The Alien Autopsy Film


by Paul Fuller


1) Introduction

Its now been 18 months since news of the Santilli Autopsy Film first broke in England. During that time I have been a "fly-on-the-wall" in Ray Santilli's office !! Most of my research has been conducted via the internet and with the valuable help of James Easton, John Stepkowski and Robert Irving. Since many UFOlogists don't use the internet I'd better explain that the internet is composed of many computer systems and millions of "surfers" across the world. There are three kinds of internet evidence which support the findings of this paper :

Many of the internet messages discussed in this paper were first shown on the Alt.Alien.Visitors newsgroup, which has millions of potential readers, and the MUFON Encounters newsgroup on Compuserve. These two newsgroups are frequently visited by Ray Santilli, Bob Shell, James Easton, Michael Hesemann and numerous other people whose lives seem to revolve around this controversial film footage. This paper is based on a synopsis of 3,000 e-mail and newsgroup messages I have had access to over the past 18 months. The timeline I have produced from these messages even includes when Ray Santilli was at home in bed with the flu! It contains over 550 entries and is located at http://www.ufo.se/timeline.txt

2) My major reasons for doubting the authenticity of the autopsy film are the following:

The main point I want to make is that for someone who has made no secret of his desire to make money from the autopsy footage in my opinion Ray Santilli and his German "partner" Volker Spielberg have simply not behaved like people who trully believe that they have the genuine article in their possession. Instead they have twisted and turned, fed us with reams of disinformation, and generally created a massive smokescreen which has suited their own purposes very well.

Think for one moment how valuable a verifiable film of a deceased alien would be worth ? It would be like the Mona Lisa painting, or the Crown Jewels, both of which are priceless. If the footage could be tested and shown to be genuine 1947 vintage film, then Santilli and his business partners would be international celebrities, mixing with world leaders and presenting this evidence to the United Nations or to religious leaders. Instead, they continue mixing with mere UFOlogists.

3) THE EARLY DAYS

The very first hint that an alien autopsy film existed was in an article written by Carl Nagaitis in the "Sunday People" on August 9th 1992. Nagaitis wrote this article shortly before Bill Moore was to give a lecture about the Roswell event at the Independent UFO Network's conference in Sheffield - an event which I attended. We don't know if Nagaitis actually attended Bill Moore's lecture but we do know that Philip Mantle, who was to later write a book with Carl Nagaitis, helped to organise that Sheffield Conference. Nagaitis' article was the first time that anyone claimed that Steven Spielberg was planning to produce a film about the Roswell event. Nagaitis repeated this claim in a second article in the "Daily Mirror" in December 1993, when he added the claim that Spielberg would be using real archive footage of the Roswell event ("Project X"). Spielberg's company Amblin Productions publicly denied this claim in "USA Today" when it was repeated in "OMNI Magazine" in November 1994. It was even denied by Spie lberg himself to one of my CUFOS colleagues Sheldon Wernikoff in Chicago!

Now the early days of this story are very revealing. One of the many strange coincidences in this story is the fact that the autopsy footage surfaced just as the "Roswell" TV movie by Director Paul Davids was released on video in the USA by Polygram in April 1993. Curiously one of the people responsible for promoting the Roswell autopsy footage was Gary Shoefield, who later left Polygram to team up with Ray Santilli. Whilst at Polygram Gary Shoefield worked on the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral", which of course featured Reg Presley's smash hit "Love is all around". Shoefield accompanied Ray Santilli on several trips to the United States in a joint search for Elvis Presley memorabilia.

In an interview with Philip Mantle which was published last July Santilli claimed that Gary Shoefield accompanied him on one of his trips to the United States in an attempt to buy the autopsy footage on behalf of Polygram. According to Santilli Shoefield never met the cameraman as the cameraman was unexpectedly taken ill. However, according to Santilli Shoefield did speak by phone to someone who claimed to be the cameraman's wife and he did speak to the hospital where the cameraman had been taken. Santilli claims that Gary Shoefield left a few days later without meeting the cameraman or his wife. Santilli claims that "Polygram satisfied themselves at that time that the cameraman did exist", but that "Polygram did not want to continue the negotiation purely because of the nature of the legalities involved in buying footage that someone does not own, because it was owned by the U.S. military". According to Santilli, the cameraman recovered from his illness but "lost faith" in Santilli and Shoefield because the proposed deal had fallen through. Philip Mantle claims that he checked with Gary Shoefield that the claims made in this statement by Ray Santilli are true, and apparently Shoefield agreed with this version of events.

