Alien Autopsy (1995 film)

For the 2006 film, see Alien Autopsy

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The term alien autopsy is used within the UFOlogical community to refer to the supposed examination of an extraterrestrial cadaver by government authorities. While dismissed as fantasy by the majority of people, belief in alien autopsies remains a common element of UFO conspiracy theory. Film footage purporting to show an alien autopsy was promoted during the 1990s by Ray Santilli, a London-based video entrepreneur, but this footage has since been revealed to be a possible restoration or enharnced version of the original film.

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The Santilli film

Ray Santilli instigated a worldwide "alien autopsy" controversy with what he claimed was footage taken by a US military cameraman shortly after the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. Santilli first presented his film to an invited audience of media representatives, UFOlogists and other dignitaries at the Museum of London on 5 May 1995. The footage was subsequently seen by tens of millions of TV viewers in more than thirty countries worldwide.

Santilli's original footage can be seen on the Laserdisc and VHS versions of Alien Autopsy – Fact or Fiction, a program shown on the Fox television network in 1995. Although the broadcast version did not show the actual "autopsy", those editions have the complete and unedited film, plus previously unreleased footage of wreckage from the purported alien craft. The show features interviews with experts on the authenticity of the film. Fox itself produced a second program debunking the video as a hoax a couple of years later.

Early reactions and criticisms

Although the authenticity of the footage has been disputed, the alien autopsy film was not rejected out of hand when it first appeared. Many people considered it to be genuine — the long-awaited "smoking gun" of ufology. The film's validity was backed by the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), thus providing Santilli with massive free publicity in his own country. Even among viewers who did not believe that the body was that of a genuine alien there were some who considered it too realistic to be a mannequin, and speculated that it was the body of a girl with a genetic disorder (such as progeria or Turner syndrome).

The debate over Santilli's film continued for years. Sceptics questioned whether the film stock and the equipment and objects in the examination room actually dated from 1947. Pathologists also questioned the techniques used in the depicted examination (the examiners hold their instruments in an odd way, unlike experienced surgeons and coroners). Key moments, such as the opening of the chest cavity, are missing. At other key moments, the camera slips out of focus. It was suggested that these key moments were not shown because they would have been too difficult to fake.

Santilli's admission

On April 4 2006, two days prior to the UK release of Alien Autopsy, a British comedy feature film on the subject of the footage, British Sky Broadcasting broadcast a documentary, Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy, presented by Eamonn Holmes. In this program, Ray Santilli and fellow producer Gary Shoefield finally revealed the details of what they claimed to be a restoration of the footage.

A set was constructed in the living room of an empty flat in Rochester Square, Camden Town, London. Santilli states that the set was a perfect mirror of the autopsy room in the original footage. John Humphreys, an artist and sculptor, was employed to construct two dummy alien bodies over a period of three weeks, using casts containing sheep brains set in jelly, chicken entrails and knuckle joints obtained from S.C. Crosby Wholesale Butchers in Smithfield meat market, London. Santilli claims Props were also brought in from around the world to match exactly images within the original film. Humphreys also played the role of the chief scientist undertaking the examination, in order to allow him to control the effects being filmed. There were two separate attempts at making the footage. After filming, the team disposed of the "bodies" by cutting them into small pieces and placing them in rubbish bins across London.

Alien objects, supposedly items recovered from the crash site, were depicted in the footage. These included alien symbols and six-finger control panels, which Santilli admits to being the result of artistic licence on his part. These artifacts were also created by Humphreys. The footage also showed a man reading a statement "verifying" his identity as the original cameraman and the source of the footage. Santilli and Shoefield later admitted that they had found an unidentified homeless man on the streets of Los Angeles, persuaded him to play the role of the cameraman, and filmed him in a hotel.

Santilli and Shoefield maintain that their film is not entirely a work of fiction. They claim that in 1992 they viewed twenty-two rolls of film, averaging four minutes in length, which were said to have been shot in 1947 by a US Army cameraman in Roswell, New Mexico; this film supposedly depicted an "alien autopsy". However, by the time they returned to purchase the footage two years later, they say, the film had degraded from humidity and heat, with only a few frames staying intact. They now claim that they "restored the footage" by filming a simulated autopsy on a fabricated alien, based upon what they saw in the real film. They say that five percent of their film is still genuine footage, intercut with the later "re-creation". However, they have not identified this original footage, despite Santilli claiming (during an appearance on Channel 4's afternoon talk show Richard & Judy) that he would be able to do so.

Alien Autopsy, the movie

Alien Autopsy is the title of a 2006 comedy film, directed by Jonny Campbell and written by William Davies. It is a humorous reconstruction of the making of the Santilli film. Santilli and Gary Shoefield are credited as executive producers.

External links

The creators of the footage?

I Made the Roswell Alien

Review of "Eamonn Investigates"