Within Lazar

Did Element 115 Vindicate Lazar?

Moscovium's later synthesis sounds striking, but Lazar's claim depends on a stable isotope with properties not publicly shown.

On this page

  • What Lazar said the fuel did
  • What scientists later made
  • Why stability is the real issue
Preview for Did Element 115 Vindicate Lazar?

Introduction

Bob Lazar’s Element 115 claim is often treated as one of the strongest points in his favour: in 1989 he described an exotic “115” fuel before element 115 was publicly synthesised and later named moscovium. The catch is that the real scientific question is not whether an element with 115 protons could exist. Nuclear physicists already expected undiscovered superheavy elements to be reachable in principle. The hard part of Lazar’s claim is much narrower: he said the craft used a stable isotope of Element 115 in a compact reactor and gravity-propulsion system. Publicly known moscovium is synthetic, extremely radioactive, produced atom by atom, and decays in fractions of a second. IUPAC [Physical and Life Sciences Directorate]pls.llnl.govSource details in endnotes.

Overview image for Element 115 That does not prove Lazar was lying, because absence of a public stable isotope is not the same as proof that no such isotope can ever exist. But it does mean that the later discovery of moscovium does not, by itself, vindicate his story. It confirms only the least surprising part of the claim — that element 115 is a real entry on the periodic table — while leaving the decisive part unsupported.

What Lazar said the fuel did

Lazar’s Element 115 claim was never just a prediction that chemists would one day fill a blank in the periodic table. In his account, Element 115 was central to the operation of a recovered non-human craft allegedly held at S-4 near Area 51. He described it as the fuel for a reactor, said it was connected to the production of antimatter, and tied it to “gravity amplifiers” that supposedly allowed the craft to manoeuvre by manipulating gravity rather than by conventional thrust. A transcript of the 1991 “Lazar Tape” describes the “power source” as a reactor using Element 115 as fuel, and presents the material as part of the craft’s propulsion mechanism rather than as a mere scientific curiosity. [Soz AI Note Taker]sozai.applazar tape government bible 1991lazar tape government bible 1991

The credibility issue is therefore mechanical, not semantic. Lazar’s claim depends on several linked propositions:

  • A usable isotope existed: not just element 115 in the abstract, but a form stable enough to be stored, machined, transported and used.
  • It could power a compact reactor: the material allegedly produced energy through a process involving proton bombardment, conversion to element 116, rapid decay and antimatter release.
  • It could interact with gravity in an extraordinary way: Lazar’s broader propulsion claim requires effects far beyond ordinary nuclear chemistry.
  • A stockpile existed: in some retellings, supporters have claimed he described a sizeable quantity, not a few laboratory atoms.

These are far stronger claims than “element 115 was later discovered”. They imply a material with properties not seen in publicly known nuclear data: long-lived, handleable, energetically useful, and coupled to a novel gravity-control mechanism. That is why sceptics argue the later naming of moscovium is often over-sold in popular UFO discussion. The relevant comparison is not between “unknown element” and “known element”; it is between Lazar’s alleged stable working fuel and the real isotopes made in accelerator experiments.

Element 115 illustration 1

What scientists later made

The element now called moscovium is real. It has atomic number 115, meaning each atom has 115 protons. It was first synthesised by a Russian-American collaboration involving the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, using high-energy nuclear reactions rather than discovery in a naturally occurring ore or recovered technology. Lawrence Livermore describes the production of elements 113 and 115 through experiments in which americium-243 targets were bombarded with calcium-48 ions; the resulting atoms were identified through their decay chains. [Physical and Life Sciences Directorate]pls.llnl.govSource details in endnotes.

IUPAC, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, formally approved the names nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson in November 2016, after earlier recognition of the discoveries by the relevant international working parties. Moscovium’s name honours the Moscow region, where Dubna is located. [IUPAC]iupac.orgAnnounces the Names of the Elements 113, 115Announces the Names of the Elements 113, 115

That scientific achievement is impressive, but it is not evidence for Lazar’s reactor. The known route to moscovium is not a manufacturing process for bulk fuel. It creates individual atoms or tiny numbers of atoms under specialised accelerator conditions. Those atoms are inferred by the radiation and daughter products they leave behind as they decay. In ordinary public science, moscovium is not a material one can hold in a container, shave into pieces, install in a machine, or test for antigravity behaviour.

The publicly known isotopes are also short-lived. Live Science reported in 2016 that moscovium had known isotopes with half-lives measured in milliseconds, with one listed as about 220 milliseconds at that time. More recent isotope summaries list five known radioisotopes from mass numbers 286 to 290, with no stable isotope and the longest-lived, moscovium-290, at about 0.65 seconds. [Live Science]livescience.com41424 facts about ununpentium41424 facts about ununpentium

That range matters. A half-life of milliseconds or fractions of a second is not a small engineering inconvenience; it is a completely different kind of substance from the fuel Lazar described. A material that decays almost immediately cannot sit on a shelf as a power source for a hidden aerospace programme.

