call that grey box) when he isn't notable for being a criminal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.49.118.208 (talk) 06:26, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Be a skeptic but respect facts

Bob Lazar studied at MIT los alamos, whatever your beliefe on UFOs, if you are Skeptical or pro believer, please do not change the truth. Bob lazar is a scientist, certified, there’s evidence, typing that he is a self-proclaimed scientist goes beyond false news. That’s why wikipedia shouldn’t allow kids as editors. Vinsol100 (talk) 21:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Bob lazar is a scientist, certified, there’s evidence In that case, please go ahead and add that evidenced (i.e., reliably sourced) content. I look forward to reading that evidence, because although I have been surrounded by scientists for several decades, I had no idea that one could be "certified" in that career. (although I know more than a couple who should be certified) JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

JoJo Anthrax, if there is no such thing as certification of scientists, then what makes Mr Lazar any more "self-proclaimed" of a physicist than anyone else? Perhaps say "a self-proclaimed college graduate," if that's the bit of evidence you see missing, here. How many Misplaced Pages articles have required proof of a scientist's education? Further, anyone with an Associate's Degree in any science is, by definition, a scientist. Do we call Steve Jobs a "self-proclaimed inventor" since he never finished college? The answer to that is obvious; so is your attempt to defend the biased language in this article. I visited this page because I am a professor of public speaking and a student gave a speech about Lazar. I teach my students that Misplaced Pages is not the one-sided, biased, inaccurate place it was a decade ago. Sadly, this article disproves my claim about Wikipedian accuracy while serving to prove Lazar's claims more than disprove them. --Aristotle's Granddaughter 198.209.17.240 (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

You need to strike your accusation of defamation. See No personal attacks which is a blockable offense and you also need to log into your account. Its fine to debate content as long as that content is supported by sources but you cannot make disparaging comments about other editors. Also, not sure JoJo Anthrax is a Mr. (no gender declared that I can tell). S0091 (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I made the specific revisions you suggested. However, in the interest of ethos, to anyone who believes the tone JoJo Anthrax has used reflects a bias, I invite you to visit his talk page and observe the breadth of topics on which he publishes as an expert. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 21:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Based on the statements, JoJo Anthrax is asking for sources to support your position which are required per WP:V. And yes, Misplaced Pages does require reliable sources to support someone has a degree or is otherwise considered a subject matter expert, as described by reliable sources. Unsourced claims can be removed and should be removed for Biographies of living persons. S0091 (talk) 21:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Not my position--I haven't stated one. JoJo made the assertion that there is no such thing as a certification process for scientists. In fact, we (Americans) grant degrees at a number of institutions. Lazar has, like Thomas Edison, claimed he has one. I do not believe that the article about Thomas Edison offers a notarized statement confirming his education. Lazar has stated what education he received, and, according to my student who gave an excellent speech, Lazar has provided copies of his diploma. What is the threshold of oppositional evidence to a primary source that would require more secondary support? 198.209.17.240 (talk) 21:35, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

PS: What is the threshold for "reliability" when using it to evaluate secondary sources? For example, would it be appropriate to cite one of the recent biographies of him and report his side of the story by citing those elements of documentary journalism? I know the answers to these already, but I'm not going to waste time fixing this article only to have a self-proclaimed middle schooler change them back. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 21:53, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Read reliable source. For example a self-published book would generally be considered unreliable but a book from a reputable publisher with editorial oversight and a history of fact checking is generally considered reliable. I used the term "generally" because it depends on the source and the content it is supporting. For example, the New York Times is generally considered a reliable source but it may not be a reliable source for certain content. Context matters which is why a source first has to provided so it can be analyzed to determine if it is reliable given the content. So far, you have provided nothing but words. With that, I am stepping out of this discussion because, honestly, I am completely disinterested in this topic and only commented because I saw your disparaging comment but that has been sufficiently rectified. Although I will say, once again, you do need to long into your account. S0091 (talk) 22:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, S0091, but I do not have a wikipedia account. You may verify my credentials with my ip address. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 12:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

according to my student who gave an excellent speech I suggest, 198.209.17.240, that you read WP:RS to learn why your student's speech is not a reliable source. As for self-proclaimed middle schooler, I suggest that you also read WP:NPA. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 02:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, JoJo. I would not cite a student speech, obviously. I came here to confirm things from my student's speech, particularly whether Lazar had in fact passed several lie detector tests from impartial examiners as part of a published documentary film. I do not believe "self-proclaimed middle schooler" is any more of a personal attack than "self-proclaimed physicist," and it relies on information you asserted, which I'm sure was not intended as an attack, when you confirmed that this page was trolled by a middle-schooler. If you have evidence that the aforementioned middle schooler has, in fact, graduated, for example, I'd be glad to tell you if the evidence is good enough. Please not that I use "trolled" in the sense of one who stands by a bridge and won't let anyone past out of indignant self-importance; I could be wrong. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