On 25th June 1993 Carl Nagaitis' co-author Philip Mantle claims that he first met Ray Santilli at the UK premier of the UFO movie "Fire in the Sky" in London. It was at this meeting that Philip Mantle claims that he first learnt of the alien autopsy footage. Mantle told his colleagues in BUFORA and MUFON about the autopsy footage over the coming months. Despite the fact that he was not to see the footage for another 16 months Mantle has recently admitted to becoming a "consultant" to Ray Santilli's company the Merlin Group.

During 1994 Mantle published his first book "Without Consent". His co-author was the same Carl Nagaitis who back in 1992/93 had written that original false story about Steven Spielberg making a film about the Roswell event using archive footage of the event. In his first internet statement of May 1995 Philip Mantle explains that he was contacted "by" Ray Santilli in order to make a UFO documentary video, which I gather was intended to be promoted alongside "Without Consent". Mantle explains that during that first meeting Ray Santilli explained how he had "traced" a veteran cameraman who owned some archive footage of Elvis Presley. According to Mantle Santilli purchased the Elvis footage and the deal was completed. Later the cameraman phoned Santilli at his hotel and offered to sell him further footage of an event which Santilli was to claim he had never even heard of. Of course, the rest is history.

According to Ray Santilli's internet statement of 3rd June 1995 he spent much of 1993 and 1994 trying to raise the money to buy the film footage. Ray Santilli claims that he first received the autopsy film footage from the cameraman in November 1994. During this month Philip Mantle told BUFORA's Jenny Randles and John Spencer about the film during a trip to a UFO conference in Vienna. During December 1994 Mantle visited Polygram. This visit ties in with attempts to publicise the autopsy film footage a few months later by View magazine.

During the last days of December 1994 rock star Reg Presley learnt of the film footage via his business manager who just happened to know Ray Santilli. Presley arranged to view the film and was impressed by what he saw. He quickly told Colin Andrews about the film footage. Meanwhile Philip Mantle again met with Ray Santilli in London following a BUFORA lecture in early January 1995.

On Friday 13th January 1995 Reg Presley announced on BBC TV that he had seen a film which allegedly showed the aliens recovered at Roswell in 1947. Presley's claim was made on the "Good Morning with Ann and Nick" programme and left the audience and presenters completely stunned. Unfortuntely the revelation came in the last five minutes of the programme and there was no time left to discuss Presley's announcement any further. Nevertheless it is interesting that the BBC failed to act decisively in the weeks that followed, despite this apparent scoup offered to them by Presley's revelation.

On February 3rd 1995 Colin Andrews and his wife visited Ray Santilli and according to the statement in his newsletter Andrews was allowed to take away a video copy of one small section of the autopsy footage on the understanding that he did not show the film to anyone else. This footage was the yet-to-be widely screened "tent autopsy". Sometime in February 1995 Colin Andrews' co-author Pat Delgado also visited Ray Santilli and was shown the autopsy footage. Delgado later wrote to the "Australian UFO Bulletin" describing what he saw. On February 11th "View" magazine reviewed the Polygram Roswell video and discussed a "promotional tie in" with the British UFO Research Association involving "fake UFO sightings to stir up the press". It wasn't until I spoke to Mike Wootten, BUFORA's Director of Publications, that BUFORA publicly denied the claim that they were involved in manufacturing "fake UFO sightings". According to Graham Birdsall Mantle himself wasn't in the slightest bit concerned when challenged about the appropriateness of a UFO group becoming involved in the promotion of a commercial product by manufacturing fake UFO sightings.