Why stability is the real issue

The strongest pro-Lazar argument is usually framed like this: he mentioned Element 115 before mainstream confirmation, so the later synthesis of moscovium is a successful prediction. The problem is that atomic number 115 was not a random guess in the way that argument implies. The periodic table is ordered by atomic number. If element 114 and element 116 were being discussed, element 115 was an obvious missing neighbour, and superheavy-element researchers had long been exploring whether such nuclei could be produced.

The more serious question is whether a stable or long-lived isotope of element 115 could exist. Isotopes are versions of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. Two atoms can both be element 115, because both have 115 protons, while behaving very differently as nuclei if their neutron counts differ. Lazar’s defenders therefore sometimes argue that scientists have only made the wrong isotopes so far, and that a heavier, more neutron-rich isotope might be far more stable.

There is a real scientific idea nearby: the “island of stability”. Nuclear theory has long suggested that some superheavy nuclei with particular combinations of protons and neutrons might be more stable than neighbouring isotopes. This does not automatically mean stable in the everyday sense of being safe, common or long-lived for years. In superheavy-element research, “more stable” may mean a half-life extended from microseconds to milliseconds, seconds, minutes or perhaps longer, depending on the nucleus and model. That is still far from proving a stockpile of usable Element 115 fuel.

For Lazar’s claim to be strengthened by isotope science, several things would need to happen. Scientists would need to identify a specific isotope of moscovium with a long enough half-life for storage and handling; show that it can be produced in more than atom-by-atom quantities; demonstrate energy release in a controlled reactor-like process; and establish the claimed gravity-related effects. None of that is present in the public moscovium record. Public nuclear data supports the existence of short-lived moscovium isotopes, not the existence of Lazar’s stable fuel.

Element 115 illustration 2

The “prediction” argument is weaker than it first sounds

The most charitable interpretation is that Lazar attached his UFO account to a technically plausible future entry in the periodic table before that element had been officially produced. That is rhetorically striking, and it helps explain why Element 115 remains one of the most memorable parts of his story.

But as evidence, the prediction has limits:

  • The atomic number was not obscure magic. Undiscovered superheavy elements were already part of nuclear physics. Naming “115” was not equivalent to predicting an unknown island, compound or device from scratch.
  • The later discovery did not match the claimed properties. Moscovium exists, but publicly known moscovium is not stable, not available in bulk, and not known to power anything.
  • The claim lacks a testable isotope number. A precise mass number would have made the claim more falsifiable. “Element 115” alone leaves room to retreat from every short-lived isotope by saying the real fuel is a different one.
  • No sample has been publicly verified. The decisive evidence would be independent laboratory testing of a stable Element 115 sample with a clear chain of custody. No such public evidence exists.

This is why the moscovium discovery is better described as a partial superficial overlap than a confirmation. It confirms that the periodic-table slot exists. It does not confirm Lazar’s employment, S-4, the craft, the reactor, the propulsion system, the alleged quantity of material, or the stability of the isotope.

How moscovium affects Lazar’s credibility

Element 115 cuts both ways in Lazar’s public reputation. For supporters, it is a memorable “he said it before science did” moment. For sceptics, it is a useful example of how a claim can sound vindicated while the scientific details point the other way.

The fair assessment is that moscovium gives Lazar a talking point, not a proof. It may make his story seem less absurd to readers who first heard that element 115 was “impossible”. But scientists did not discover Lazar’s fuel. They synthesised a superheavy element under accelerator conditions and found the known isotopes to be fleetingly radioactive. That result does not fit a hidden hangar containing a practical alien power source.

This distinction also matters because modern official UAP reviews have not publicly supplied the missing support. NASA’s UAP independent study reported that, in peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence for an extraterrestrial origin of UAP. AARO’s 2024 historical review similarly said it had found no verifiable evidence that the US government or private industry had access to extraterrestrial technology. Those findings do not directly disprove every detail of Lazar’s story, but they leave his Element 115 mechanism without institutional corroboration. [NASA Science]science.nasa.govScience Independent Study Team ReportScience Independent Study Team Report

What would actually change the assessment

The Element 115 debate would change materially if independently verifiable evidence appeared. The most important evidence would not be another interview, documentary or broad claim about Area 51. It would be physical and technical:

  • a sample identified as a long-lived isotope of moscovium by qualified independent laboratories;
  • an isotope mass number, decay profile and reproducible measurement data;
  • a documented chain of custody showing where the material came from;
  • evidence that more than atom-scale quantities can exist;
  • a demonstrated energy or propulsion effect that cannot be explained by known nuclear, chemical or electromagnetic processes.

