Bob Lazar and His Ununpentium, The Story of Element 115

Heated debate between the believer and the non-believer always produces a significant amount of friction, but few arguments have been as vitriolic as the on-going disagreement between those who support Bob Lazar and those who don’t.

Lazar, as many of my readers are completely aware, is a UFOlogical mega-star, a living legend. He is the one and only seemingly credible former Area 51 whistleblower…or is he?

Lazar claims to have been involved with reverse engineering alien technology at a top secret government facility labelled S4, which is believed to be a subsidiary of the Groom Lake Nevada test facility known as Area 51.  Allegedly working at S4 from 1988 to 1989, Lazar says he saw nine different extraterrestrial vehicles there and has provided detailed information on the mode of propulsion and other technical details of a disc-shaped vehicle he called the sport model.

Robert “Bob” Lazar

Of course, Mr. Lazar isn’t without his detractors.  His credibility has been called into question over his alleged education and his involvement in the scientific community.  He claimed to hold degrees from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), though neither institution has any record of his attendance, as has been investigated by the likes of Stanton Friedman and the investigative team at the Los Angeles Times.  But a lack of records doesn’t necessarily discredit him completely, as many believe the government has been systematically erasing Lazars history, all in an effort to reduce his story into a steaming pile of misinformation.

Among the tales he’s told, one of the more technologically plausible is that of the propulsion system used by some of these alien craft, namely element 115.

Element 115 or Ununpentium, which sounds like something you might find on an alien moon called Pandora, is actually a real thing, believe it or not.  Currently known to mainstream science as a synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table, that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the atomic number 115; ununpentium is a candidate for the island of stability, which is not some tropical destination but rather a grouping of isotopes with stable half-lives.[1]

S4 Disc Reactor

According to mainstream science, element 115 was discovered in 2003 and cannot be found be found in nature.  Officially it is said to be very unstable with a half-life of only 200 milliseconds or so, much like its periodic table neighbours (with half-lives ranging from several nano-seconds to a few minutes).  It has only been synthesized in very small amounts, about 50 atoms to date.  But Lazar says otherwise, he stated that the US government has (or had) at least 500 pounds of the stuff, given to them by the Reticulan EBE’s (extraterrestrial biological entities).  According to Lazar, the ununpentium was processed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, eventually creating several milled cones or wedges of the element that could then be used as fuel for the craft in question.  In its milled form, according to Lazar, it is highly stable and provides a gravitational force field that can be used to propel the craft.

To some in UFOlogy circles, Lazars description of the characteristics and effects of element 115, provides a plausible explanation for the flight characteristics of some, or well, most UFO reports and there are those who have put a great deal of effort and thought into the ununpentium question.[2] Analysis of the element is far beyond my chemistry knowledge, so I leave the scientific scrutiny up to the reader.

As is consistent with their mission, RationalWiki.com describes Lazar as an out-and-out liar, citing his missing educational records and sketchy work history as cause to doubt his claims.[3] [4] But support for Lazar and his story has been unwavering in the UFO and paranormal communities and there does seem to be some verifiable scientific endorsement, at least for his element 115 narrative.  The argument will continue for sure and likely we will never see a resolution of the facts at hand, but, as with all of these type of stories, the truth behind the legend is probably stranger than any one of us can imagine.

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