So. Let's stop and note what happened. What was Ray Santilli's first move when he obtained the autopsy film ? Remember he originally claimed that first knew of the film's existence in mid 1993, so he had had 18 months to prepare for its arrival in Britain. Presumably if he thought that the film was genuine archive footage of the autopsy of an alien being he would have planned to have the film properly authenticated by independent experts using the latest available technology as soon as it arrived. He had had 18 months in which to plan for this event and to contact leading Roswell researchers. Instead, he spent his time talking to crop circle researchers like Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado. Instead he spent his time talking to Reg Presley, who had recently made a million pounds in royalties from the success of his hit song "Love is all around". My question is this. Why didn't Santilli go straight to the Roswell experts, like Randle and Schmitt, or Stanton Freidman, or Kent Jeffrey ? Since Santilli had been tal king to Philip Mantle since August 1993 surely Mantle knew of Randle, Schmitt, Freidman and Jeffrey ? Surely Mantle would have suggested to Santilli that he contact these researchers as a very first option in authenticating the film?

On 17th March 1995 Philip Mantle and his wife Sue again visited Santilli in London. On this same day Colin Andrews announced the existence of the film at a conference in Seattle. The following day my own magazine held the second of our open editorial meetings in Manchester. This meeting was attended by David Clarke, a former member of both BUFORA and the Independent UFO Network. During the meeting rumours about the autopsy footage were discussed and being a reporter and an old friend of Mantle's David Clarke was naturally interested. A couple of days later he rang Philip Mantle and Mantle told him about the film and Ray Santilli. Clarke sold the story on to the Press Association on March 26th and the story hit the news wires. On the same day as the story was flashed around the world Mantle was busy faxing Walt Andrus, Kevin Randle, Dennis Stacy and other ufologists warning them to keep quiet about the film. Unfortunately Mantle had acted too late and major media articles began appearing around the world quoting his endorsement of the film's authenticity!

In Britain, a few days later, Mantle was quoted publicly endorsing the film in his controversial "Dear Disbeliever" letter to "The Independent" newspaper. Mantle's role in this affair was to attract widespread criticism and condemnation amongst UFOlogists around the globe, who saw his apparent endorsement of the autopsy footage as grossly irresponsible given the lack of research which had been conducted into the footage. Mantle himself felt forced to issue three internet statements defending his actions and putting his side of the story.

At the end of March 1995 Ray Santilli visited the Cannes film festival, and met with Italian UFO documentary producer Maurizio Baiata. Baiata was to visit Santilli in London at the end of April to view the footage. He later promoted the autopsy footage in Italy in much the same way as Mantle had done in Britain. Santilli was also interviewed by Perry Petrakis, who published the first in depth interview with Santilli in the leading French UFO magazine "Phenomena".

On March 20th Mantle finally put a two page proposal to Santilli discussing how BUFORA proposed to analyse the film footage. Strangely, for someone who should have had every reason to want to authenticate the film footage beyond doubt and who had already approached a number of people involved on the fringes of UFOlogy, Ray Santilli held back from allowing BUFORA to examine the raw footage, although he did agree with Mantle to present a video of the autopsy footage at BUFORA's August 1995 conference.

Santilli's failure to allow UFOlogists the opportunity to examine the film footage in more detail quickly became the source of deep mistrust and suspicion around the globe. This suspicion was fuelled by some rather unkind comments made about UFOlogists by Santilli himself. In the "Glasgow Evening Times" Santilli was quoted stating that "Of course it's not in my interests to have the film examined or inspected by the UFO community and that they are complaining about that. This film has split Ufologists right down the middle. Commercially, it suits me to keep the mystery going."

Comments like this did Santilli no favours and it became particularly obvious on the internet, where many UFOlogists panned the film footage and dismissed it as an obvious fake. On the positive side, it resulted in new liaisons and exchange of information between UFO groups and researchers who had previously operated independently. The first UFO group to publicly criticise the autopsy footage was Quest International (publishers of "UFO magazine", in Leeds, England). Established Roswell researchers such as Don Berliner, Kevin Randle and Stanton Freidman all found Santilli very unwilling to respond to their attempts to help authenticate the film footage. On 3rd May Freidman faxed Ray Santilli a lengthy challenge to provide more information and evidence to support the film's authenticity. The following day Santilli replied, saying "none of the above is of interest to me".