Without that, the strongest scientifically grounded conclusion remains cautious: moscovium is real, but publicly known moscovium does not behave like Lazar’s Element 115. The later synthesis of element 115 is an interesting coincidence of terminology and timing, not a validation of the alleged S-4 propulsion system.

Element 115 illustration 3

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Endnotes

  1. Source: iupac.org
    Title: Announces the Names of the Elements 113, 115
    Link: https://iupac.org/iupac-announces-the-names-of-the-elements-113-115-117-and-118/

  2. Source: iupac.org
    Title: is naming the four new elements nihonium moscovium tennessine and oganesson
    Link: https://iupac.org/iupac-is-naming-the-four-new-elements-nihonium-moscovium-tennessine-and-oganesson/

  3. Source: science.nasa.gov
    Title: Science Independent Study Team Report
    Link: https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/uap-independent-study-team-final-report.pdf

  4. Source: iupac.org
    Title: discovery and assignment of elements with atomic numbers 113 115 117 and 118
    Link: https://iupac.org/discovery-and-assignment-of-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118/

  5. Source: aaro.mil
    Link: https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/Official-UAP-Imagery/

  6. Source: aaro.mil
    Title: UAP Records
    Link: https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Records/

  7. Source: aaro.mil
    Link: https://www.aaro.mil/

  8. Source: science.nasa.gov
    Link: https://science.nasa.gov/uap/faqs/

  9. Source: science.nasa.gov
    Link: https://science.nasa.gov/uap/

  10. Source: pls.llnl.gov
    Link: https://pls.llnl.gov/research-and-development/livermorium/elements-113-and-115

  11. Source: livescience.com
    Title: 41424 facts about ununpentium
    Link: https://www.livescience.com/41424-facts-about-ununpentium.html

  12. Source: sozai.app
    Title: lazar tape government bible 1991
    Link: https://sozai.app/transcript/lazar-tape-government-bible-1991/

  13. Source: Wikipedia
    Title: Bob Lazar
    Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar

  14. Source: Wikipedia
    Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscovium

  15. Source: Wikipedia
    Title: Island of stability
    Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability

  16. Source: chemlin.org
    Link: https://www.chemlin.org/isotope/moscovium-290

  17. Source: chemlin.org
    Title: Moscovium Isotopes
    Link: https://www.chemlin.org/chemical-elements/moscovium-isotopes.php

  18. Source: pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
    Link: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/element/Moscovium

  19. Source: iupac.cnr.it
    Link: https://www.iupac.cnr.it/8-news/news-en/6-iupac-announces-the-proposed-names-of-the-four-new-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118

  20. Source: science.howstuffworks.com
    Title: bob lazar
    Link: https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/bob-lazar.htm

  21. Source: science.howstuffworks.com
    Title: element 115
    Link: https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/element-115.htm

  22. Source: periodictableofelements.fandom.com
    Link: https://periodictableofelements.fandom.com/wiki/Moscovium

  23. Source: villanovachemistry.wordpress.com
    Link: https://villanovachemistry.wordpress.com/moscovium/

Additional References

  1. Source: youtube.com
    Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLPh1v5F_OM
    Source snippet

    Alien Pictures, Why Aliens Visit, & Element 115 - Answering Your Questions...

  2. Source: youtube.com
    Title: Alien Pictures, Why Aliens Visit, & Element 115
    Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7jA4OLNZvA
    Source snippet

    Alien Fuel at Area 51: Bob Lazar's Shocking Claims | WION Podcast...

  3. Source: youtube.com
    Title: Alien Fuel at Area 51: Bob Lazar’s Shocking Claims | WION Podcast
    Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoecOE2RKdk
    Source snippet

    ELEMENT 115: DARK ENERGY? - ALIENS' PROPULSION SYSTEM REVEALED...

  4. Source: youtube.com
    Title: ELEMENT 115: DARK ENERGY?
    Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVWf7MgEOSw
    Source snippet

    Ancient Aliens: Element 115 (Season 11, Episode 13) | History...

  5. Source: researchgate.net
    Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331644513_Analysis_of_Claims_Regarding_EM_Propulsion_System

  6. Source: researchgate.net
    Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291418578_Discovery_of_the_elements_with_atomic_numbers_Z_113_115_and_117_IUPAC_Technical_Report

  7. Source: facebook.com
    Link: https://www.facebook.com/physorg/posts/an-international-team-led-by-scientists-of-gsifair-in-darmstadt-johannes-gutenbe/997160819105973/

  8. Source: reddit.com
    Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/wk3jwp/bob_lazar_describes_alien_technology_housed_at/

  9. Source: reddit.com
    Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1sdilva/can_an_actual_engineer_weigh_in_on_bob_lazars/

  10. Source: envisioning.com
    Link: https://www.envisioning.com/research/xenotech/element-115-power-system

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