 Dreamland: An Autobiography
By Bob Lazar Published in 2019 243 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Bob Lazar is a failed whistleblower who attempted to expose the US government’s role in covering up extra terrestrials. Unlike more successful whistleblowers, like Edward Snowden, his revelations failed to raise significant public awareness. Instead, they succeeded in destroying his life. There are two versions of Bob Lazar’s life story. The first version is the one that you will find on Wikipedia. This version goes that Bob Lazar never studied at MIT, never worked for Los Alamos, and never worked for the air force and naval intelligence. He is just a crackpot with a long criminal history. The second version of Bob Lazar’s life story is that he graduated from MIT. Later, he got a job working on nuclear plants in the Los Alamos Lab. He eventually ended up working at Area 51 as a subcontractor for EG&G doing work for both the Air Force and Naval Intelligence. While at Area 51, he allegedly handled anomalous materials that defied the laws of physics. He also saw strange craft that were either US military experimental space ship style aircraft or alien aircraft (in his account he is unclear which it is). After a dispute with his employer, he blew the whistle, and claimed that he had seen evidence that the US was covering up extra terrestrial technology. Shortly after his dispute he found himself in a world of trouble which took the form of legal harassment, lawsuits, stalking, etc… I personally find Bob Lazar to be credible. Bob Lazar’s account reads a lot like other whistleblowers like Snowden’s book. Unlike Snowden, Lazar has absolutely no interest in informing the public or being a hero. He is purely interested in the scientific implications of what he witnesses. He acknowledges he had no idea that his revelations would have a significant impact on society. Later discrepancies and disputes about his career can be very easily explained by sheepdipping. Sheepdipping is a well known US intelligence tactic where the army colludes with universities, former employers, and financial institutions to erase the career history of a victim. This makes the victim look like a liar, and casts everything the victim says into disrepute. Because Lazar was whistleblowing about an unacknowledged program, the government couldn’t sue him. Suing him would force the government to acknowledge that, at the very least, he had actually worked on a secret program (even if it disputed the details). They also couldn’t assassinate him, because that would increase his credibility. Sheepdipping and destroying his reputation was tactically the best move for the government. Lazar was not a careful whistleblower. The stress of working in a classified facility got to him, and he carelessly started telling his family and friends about his work. Later, when he was caught and started panicking, he spoke to the media without any real plan out of self preservation. Lazar’s unflattering self description of his career; his admission of carelessly blowing the whistle; and focus on scientific rather than the social implications of his work all makes me think he comes off as credible. I don’t know if Lazar saw alien materials and technology. But I am sure that he believes that he saw something anomalous. What exactly he saw is unclear. This is a fascinating little book. It is a real page turner. Lazar’s own tragic life and failures show how in the real world, the good guys don’t always win. I wouldn’t recommend this book to most people. If you are first getting into the topic of extra-terrestrials I definitely don’t recommend it because there are far more credible and recent whistleblowers than Bob Lazar. I would recommend this book to someone who is already very interested and well read about the topic.
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 The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal
By Nick Bryant Published in January 2012 648 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 This book is a well written blend between a true crime book and a government coverup book. In the early 1990s, a child sex trafficking ring implicated many powerful players in the republican party. This sex trafficking scandal, in many ways, echoes Jeffrey Epstein’s own ring. The FBI covered it up - and many police officers, private investigators, witnesses, and journalists investigating the case died under mysterious circumstances. Only a single arrest was ultimately made - of a republican banker called Larry King (no relationship to the famous talk show host). With the benefit of hindsight and two decades for things to calm down, award winning journalist Nick Bryant tracks down many of the surviving victims to fact check their stories. He then explains, day by day, what happened during the period from 1982 - 1991 when the Larry King sex trafficking ring unfolded. Bryant gathers significant amounts of credible evidence that the sex trafficking ring was much larger than the one that was ultimately shut down by the FBI. He theorizes (with the benefit of both hindsight and significant evidence) that the FBI covered up the case. There are many reasons for a possible FBI coverup. First, the sex trafficking ring implicated many republicans during a 12 year long period of republican control of the US government. Second, some of the perpetrators seem like they may have had intelligence ties. Finally, US intelligence agencies have a long history of using sexual blackmail as a tool. The book extensively describes how young girls from broken homes were found and groomed. First, they started by dating older guys who did illegal but mostly harmless activities such as smoking marijauna with them. Later, they were convinced to have sex with someone at parties. After that they would be blackmailed, threatened, and pimped out. The girls convinced themselves that they wanted to be prostitutes. Brainwashing and drug addiction did the rest. The most terrifying part of the book is not the actual sex trafficking. I think that everyone understands that horrible things happen and that there is evil in this world. The worst part was the degree to which the FBI at best was complacent, and at worst, helped cover up the crimes of powerful and wealthy people. Reflecting on this book has made me think of a major historical problem that many governments have faced. Although Bryant doesn’t go into this, it is worth exploring. Sex trafficking in elite circles is one of the most important and underreported issues. People think of it in terms of sex and a small handful of crazy people. However, it goes much deeper. There is a sort of prisoner's dilemma that all political systems have - how do you get the most powerful people in a country to all coordinate to keep a secret. States have used many different tactics. When the cause seems righteous, states have used ideology. This worked well to keep the Manhattan Project as a secret - everyone implicated truly believed that Nazi Germany and Japan were threats. When the state had a secret police, they used fear. This worked well in the Soviet Union. Sometimes, states have used outright torture. The Byzantine Empire would gouge out the eyes of nobles who spread lies. But what if what is being covered up is mundane, clearly morally wrong, and very damaging to the state (something along the lines of insider trading). The solution is to implicate key elites in various crimes then blackmail them. I discussed this with my boomer parents, and found the conversations to be somewhat frustrating. Their perspective likely reflects what normal educated Americans might believe. To understand why sex trafficking among the elites is relevant, you need a lot of additional context which can take years of study to truly start to understand. This context would include information about why secrecy is so important in the first place, why intelligence agencies don't just collect information about foreign adversaries (but actually play a significant role in controlling the population at home), how government psyops and coverups work, etc... My parents who lack this context fully concede that these sex trafficking rings are likely real, maybe even at a somewhat large scale. But they incorrectly assume it has no relevance to global geopolitics, the economy, and the life of ordinary people. Sex trafficking among the elites is as relevant to the outcome of state affairs as is NSA surveillance or CIA torture camps. It is a powerful - and misunderstood - tool. The writing style is very good. I would recommend the book to someone interested in understanding the realities of deep state sex trafficking. I didn’t finish the book. It was just too much. Too many graphic depictions of sex, too many long winded interviews, etc… It was interesting but it was just a little but too much. After reading roughly 75% of the book, I had gotten what I hoped to get from it. One thing that makes the book tedious is the extensive discussion of evidence, sources, etc… Books that make serious allegations require serious evidence. But it can also make the reading experience a little bit drab. Include it, and the book is boring. Exclude it, and the author goes from a credible journalist to a schizophrenic Qanon conspiracy theorist. If you read this book, I would recommend that the readers appreciate rather than downplay the extensive discussion of research methods. |
Thibault SerletMost of my articles are book reviews, but I also write about many other topics. Archives
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