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Occasionally when it comes to researching the unexplained, there are what appear to be credible researchers who come along, boasting a variety of claims and information that, by nearly all accounts, seems to be just too good to be true. Later on, such louts and loonies and their assertions, when probed further, are indeed often found to have about as much bite as a bulldog with rubber teeth.
Consider the famous “scientist” Bob Lazar who, back in the 1980s, came forth claiming to have worked at the infamous Groom Lake Facility (Area 51) and observed advanced spacecraft of potentially unearthly origin while there. Despite having some credible knowledge of physics and engineering, many of Lazar’s far-out claims seemed difficult to substantiate. Stanton Friedman, after contacting the faculty at MIT (one location Lazar had claimed to attend school) found that Lazar actually hadn’t ever attended the university, and that looking even further back revealed that Lazar hadn’t even been in a portion of his graduating high school class that would have been conducive to placement at MIT, CIT (where Lazar also claimed to have studied), or anyplace else beyond maybe a community college. Incidentally, Friedman did manage to confirm that Lazar had taken some electronics courses at Pierce, a community college in Los Angeles, in the late 1970s.
Along these same lines (and much to the dismay of readers out there who have followed the work of the author we’ll be discussing this time around) I received a phone call yesterday from Jeffery Pritchett, one of the hosts of The Church of Mabus radio program, who shared some rather interesting information with me. “Looks like Phillip Imbrogno
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Re. Lazar, I agree with Don Ecker
Hey, some people are just fame whores (Lazar and Buzz Aldrin of late); others misrepresent themselves in order to make money (I suspect Imbrogno’s prime motive; he made money from his books).
This kind of behavior is not by any means limited to Ufology. Trying to read too deeply into it only leads to making up more stuff out of thin air to explain it.
He lied; he was found out. That’s all there is folks. Move on.
Some of Imbrogno’s stories in various of his books struck me as improbable. His account of the two of his “Dream Team” researchers dying after dealing with a particularly nasty demon/djinn always struck me as exaggerated as best. “Night Siege” always struck me as being a primarily accurate accounting of the Hudson River sightings, but the bits and pieces from the djinn book I’ve read struck me as very unlikely to be true.
It’s a shame. It’s all a shame.
As for Lazar–I thought it had been determined that he had worked as a janitor at Groom Lake. If that is the case, it stands to reason that if he is somewhat observant, that he -would- know the timing of flights of experimental craft. Also, of course, if he was a janitor, he’d know the layout of the facility. (I never believed his story, either–he always sounded way too much like a person who needed to have attention and who had mental health issues to me. I say this as someone who is related to a few of those folks myself….)
@ Barbara:
Well, I don’t know if he was a janitor, but I do think the man had some position at Groom Lake, maybe not exactly the one he bragged about. So maybe, like Imbrogno, he embellished his credentials to help him land the job, apart from the fact that might have had some help from Edward Teller’s recommendation
In regards to Imbrogno, I hate that this has happened. Phil’s a really nice guy and it seems he has either some identity issues or just issues in general. It’s kinda sad really. But what can we expect. Ufology, and the esoteric in general, is a fringe subject. Wouldn’t it seem logical that it will attract “experts” that are on the fringe as well. I don’t think people should be angry with Phil for lying. I really can’t see anyone getting mad at anybody in this field who ends up being outed as a liar. I still say Phil’s ideas were interesting and just as credible as the next person’s theory of these phenomenon. Ufology is a religion. Plain and simple. And when a leader in a religion is proved to be false, then the followers seek to see justice done because they feel betrayed. That’s understandable knowing the human condition, but people need to fight their nature sometimes.
What is kind of interesting to me is not Phil, but Lance Moody, the guy who outed him. Is the guy on a mission to “shed the light of truth” in the dark recesses of ufology or something? He’s a skeptic and that’s fine (so am I for that matter), but is that a reason for a crusade? Not saying he’s on a crusade, but why else spend the time and effort to dig into someone’s past in order to discredit them or even to find out if what they’re saying is true? I can understand if a believer was trying to get to the bottom of someone’s claims, but why would a skeptic? Wouldn’t that be like trying to discredit a person who claims that unicorn’s are real and that person claims to be an expert? “Why, this unicorn believer didn’t really go to Harvard! And I’m going to spend my time and energy proving it!” I’m not dogging out Lance, but it just seems kind of silly to me.