From: Doug Roberts (doug@nolimits.demon.co.uk)
"The Sunday Times" - 30 July 1995, London
by Maurice Chittenden

RELAX. The little green men have not landed. A much-hyped film purporting to prove that aliens had arrived on earth is a hoax.

An investigation by "The Sunday Times" has established glaring discrepancies in the claims made by those marketing the film footage. Simultaneously, experts called in by Channel 4, which is due to screen the film as part of a documentary on August 28, have declared it bogus.

A source close to the documentary said: "We have had special effects guys look at it and they say it's a fake."

The black-and-white footage supposedly comes from cans of 16mm film shot by a US military cameraman, now 82, after a "flying saucer" crashed near Roswell in the New Mexico desert in July, 1947.

Among the flaws found by "The Sunday Times" are:

* "Security coding" on one film disappeared when its accuracy was challenged.

* A "letter of authentication" from Kodak was signed by a salesman.

* President Truman, supposedly visible on film, was not in New Mexico at the time.

* Symbols seen on particles of wreckage are totally different to those remembered by an eyewitness.

* "Doctors" -- performing a supposedly unique autopsy on an alien -- remove black lenses from his eyes in a matter of seconds and as if they knew what to expect.

Little green men are a jolly green giant hoax

Experts have told Channel 4 the film may be a recent production. The source said: "They say it's a good fake. That means, in their opinion, it can't b before the 1950s or possibly the 1960s, but it could be in the past few years."

The so-called Roswell incident is a cause celebre among UFO-spotters. There was certainly a cover-up by the military authorities who at first claimed the crash wreckage was that of a weather balloon, later it was admitted that it belonged to a high-altitude balloon being used to monitor Soviet nuclear tests. Ever since, conspiracy theorists have claimed it was really an alien spaceship.

So there was an eager ready-made audience waiting when Ray Santilli, a London video distributor, announce earlier this year that he had obtained film of autopsies carried out on two aliens, as well as footage of the wreck.

Santilli, whose previous closest encounter was handling the British rights to the video of Tin Tin's Explorers on the Moon, claims he met the cameraman while researching a film on Elvis Presley's days in the army. He said he paid $100,000 for the footage.

Scientists, journalists, and UFO experts have since been invited to view video versions of the film. However, Santilli has refused to identify the cameraman, to produce a receipt for his purchase, or to say where the 16mm film was transferred on to video. The original film is said to be in a Swiss bank vault.

Suspicions were first aroused because injuries visible on the bodies of ET-lookalikes shown undergoing dissection were not consistent with an aircrash.

Santilli had claimed Truman was clearly visible attending one of the autopsies. However, the Harry S. Truman Library in Missouri has checked his schedule for June to October, 1947, and found he was not in New Mexico during that period.

When footage of one autopsy was shown at a private screening in America, it was codemarked with the words "Restricted access, A01 classification." However, "restricted access" is not a recognized US military code and A01 classification has been dismissed as "pure Hollywood."

Later, when film of the same autopsy was shown to John Purdie of Union Pictures, which is making the documentary for Channel 4 as part of its Secret History series, the coding had disappeared.

Last week Santilli's office handed The Sunday Times an updated "letter of authentication" from Kodak, supposedly proving that the film used for the Roswell footage was manufactured in 1927, 1947, or 1967.

However, the letter was only obtained on June 21 when Gary Shoefield, a British associate of Santilli, and Don Lounck, an American film producer, walked into a Kodak office in Hollywood and spoke to Laurence Cate, a sales representative. He typed a letter for them containing the three dates.

Cate said last week: "I didn't think we were looking a a scientific inquiry. There is no way I could authenticate this. I saw an image on the print. Sure, it could be old film, but it doesn't mean it is what the aliens were filmed on."

Channel 4 and others are now demanding tests on film which is seen to be cut from a 16mm reel containing Roswell footage.

There may not be little green men out there, but millions of big green dollars are resting on the outcome. Santilli is already selling stills from the footage on the Internet and has struck worldwide exclusive deals with magazines and television companies, as well as planning to sell the film himself on video.

However, there was confusion in the answers given to questions last week. Shoefield said no footage had ever been released marked "restricted access." Santilli, however, claimed he had found the markings on one can and decided to run them on the film "as one would a timecode."

Santilli is now under attack from scientists and also the UFO community. Paul O'Higgins, a medical anatomist at University College London said the six- fingered, six-toed alien shown on the autopsy table was basically humanoid. "The chances of life evolving to be that similar, even on two identical planets, is the same as the odds of buying a lottery ticket every week for a year and winning the jackpot every Saturday night," he said.

The UFO community is equally skeptical, but for different reasons. A nurse who supposedly saw the alien crash victims in 1947 said they had only four digits on each hand. Some UFO experts claim the footage may even have been "leaked" by the American government as an act of disinformation to stop growing speculation about what happened at Roswell.

Santilli, who has pictures of Sergeant Bilko and the Starship Enterprise on his office walls, remains confident in his product. He said: "I have been offered a blank cheque for the footage. It is genuine."

Caption under pictures on page 2:

Close encounters of the financial kind: businessman Ray Santilli, who handled the British rights to the video of Tin Tin's Explorers on the Moon, and a still from the 'alien' footage.