PS: I'll come back if I can find any sources that show both sides of this issue. I appreciate that it seems you folks here would accept evidence from published sources, such as the 1989 media coverage of his claims that I vaguely recall. I'll do research. Please be 1% more civil with those that are here to contribute and preserve knowledge, and please have a nice day. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 12:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I do not believe "self-proclaimed middle schooler" is any more of a personal attack than "self-proclaimed physicist," The difference is that one is a derogatory comment directed at a specific editor on the Article Talk page, the other is article text containing a summary of what cited WP:RS say about the article subject. If you cannot understand the difference, then you probably shouldn't be editing Misplaced Pages. I hope you'll read the links to Misplaced Pages editorial policies I left on your User Talk page. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Lucky, I was summarizing JoJo's post. JoJo's exact words were, "Yes, a middle schooler protected this page." Are you quite sure JOJO was not directing that comment at a specific editor? I have no idea if JoJo meant you, JoJo themself(s), or someone else, just that it was offered as an excuse here in the talk page for the biased tone of the actual article, without identifying the editor who protected the page. Further, I do not have a user talk page since I am not a registered user; I'm an anonymous editor. If you post something to your user page that you would like me to review or comment on, please let me know here. Finally, I take your question of my competence as a personal attack, as I have already established my credibility as a rheterician, and encourage you to review this link: Misplaced Pages:NPA 198.209.17.240 (talk) 20:40, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

PS: Using an "If...then" construction won't shield you here. I already stated that I do not see a difference, so your use of "If you cannot understand the difference" does nothing to insulate you from the fact that you directly questioned my credibility as a competent editor. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi IP, yes you do have talk page as everyone does regardless if they are registered or not, see User talk:198.209.17.240 and again, you keep addressing JoJo as a "he" but I not have seen anything the states JoJo's gender. This suggests you do either do not read comments or disregard them. S0091 (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I noticed my typo and rectified it prior to your post. I apologize profusely to all males on the planet for my potential error. 198.209.17.240 (talk) 20:54, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

"MIT Los Alamos" is not a school; MIT is a school in Massachusetts, while Los Alamos is a laboratory facility operated by the US government in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Bob Lazar claims to have a masters in physics from MIT, earned in 1982. However, a search of the MIT Libraries returns no record of any thesis paper submitted between 1/1/1981 and 12/31/1982 by a Robert Lazar. He is notably absent from all alumni association records, does not appear in the 1982 yearbook, and has not produced a shred of evidence to corroborate his claim. A masters program is an intense 2 years of study - one does not simply forget any identifiable detail about it.

Instead, it appears that Lazar is claiming the work of an actual MIT student as his own: Robert Seth Granetz, who *did* earn his masters in 1982 at MIT, and did write his thesis on magnetohydrodynamics. "Study of resistive MHD instabilities in Alcator C" Granetz, Robert Seth.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics. c1982

Granetz is in fact the Principal Research Scientist for the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT today. The two men share a first name and middle initial, and it's not unreasonable to suggest Lazar padded his credentials by cribbing them from someone else. Perhaps most telling, some of the concepts and "alien" tech Lazar has described are not dissimilar to a layman's description of the tokamak plasma reactors Ganetz works with; many of Lazar's assertions about how alien tech functions read like a poorly summarized version of Ganetz' thesis.

In summary. Bob Lazar is not a scientist; he's just adopted an actual scientist's bona fides as his own, and managed to sound convincing to people who are ready to believe. 73.183.152.80 (talk) 09:11, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Request for addition of information

Forgive my MLA citations. If one of you kind editors could assist me in the conversion to WP style, I would be forever in your debt.

Lazar is identified as a "physicist" in Newsweek, therefore this declaration of his profession is not self-proclaimed, because Newsweek proclaimed it after confirmation common of professional journalism:

O’Donnell, Paul, and Lucy Howard. “Model Aliens.” Newsweek, vol. 124, no. 14, Oct. 1994, p. 6

Also, please add the following where you see fit:

According to Vinay Menon of the Toronto Star, despite the views of skeptics, "nothing Lazar said has ever been disproven."