4) The "Showing"

Given the rising media interest in the film footage Santilli decided to hold what he termed a "showing" - not a "press conference" but a "showing" - originally planned for late April. This showing took place at the Museum of London on 5th May 1995. Santilli later described the timing of the event to coincide with the 50th aniversary of Britain's VE Day Celebrations with "We timed it May 5th to coincide with V.E. Day celebrations, this along with the fact we still refused to release any materials to the press, meant that the story would die a natural death until we were ready". Again, one wonders what possible reason a business man might have for attempting to deflate public interest in a commercial product which is said to be proof that man is not alone. Even if the film footage was only partly authenticated by May 1995 this desire to "deflate public interest" in the film really doesn't make any sense to me at all!

The May 5th "showing" was attended by about 150 people, including Colin Andrews, Philip Mantle, Michael Hesemann, Kent Jeffrey, Jerry Clark, Matthew Williams and a number of other UFO researchers and writers from overseas. With the exception of Colin Andrews and Reg Presley, most of those who attended the "showing" were either disappointed or non commital. They were particularly disappointed at the failure to show the alleged Truman footage, the alleged vehicle recovery footage and the debris footage - all of which had been alluded to by either Andrews or Presley. On BBC Radio 4 on April 11th Santilli himself had claimed that he had actual footage of the recovery of the crashed spaceship, but this was not shown.

Some of the people present were annoyed because there was no one there to introduce the film footage or answer questions, even though they had flown in from around the world to view the footage. It was noted by several people that Ray Santilli himself did not want to be photographed or questioned at the "showing". All those who attended were frisked before they entered the lecture theatre to ensure that they didn't photograph the film. Curiously, for a top secret US military archive film the footage itself was introduced on screen as being copyrighted to the Merlin Group, Santilli's new company, rather than to the United States Government.

5) Aftermath

In my opinion many UFOlogists responded magnificently to what was widely perceived as a growing threat to UFOlogist's attempts to be taken more seriously. Britain's "UFO Magazine" was the first UFO magazine to publish critical comment on the film footage. Kent Jeffrey's International Roswell Initiative published Bulletin No 1 dismissing the film as "a fraud". CUFOS made clear the fact that they were not interested at all in publishing material related to the footage. Influential Australian UFOlogist Bill Chalker publicly urged that UFOlogists show great caution towards the film, in case it turn out like the "Hitler Diaries" or the "Jack The Ripper Diaries". Chalker even quoted Philip Mantle saying that the body on the film could have been made in his "back garden"!

Never in the history of UFO research have so many grass roots UFO researchers responded with such skepticism and outrage at a claim which appears to support what many UFOlogists have been saying for years.

6) The San Marino Conference

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, on May 25th Italian UFOlogist Eduardo Russo circulated a detailed account of the San Marino Conference. The Conference was attended by Chris Carey of the Merlin Group and by Philip Mantle. The hotel hired by the CUN group for the event was cordoned off by the Police and only chosen media representatives and a small select band of UFOlogists were allowed entry. This "007" scene was shown on Italian TV news and undoubtedly led to heightened media interest. Those present were only shown 7 still photos of the autopsy scene bought in by Mantle, they were not allowed to view a video of the raw footage.

The conference was notable for the following new evidence :

The circulation of this new evidence by Eduoardo Russo coincided with the first of Philip Mantle's three internet statements justifying his actions and denying that anyone at BUFORA had ever endorsed the film footage in public. The following day (26th May) the International Roswell Initiative published "A Quest for the Truth" dismissing the film as a hoax. Kent Jeffrey pointed out that he had written to Santilli in mid January offering to hire a firm of top Washington lawyers to provide legal protection to the cameraman, yet Santilli had never even answered.

