$fa1This interesting article was found on the Internet. All due credit to the original writers - All I have done is convert it from hypertext to plain ascii format.. Phil(96).. $afb MAJOR DISCREPANCIES EXPOSED IN THE SO-CALLED ALIEN AUTOPSY FOOTAGE ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is estimated that over ten million people in the United States watched the first broadcast of Fox network's Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction last August. The highly skewed documentary featured the now famous alien autopsy film footage supposedly showing the autopsy of an alien by the U.S. military in 1947. The footage, which has been shown by television networks worldwide, is claimed to have been acquired from the official military cameraman who filmed the autopsy. Reportedly, the producers of the Fox program are talking about another broadcast, this time featuring an interview with an anonymous person purporting to be the cameraman. International Roswell Initiative (IRI) Bulletin #5, Santilli's Controversial Autopsy Movie (SCAM), is the lead story in the March issue of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Journal.The article points out a myriad of discrepancies in the alleged alien autopsy film and brings to public attention two important offers of verification, which could settle the matter of the film's authenticity once and for all. Leaders of UFO organizations around the world consider the film a hoax and are concerned about its potential damage to the credibility of serious UFO research. The comprehensive MUFON Journal article is being translated into a number of languages (including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and Japanese), and, at last count, will be published, either in part or in its entirety, by UFO organizations in at least 14 countries. The article contains important information, not yet in the public domain, about the alleged alien autopsy film. Graham Birdsall, editor of UFO Magazine in the U.K., officially revealed the details of the article at a conference in Leeds, England, on March 2, 1996. Birdsall, interviewed recently by British television, expects continued media interest in the subject. The International Roswell Initiative is a serious grassroots organization with the goal of getting to the truth about the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. The organization has already collected over 20,000 signed copies of a declaration requesting an executive order to declassify any government-held information on Roswell or the UFO phenomenon in general. The signatories include two retired Air Force generals and two former U.S. astronauts, one of whom walked on the moon. Interested organizations or publications may obtain a copy of the article and the four eight-by-ten-inch black and white photographs meant to accompany the article. One of the photographs, McGovern at Nagasaki, is on the cover of the March MUFON Journal. The photographs, as well as other information about Roswell and the International Roswell Initiative, will soon be available on the IRI Web site at http://www.roswell.org The International Roswell Initiative can be reached by email at "mailto:RoswellDec@aol.com" or by phone or fax at (404) 240-0655. The Mutual UFO Network is located at 103 Oldtowne Road, Seguin, TX 78155, and can be reached by phone at (210) 379-9216 or by fax at (210) 372-9439. A Comprehensive Review By Kent Jeffrey -------------------------------------- To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, Never in the history of human deception have so many been fooled so much by so few. The claimed 1947 alien autopsy footage, acquired and marketed by Merlin Productions, a small London video distribution company owned by Ray Santilli, has now been seen, and in many cases believed, by tens of millions of viewers in over 30 countries worldwide. Through a selective presentation of the facts and selective editing, programs like Fox network's Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction have misled the public by giving the impression that a number of interdisciplinary experts, including pathologists and film-makers, feel that the Santilli footage might be genuine. The waters have been further muddied by Fox's mingling of facts and witness testimony from the actual Roswell case with scenes from the alleged alien autopsy film. Since the existence of alleged 1947 Roswell footage was first announced in January 1995 on a British television talk show, there has been an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence in the form of inconsistencies, contradictions, lies, and false claims to indicate that the alien autopsy film is a hoax. Furthermore, there has not been one shred of evidence to indicate that the film is genuine. While volumes could be written on the subject, the objective here is to outline some of the more significant problems and discrepancies and to bring to public attention two very reasonable and important offers of verification that could quickly and conclusively settle the matter of the film's authenticity, once and for all. Among the more significant discrepancies are the following: * Problems with the alleged body and autopsy procedures are noted by leading medical experts. * When polled, special-effects artists unanimously believed the body to be a special-effects dummy. * False claims have been made by Santilli concerning authentication of the alleged original film. * A mysterious collector cited by Santilli as the reason for the film's unavailability is a business partner of Santilli's. * Security markings disappeared from the film after being labeled phony by military experts. * Hieroglyphics on the supposed debris spell out two slightly disguised English words. * Santilli changed his story about how he acquired the film after he was caught in a gross inconsistency on a French TV program. * Three highly qualified former WWII military cameramen have pointed out major flaws in both the film itself and the story surrounding it. A Questionable Autopsy ---------------------- As I pointed out in a previous article on the film (The Purported 1947 Roswell Footage, MUFON Journal, June 1995) the anthropomorphic aspect of the alleged alien is implausible. This contention has since been supported by a number of prominent medical experts. In a July 23, 1995, article in a British newspaper, The Observer,anatomist Dr. Paul O'Higgins, of University College London, stated, I would think the chances that an alien which evolved on another world would look so like us would be astronomically remote. Beside the anthropomorphic aspect of the body, other serious problems exist from a medical standpoint. Dr. O'Higgins also stated, To judge from the film, the autopsy was carried out in a couple of hours. Yet these were alien creatures. They represented an unparalleled opportunity to science. We are expected to believe we casually cut them up in an afternoon? I would have taken weeks to do such an autopsy. Houston pathologist Ed Uthman, quoted in the November/December Skeptical Inquirer, states,The most implausible thing of all is that the `alien' just