In "Alien Contact", by Timothy Good, it states: "...When George Knapp
contacted the hospital where Lazar says he was born, in Coral Gables,
Florida, no records could be found."
In a radio interview on November 17, 1989, George Knapp told Chuck
Harder: "We called for his birth records and they had disappeared
...as if someone was trying to make him a non-person."
In a interview on the "Billy Goodman Happening" radio show on December 20,
1989, the following statements were made:
Caller:
Why are you going public? There's obviously a lot of other staff on
the project that senses a great degree of loyalty.
Lazar:
The straw that broke the camel's back was, after I left the program I
became concerned about what happens now. I made a routine request for
my birth certificate, which I needed just for I.D. purposes, and I was
told that it doesn't exist, I wasn't even born at that hospital. I sat
on that for about a week and just wondered, and then I began to inquire
at previous jobs and also at other schools, and that information was
also gone. And I got the idea that soon someone was going to disappear,
so that's when I contacted the TV station and essentially let everything
out.
[Skip in transcript]
Goodman:
It was interesting when you asked for your birth certificate, and you
could not locate it. And they told you that literally you did not
exist? They TOLD you this in so many words?
Lazar:
They said we just have no records here.
Goodman:
And YOU felt that you didn't exist?
Lazar:
I felt that that's what they were trying to make happen.
Goodman:
Are you familiar with that type of thing being done?
Lazar:
No, I never heard of it before. I guess other people have.
Goodman:
Did you ever get your birth certificate?
Lazar:
Nope.
On December 9, 1989, Lazar appeared on KLAS-TV's "On The Record" program,
hosted by George Knapp. The following exchange took place:
Knapp:
The reason you came forward with the information to begin with?
Is it related to the fact that they were bothering you?
Lazar:
Yeah, it was essentially to stop that. What had happened was, I
sent in a request for my birth certificate, and as it turned out
it wasn't there anymore, that I wasn't born at the hospital! And
that kind of got me wondering what's going on. I put in a
request for some other information, previous jobs, and that was
also gone, and I thought something had to be done before I
disappeared.
Analysis:
Lazar makes it quite clear that he believed his birth records had
"disappeared". It would seem that George Knapp, on the basis of his
checking, agreed with that position. But is there a more plausible
explanation than a sinister government organization attempting wipe
someone's existence away? It may be as simple as as not looking in
the right place.
In the State of Florida, legal birth records may only be found in two
locations. The official and primary repository of birth records is the
Office of Vital Statistics of the Department of Health and Rehabilitation
Services in Jacksonville. This facility serves the entire state and has
complete records going back to 1917.
Some counties, but not all, maintain duplicate records for births within
their county. Coral Gables is located in Dade County, which is one of the
counties that maintains their own copies of birth records.
The least reliable place to search for birth records in Florida is at
hospitals. Records from hospitals there are not considered legal documents
and as a result may not be kept with a high level of care. It would not
be surprising at all not to be able to find medical records that are over
30 years old.
So, can anyone just contact the State of Florida and see if there actually
is a record of Lazar's birth? Well, it's not that simple. In 1987, in
an effort to cut down on welfare fraud, Florida enacted a law that made
all birth records confidential documents. It is illegal for the State or
the counties to give out copies of certificates, or to even verify the
existence of a certificate, to anyone other than the birth registrant,
the registrant's parents or legal guardians, or the birth registrant's
legal representative.
So it would seem that Knapp, even if armed with a letter of authorization
from Lazar, was looking in the wrong place.
But there is another another interesting piece of information that is not
common knowledge. After Lazar plead guilty to the pandering charge on
June 18, 1990 in Las Vegas, the State of Nevada Department of Parole and
Probation prepared a "Pre-Sentence Report". This report provides the
court with quite a bit of background data on the defendant to assist in
sentencing.
The report was prepared by Joy Mundy-Neal and dated July 27, 1990. Under
the heading "Social History", the report states:
"A certified copy of the defendant's birth certificate indicates he was
born on January 26, 1959 to the union of Albert Lazar and Phyllis Berliner
(natural mother)..."
It would seem that the State of Nevada had no difficulty obtaining a copy
of Lazar's birth certificate. Perhaps they just knew where to look. This
was only 8 months after Lazar stated on the Billy Goodman show that he had
never got his birth certificate.
Possible Explanations:
- Lazar, and later Knapp, failed to look in the proper location for
the birth certificate and jumped to conclusions as to its absence.
- The certificate was indeed missing or removed by a deep black
government agency, but was later replaced (or at least provided to
the State of Nevada) in an effort to discredit Lazar.