Alien autopsy
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- 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.
Belief in alien autopsies is 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. However, Santilli announced in 2006 that the film was not genuine. This announcement was made by Santilli in the TV documentary film "Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy", made by British Sky Broadcasting. The documentary was first shown on Sky One at 20:00 BST on 4 April 2006 and repeated on Sky Three at 19:00 GMT on 18 November 2006. In the documentary, Eamonn Holmes repeatedly refers to the film as a "fake", while Santilli (often with a smile on his face) patiently corrects this to "restoration", because he maintains that his film is a reconstruction of an actual alien autopsy film that he saw in the early 1990s but has subsequently been lost. Santilli further claimed that a few of the frames embedded in his video are from the original, although he was unable to identify these with any certainty. In the documentary, he shows Eamonn Holmes the terraced house in North London where the video was made, and introduces him to a number of people who featured in the film or were involved in its production.
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[edit] The Santilli film
In 1995, Santilli instigated a wide reaching "alien autopsy" controversy when he claimed to posses footage taken in a tent by a US military cameraman shortly after the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. Santilli first presented his film to an invited audience of media representatives, UFOlogist and other dignitaries at the Museum of London on 5 May 1995. The footage has subsequently been screened 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[1], 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 presented as the remains of the alien craft reported to have crashed in Roswell. The show features interviews with experts on the authenticity of the film. Fox later produced a second program aimed at exposing the video as a hoax.
[edit] Early reactions and criticisms
Prior to the Eamonn Holmes documentary, reactions to the film were mixed, with some people claiming it was genuine and others claiming that it was a fake.[2]
[edit] 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 announced that their film was only partially real (a "few frames", in their words), while the rest was a reconstruction of twenty-two rolls of film, averaging four minutes in length, which Santilli had viewed in 1992 but which had subsequently degraded from humidity and heat. They said that only a few frames of the original were still intact by the time they had raised enough money to purchase it.[3]
Santilli and Shoefield stated that they had "restored" the damaged footage by filming a simulated autopsy on a fabricated alien, based upon what Santilli saw in 1992, and then adding in a few frames of the original film that had not degraded. They have not identified which parts are original footage.[3]
According to Santilli, a set was constructed in the living room of an empty flat in Rochester Square, Camden Town, London. 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. 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. [3]
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 describes in the Sky documentary as 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 admitted in the documentary 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. [3]
[edit] Alien Autopsy, the movie
Alien Autopsy is also the title of a 2006 comedy film, starring Declan Donnelly and Anthony McPartlin, 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, and appear for a few seconds in cameo, as Ant and Dec push past them in a crowd after the first viewing of the film in London.
[edit] References
- ^ Alien Autopsy: (Fact or Fiction?) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ The UFO Files: Alien Autopsy by Andy Roberts and Dr David Clarke, Fortean Times issue 210 (June 2006), pages 30 - 31.
- ^ a b c d Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy, British Sky Broadcasting. First shown on Sky One, 20:00 BST 4 April 2006 (repeated on Sky Three, 19:00 GMT 18 November 2006).
[edit] Further reading
- Joseph A. Bauer, A Surgeon's View: Alien Autopsy's Overwhelming Lack of Credibility, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 20, #1, Jan. 1996, 23-24. Reprinted in The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, 1997, ISBN 1-57392-131-9. Also reprinted in Bizarre Cases: From the Files of Skeptical Inquirer, CSICOP, 2000.
- C. Eugene Emery, Jr, 'Alien Autopsy' Show and Tell: Long on Tell, Short on Show, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 19, #6, Nov. 1995, 15-16 & 55. Reprinted in The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, 1997, ISBN 1-57392-131-9.
- David Park Musella (July 2006). "Alien Autopsy Hoax Revealed — Again". Skeptical Inquirer 30 (4): 9, 11.
- Joe Nickell, 'Alien Autopsy' Hoax, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 19, #6, Nov. 1995, 17-19. Reprinted in The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, 1997, ISBN 1-57392-131-9.
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
- Trey Stokes, How to Make an 'Alien' for 'Autopsy', Skeptical Inquirer, vol 20, #1, Jan. 1996, 19-23. Reprinted in The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, 1997, ISBN 1-57392-131-9. Also reprinted in Bizarre Cases: From the Files of Skeptical Inquirer, CSICOP, 2000.