7) FALSE CLAIMS

Throughout the autopsy saga many of the initial claims made by on on behalf of Santilli have turned out to be quite false. In January 1995 Colin Andrews visited Ray Santilli and claimed that he asked Santilli what impressed him most about the autopsy footage. Andrews claims that Santilli told him that "the prestiguous Royal Society in London agreed to assist with their high-tech computer enhancement facility. Apparently results from computer enhancement were good and Santilli said they only had a few more films to complete".

I was the person who wrote to the Royal Society to check this claim. The Royal Society denied all knowledge of Santilli's film or having the enhancement facilities needed to clean up fifty year old film. Of course I immediately posted this response on the alt.alien.visitors newsgroup so that UFOlogists everywhere would know that a false claim had been made!

8) PRESIDENT TRUMAN

It was Colin Andrews who was the first person to publicly claim that President Truman could be seen on the footage. In his Winter 1995 newsletter Andrews stated that the autopsy footage "... showed two autopsies with one of the autopsy films showing very clearly President Truman watching the procedures. Allegedly, Truman is standing with others behind a glass screen and his face can be seen so clearly that you can lip-read his words". Andrews stated that he asked Santilli what was the most impressive thing he had seen on the film. What had convinced him that it was authentic. According to Andrews, Ray Santilli's reply was the following

" 'I had no doubts' he said, 'when I saw President Truman'. "

As we all know, no film footage of President Truman observing the autopsy has ever surfaced, although it has been alluded to many times.

Strangely, following the publication of Andrews' newsletter Santilli failed to deny that Truman appeared in the film footage. My colleague John Stepkowski e-mailed Santilli twice about this claim but both times Santilli avoided providing a direct answer on the Truman issue. On 22nd July George Wingfield claimed that he checked with Reg Presley and Presley confirmed that Santilli told him that President Truman appeared on the film. On 30th July Santilli failed to deny the Sunday Times' allegation that the much vaunted Truman footage had failed to materialise. Instead, on 2nd August Santilli finally explained in a "confidential" fax to Graham Birdsall that he had "... optimistically assumed that we would have been able to recover all of the imagery I believed we had, therefore, I acknowledge that I sent out confusing signals to what was viewable and what was not". Santilli confirmed this error in public on 20th August at the Sheffield Conference. It took Santilli eight months to publicise this explanation of why he had apparently claimed to Colin Andrews that President Truman was visible and identifiable on the film footage when in fact Truman was nowhere to be seen.

On 10th August Michael Hesemann told Charles Bender that "Ray hasn't seen Truman on the film yet, because the film is stuck together and has to go to a laboratory to be saved - if it is still possible and the damage not too big". Remember, back in January Santilli had told Colin Andrews that the enhancement of the film footage was almost complete, yet eight months later Hesemann was reporting quite the opposite.

At BUFORA's Sheffield Conference ten days later Santilli himself stated that the film cannisters listed Truman but that "we were unable to retreive an image from that cannister". Contradictorily, Santilli was to tell James Easton the following day that "The reels were not labelled with a description of their contents. Just numbers".

In late September Stanton Freidman confirmed that Santilli had told him that Truman could be seen on the footage. On 1st November one of Santilli's closest supporters Bob Shell told John Ratcliffe that "The Harry Truman thing was simply something the cameraman claimed would be seen once all of the film had been transferred to video. No one saw Harry Truman [on the film]."

9) Home Office

A similar problem arose over Santilli's references to a "senior Home Office Pathologist" having examined the film footage. Santilli first made this claim during "The Afternoon Shift", which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on April 11th 1995. Santilli stated that "we have a pathologist - a senior Home Office pathologist - looking at the footage right now". He repeated this claim at the Museum of London "showing" on 5th May 1995. In his newsletter Colin Andrews referred to this pathologist producing "the official Home Office pathology report" on the film footage.

On 10th June I wrote to the Home Office in London asking them to clarify whether or not a "senior Home Office pathologist" was examining the autopsy footage and whether or not his views "form the basis of an official Home Office report" on the film footage. A few days later Rob Smith, a Senior Information Officer, replied, stating that pathologists are only accredited by the Home Office and therefore cannot speak on behalf of the Home Office. Smith also denied knowing the name of the pathologist concerned. It turned out that the pathologist was a Dr Christopher Milroy, from the Department of Forensic Pathology at Sheffield University.