Menon, Vinay. “Time for NASA to Take Bob Lazar Seriously.” Toronto Star (Canada), 27 Oct. 2022. 71.36.193.227 (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2023 (UTC) --Aristotle's Granddaughter (working from home) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.193.227 (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

That Newsweek "piece" is hardly a reliable, journalistic source for supporting Lazar's claims about himself. Coming in at a whopping 107 words total (I may have miscounted by one or two), it is essentially a tongue-in-cheek advertisement for model UFOs made by the Testor company. Here is a link. Regarding Vinay Menon, he is an "Entertainment Columnist," and although others might disagree, to me that makes his reliability suspect. The claim that "nothing Lazar said has ever been disproven" cements that assessment. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 22:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

JoJo, thanks for the feedback. I honestly have no agenda here, so if it turns out there's not more reliable information, I'll accept your assessment. I'm a person of reason. --AG 71.36.193.227 (talk) 23:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

There is already a cluster of sources in the article to support the fact that Lazar has been dubbed a "physicist", so the Newsweek bit could perhaps be added there. There is greater sourcing for the idea that "physicist" is a self-declared title. There's also the issue of his claimed MIT physics degree being a big ol' lie (yeah, the government "erased" him, sure)... 81.157.51.184 (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Lazar is likely claiming the degree and thesis of Robert S. Granetz as his own. Granetz is the Principal Research Scientist for the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT; he earned his Masters in Physics at MIT in 1982, and his thesis, "Study of resistive MHD instabilities in Alcator C" was in magnetohydrodynamics 73.183.152.80 (talk) 09:14, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Why is this article protected when there is so much disinformation contained in it?

Really, this article is an embarrassment and is the reason why so many people view Misplaced Pages as no different than CNN or Fox News -- entertainment, not factual reporting.

Lazar IS a scientist, not a "self proclaimed" one. He went to MIT at Los Alamos. The copious amount of slanderous adjectives in describing Lazar - "conspiracy theorist", "self proclaimed scientist", etc etc etc.

https://thewebmatrix.net/disclosure/lazarinbook.jpg

https://external-preview.redd.it/x1u9zRa0feMLuoUK0LJhKtjRTWJhXe6c9A0yqS2woHc.jpg?auto=webp&s=9ec38da2d83f00fb8f36bab01ef095f2812a4d1e Flynismo (talk) 23:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Flynismo hi bob 75.174.94.22 (talk) 02:24, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

A Reddit posting and a fringe conspiracy website. Not WP:RS. - LuckyLouie (talk)

Highly opinionated and far from neutral

It is completely insane the way that this wikipedia entry is written. The notion of him being a conspiracy theorist has even less support than his own claims whether one is a skeptic or not. This article draws significant conclusions about his education and employment history that aren't supported (in an editorialized way). You don't need to give support to his claims or defend them -- but surely this is blatant abuse and misinformation.

The article directly refers to mainstream media as if that classification (also undefined) has any implication on the validity of the claims being made. 69.162.230.203 (talk) 03:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages isn’t Reddit or the comment section of a Youtube video. It has editorial policies (which you can read about at WP:PAG) that dictate how encyclopedic content is presented. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:49, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 July 2023

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the public appearances section, his interview with Joe Rogan from 2019 needs to be added. The video can be found here: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=joe+rogan+bob+lazar+episode&mid=9CE145BEFBCD42E267FB9CE145BEFBCD42E267FB Candlesatnight (talk) 17:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

It is already included in that section. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:11, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 July 2023

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Request for removal of a name in the section about Bob Lazars criminal convictions. At the very end, it is mentioned, Jeremy Corbell, among others, concur with the assertion of doubt over Bob's claims(due to criminal convictions). There is no information to verify this. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary. I think Jeremy's name ought to be removed from this portion to ensure the pages credibility. 2600:6C44:77F:26D5:1C81:8A74:12BA:3F5A (talk) 22:04, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Not done. In that section, the second of the cited sources includes the following: "Corbell brings up and describes the various challenges to Lazar’s authenticity and character, including a lack of proof as to his education and his various criminal activities." JoJo Anthrax (talk) 22:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

The way it is implied is clearly misleading. Jeremy has not casted any doubt. You know and I know it. 40.129.49.206 (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

There is nothing misleading about "Corbell brings up and describes the various challenges to Lazar’s authenticity and character, including a lack of proof as to his education and his various criminal activities." As for what you or I "know," I suggest that you read this: WP:RS. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Biography articles of living people
• All unassessed articles
• B-Class biography articles
• WikiProject Biography articles
• B-Class Skepticism articles
• Mid-importance Skepticism articles
• WikiProject Skepticism articles
• B-Class paranormal articles
• Low-importance paranormal articles
• WikiProject Paranormal articles