From: Doug Roberts (Doug@nolimits.demon.co.uk)
Daily Telegraph
By Jane Thynne, Media Correspondent
Channel 4 yesterday unveiled its much-hyped footage of the secret autopsy of alien beings and left the press distinctly alienated.
The footage is to be given its television premiere on Channel 4 on Monday evening. But those attending yesterday's preview voted by straw poll that the grainy scenes of six-fingered, six-toed aliens were a special effects hoax.
Channel 4 says it is keeping an open mind about the authenticity of the footage. But it expects the programme to top the ratings.
The film shows doctors dissecting hairless female corpses with reptilian eyes, no navels and enourmous heads. It is part of a documentary about the 1947 "Roswell Incident", in which fragments of a strange craft crashed in New Mexico.
Channel 4 says the Pentagon, which has changed its story several times about what happened on that July night, will release new documents indicating the truth.
Its film contains numerous witnesses who claimed to have seen the flying saucer. But some participants said the aliens found on the space ship were smaller than those seen in the footage. Critics pointed out that even if the film stock can be proved to date from 1947, it does not prove the footage was originally shot on it.
The film was allegedly sold to Ray Santilli, a music vdeo producer, by its American cameraman, now aged 82.
Mr Santilli refused yesterday to identify the seller, who had kept the old cans of film in his loft, or the German "collector" who had financed his acquisition of the film. He is now delaying over releasing parts of it for expert identification.
"The cameraman is concerned for his family," Mr Santilli explained. "He doesn't want to be regarded as someone who's given away state secrets."
While Mr Santilli is refusing to make claims for the status of the aliens, they are likely to become the most profitable visitors from space since ET.
He has struck worldwide exclusive deals with magazines and television companies, and is planning to sell the film on video next week, at £12.99. Already 21,000 copies have been ordered.
Yesterday he agreed that stories of the anonymous American cameraman who had kept "Problem reels" of the autopsy from his NASA masters were "ridiculous". But he added: "That's the story."