10) Sheffield University/Dr Milroy

During the publicity for the footage Ray Santilli seems to have used an old trick. If you are trying to promote something which is bizarre and implausible, find a plausible person or institution to prop you up. This trick was used during May, when Santilli invited Dr Christopher Milroy of Sheffield University to the Museum of London "showing". Later Santilli paid Dr Milroy to view the footage privately and to produce a written report concerning what he saw. Dr Milroy produced his report on 2nd June using University of Sheffield headed notepaper. Santilli put Dr Milroy's report up on his world wide web site, using Sheffield University's name. On his order form for the raw uncut footage Santilli claimed that "although our medical reports suggested that the creature is not human, this cannot be verified."

Well, let's read what Dr Milroy actually said :

Dr Milroy began by stating that the body was "human in appearance" and that it appeared to be a "white adolescent female". He noted the peculiarity of the additional digits plus the black eye coverings and the distentended stomach. Later Dr Milroy discusses the removal of the brain, stating that the close up footage of the brain was out-of-focus and that the appearance was "not those of a human brain". Dr Milroy's comments about the non human appearance of the brain in these out-of-focus shots was used extensively by Santilli in his media interviews to imply that pathologists believed that the film footage showed an extra terrestrial alien. However, on the Fox TV "Alien Autopsy : Fact or Fiction ?" documentary, Dr Milroy stated that he wouldn't be surprised if there was a case in the existing medical literature of a human being displaying similar characteristics to the body shown in the autopsy footage. A number of pathologists have commented on the similarities between the body in the autopsy film and very rare chromosomic abnormalities like Turner's Syndrome, in which victims suffer from a lack of secondary sexual features. Polydactyly, the existence of additional fingers and toes, is also a relatively common medical condition, apparently affecting one in 5,000 people.

When I spoke with reporter Nick Fielding at the "Mail on Sunday" last summer, he told me that Dr Milroy never meant his report to imply that he thought that the body was an extra terrestrial, yet in media interviews around the world not only did Santilli imply that Milroy and other un-named pathologists agreed that the body was not human, he also allowed Dr Milroy's report to be promoted as an official view of Sheffield University on his world wide web site.

In view of these apparent misrepresentations I wrote to Sheffield University - my old university - asking them if Dr Milroy's report was an official view of the university. The registrar, Dr John Padley, wrote back on behalf of the Chancellor and stated that Dr Milroy had been asked by Santilli to prepare a report on the procedures undertaken during the autopsy. "He produced a report just describing what was taking place. His own opinion was that it was a real autopsy on a human being. Nowhere in his report did he state that it was an autopsy on an extra terrestrial being. " Later Dr Padley stated that "All the views expressed in his report were his own and not an official opinion of the University. He had no commercial interest whatsoever in the film, and the fee for viewing the film has been donated to charity."

Some commentators have suggested that the answer to the autopsy footage is the fact that the people performing the autopsy - and Santilli claims the cameraman himself - are all dressed in protective radiation suits. What reason would the surgeons have for doing this? According to the camera-man's statement the ETs were hazardous to touch. Some researchers have suggested that this was because the aliens were really rare human victims of Turner's syndrome who had been treated with a large dosage of radiation in a secret experiment? This explanation makes some sense, as a Channel 4 "Secret Lives" documentary first shown in July 1995 highlighted what many consider to be highly unethical radiation experiments on human beings at Alamogordo, only 100 miles from Roswell, during the late 1940s. However, this theory doesn't explain the extra digits, the peculiar looking brain, the injuries or the lack of secondary sexual characteristics.

