10 REUTERS 08-20-95 10:56 AET 48 LINES

BC-BRITAIN-ALIEN 1STLD

UFO enthusiasts argue over ``alien visitor'' film (Corrects 4th graf by deleting extraneous word Rumours) Andrew Marshall

SHEFFIELD, England (Reuter) - Delegates to a weekend UFO conference in this northern England city argued Sunday over whether a grainy black-and-white film provided final proof that an alien spacecraft crashed in New Mexico 48 years ago.

More than a thousand enthusiasts of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and other delegates watched the first public showing of a film showing a humanoid female creature with reptilian eyes being dissected by scientists on an operating table.

While many delegates believed the film was genuine, some anatomists and film experts disagreed.

British film-maker Ray Santilli says he bought the film from an octogenarian former military cameraman who said he took it after an alien spacecraft crashed into the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

The film, shown at a British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) conference, appeared to show that the creature had a huge hairless head, with a face dominated by large lizard-like eyes. It had six fingers or toes on each hand or foot.

Blood oozed from the body as surgeons in bulky radiation suits cut open the chest to reveal a bizarre pulpy mass of internal organs.

They removed the lenses from the eyes and peeled away the scalp, before sawing through the skull and removing a strange, gelatinous brain.

Santilli insisted the film was no hoax. ``There isn't a single shred of evidence that it's a fake,'' he said.

He said both the U.S. space agency NASA and Kodak, makers of camera film, had been commisioned to study the footage and their findings would be announced Aug. 28 when the film is scheduled to be shown on television in several countries.

``It was amazing. It's a historic day -- we've finally got proof of aliens,'' said Paul Cottam, an engineer from Newcastle, Northern England.

But British anatomist Dr. Fred Spoors told Reuters the creature looked suspiciously human. He said the probability that aliens would evolve to look so human was extremely remote.

Special effects experts at the company Creature Effects were also unimpressed. ``None of us were of the opinion that we were watching a real alien autopsy,'' they said in a statement. ``We all agreed that what we were seeing was a very good fake body.''