had amorphous lumps of tissue in `her' body cavities. I cannot fathom that an alien who had external organs so much like ours could not have some sort of definitive structural organs internally. Particular aspects of the alleged alien's external body shape, such as the protrusions of certain underlying muscles and bones, like the clavicle, imply a corresponding human internal structure. Yet what was removed from the body cavity looks entirely nonhuman. (This incongruity in itself is a serious flaw.) In effect, what we have is a hybrid that is basically human on the outside and nonhuman on the inside -- an entity that is half human, half something else. While such creatures exist in mythology -- minotaurs, centaurs, mermaids, werewolves, etc. -- they do not exist in reality. A Not-So-Special Effect ----------------------- The humanlike qualities of the supposed alien suggest that it is either a doctored human corpse or a dummy patterned after a human body. Movie special-effects experts who have examined the alien autopsy video, however, feel that the scene was faked by using a special-effects dummy. Special-effects artists, including Trey Stokes, whose credits include The Abyss, The Blob, Batman Returns, Robocop Two, etc., and Cliff Wallace of Creature Effects, Pinewood Studios, London, have pointed out that the posture and weighting of the corpse on the table in the film is inconsistent for a body in the supine position and that it was therefore apparently made from a body-cast taken in the upright position. A multitude of special-effects techniques noticeable in the film are described by Trey Stokes in an excellent article, How to Build an Alien, available on his Internet Web page (http://www.trudang.com). Trey Stokes has also published on his Web page the opinions of 15 of his movie industry colleagues about the claimed alien autopsy footage. All 15 have either spoken directly to Stokes or gone on record with their opinion about the footage. Among the group are several Academy and Emmy award winners, including Stan Winston (Jurassic Park), who after some misunderstanding following his interview on Fox, clarified his position about the footage in a recent Time magazine article -- Do I think it's a hoax? Absolutely. The result of Stoke's survey was unanimous -- all 15 special-effects experts felt the film was a fake. Not one felt that there was even the slightest possibility it was real. Many, according to Stokes, found the footage so laughable that they couldn't believe that anyone in the business would take it seriously enough to even do a survey about it. Spectacular Claims ------------------ Another indication that something is very wrong with this entire affair is the gross inconsistency between the scenes initially described by Santilli and what was eventually delivered. Back in January 1995, we were told that the footage included an autopsy scene with President Truman. Truman was described as standing with other individuals behind a glass window, his face so clearly visible that it would be possible to lip-read his words. Author and crop circle researcher Colin Andrews, one of those who has been in direct contact with Ray Santilli, described the scene in the winter 1995 issue of the Circle Phenomenon Research International Newsletter. When Andrews asked Santilli what impressed him most about the film -- what had convinced him that it was authentic -- Santilli responded, 'I had no doubts when I saw President Truman.' According to the research director for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), Philip Mantle (who has also been in close contact with Santilli), Santilli told him that if it wasn't Truman, it was a damned good actor. The most spectacular claim of all was that of the debris-site footage. On January 20, 1995, I spoke to a movie producer, who has a serious interest in the 1947 Roswell event, just hours after he had spoken with Ray Santilli. Santilli had given a detailed description of the debris site. According to Santilli, the terrain was somewhat hilly. The craft was visible, not in one piece, but in a number of large pieces, necessitating the use of a large crane. Also, numerous soldiers in uniform were visible, in some cases clearly enough for their faces to be seen. Santilli described the debris site in detail to others, including Philip Mantle, Colin Andrews, and Reg Presley, a friend of Colin Andrews' with an interest in crop circles. Presley, who was the lead singer of a popular 60s British rock group, the Troggs (Wild Thing), and who has also been in close contact with Ray Santilli, made the initial announcement of the Santilli film's existence on British television. Because such scenes as that of President Truman and the debris site would be extremely difficult and expensive to hoax, there seemed at first to be a real possibility that the footage might be genuine. Unfortunately, the spectacular claims about these scenes have turned out to be false, apparently blatant lies. No one has ever seen anything of either scene. What has been seen is rather unspectacular, and would have been relatively easy to hoax. Special-effects expert Trey Stokes estimates that the entire alien autopsy production could have been accomplished for as little as $50,000. The Nonexistent Film -------------------- Ray Santilli first claimed that he obtained 15 10-minute reels of film from the cameraman. Later he changed his story to 22 3-minute reels. In his January 20, 1995, conversation with the previously mentioned film producer, Santilli claimed that the footage was 1947, 16mm nitrate film. Kodak, however, has never produced 16mm nitrate film. Santilli told Colin Andrews that the prestigious Royal Society in London had agreed to assist using their high-tech computer enhancement facility. When officials at the Royal Society were questioned about the matter, however, they knew nothing about it. There have been other false and misleading claims regarding the alleged original film and its authentication. For example, Santilli has submitted film with the appropriate edge code for 1947 (a square and a triangle), but it has been either blank leader film or film with unidentifiable images -- both of which are meaningless for verification purposes. The criterion required by Kodak for a valid test is that the film submitted have clearly identifiable images from the actual alien autopsy footage that has been shown worldwide. This is a very reasonable request since, otherwise, the sample provided could be any piece of 1947 film. In a pre-taped interview broadcast on Channel Four in Britain on August 28, 1995, Santilli was asked, Are you going to provide proper film extract which can be properly tested by Kodak which has proper images on it? Santilli replied, I'll provide you with the film, I'll provide you with what I can, which will be a film with image, and the only way that I can do that is by securing some film from the collector that bought the first autopsy, which is currently en route to us. The announcer then went on to lament the fact that despite Santilli's assurance, nothing had been provided since his interview. end