On 15th August Santilli himself told James Easton that an opinion was forming that the film showed US experiments on children bought back from Hiroshima after the A-bomb attack. In the same post Santilli told Easton that all he cared about was being seen to have handled the autopsy film "professionally" and to have acted "in good faith" in its marketing. Five days later Philip Mantle was quoted in "The People" claiming that new evidence had emerged that the film showed victims of a "germ warfare programme" and that "the bodies were humans who died following experiments". No further evidence of this scenario has ever been produced by Mantle or Santilli, and Mantle never mentioned this scenario during his presentation of Santilli and his film at the Sheffield Conference. Of course, this is proof that even Santilli has his doubts about the autopsy footage.

11) Natural History Museum

On 13th July Richard Sabin of The Natural History Museum publicly complained about the what he believed to be misrepresentation by Santilli of views expressed by members of his staff who had privately viewed the film footage. Sabin commented " It would appear that we are being misquoted by Mr Santilli regarding the preview of the film soon to be shown on Channel 4. The opinions included ... are not the precise opinions as expressed by members of staff of this museum." Sabin promised that a full statement would be issued clarifying these quotations, but to my knowledge no such statement was ever prepared.

It is perhaps relevant that Dr Paul O'Higgins, a medical anatomist at University College, London, reported that the body shown in the footage was basically humanoid and that the odds against life evolving on other planets to appear as humanoid as the body on the footage was astronomical. Dr O'Higgins also pointed out that if the pathologists in the film really believed that they were examining a alien body then they would have taken months to dissect the body, not the two hours indicated by the clock in the film. Dr O'Higgins also suggests that the pathologists would have taken many still photographs of their autopsy, yet the film footage we have seen shows no evidence of still photography at all.

12) Archbishop of Canterbury

One of the early claims of the film's apparent autheniticity was that the film had been shown to the Archbishop of Canterbury at a private showing. Rumours quickly surfaced that a number of other religious leaders had been shown the footage as well. The magazine Fortean Times disproved this claim by simply contacting the Archbishop's private office.

13) Senators/Congressmen

Another attempt to give the film some degree of authentication was the claim reported by George Wingfield that a group of about ten Senators (and Congressmen) requested a private screening of the autopsy footage in Washington D.C. on June 28th. According to Wingfield Santilli's colleague Chris Carey organised this showing, but predictably the names of these senators have never been revealed. According to a post by John Ratcliffe on 7th July Ray Santilli had told him in private e-mail that the "showing" had taken place and "went well". Republican Congressman Steven Schiff told reporters on 18th July that he had been invited to view the film footage by Chris Carey, so presumably this earlier meeting either never took place or Schiff was never invited to attend. As we all know, Congressman Schiff featured in the Channel 4 documentary discussing the autopsy film so eventually he must have seen the film.

14) KODAK AUTHENTICATION SCAM

One of the most important sub plots in this story has been the alleged authentication of the autopsy footage as coming from near fifty year old film. On many many occasions Santilli has claimed that the original film has definitely been dated as having been manufactured in 1947. Of course, the claim that the film stock was manufactured in 1947 is quite crucial to the debate over the autopsy footage. It helps us to determine whether we have to look towards a modern hoax or an obscure historic film, where the answers may not be so straightforward.

Again Colin Andrews was the first person to publicly claim that the autopsy film was nearly fifty years old in the Winter 1995 issue of his newsletter. Andrews claimed that the cameraman "permitted a small piece of film to be cut from the leader on one film to be taken to London for analysis. According to Santilli, Kodak in London reported that the film was of about 1948 vintage". At this point is it important to stress that the film leader did not have any images of the alien on it, so even this alleged authentication fails to prove that the aliens shown on the film footage were filmed in 1947, the film could be a combination of film manufactured in 1947 and film manufactured much later.

Philip Mantle repeated this claim in his infamous Press Association interview with David Clarke on 26 March 1995, when he stated that "We have already had the film checked out by Kodak who confirm it is fifty years old". Mantle's Press Association claim that the original footage was definitely fifty years old was repeated in numerous articles in the national and international press. He was quoted in "The Times" (28th March) saying that "I am sceptical by nature, but potentially this is mind-boggling." The following day in "The Independent" Mantle was even more outspoken, stating that

In this apparent support for the film's authenticity Mantle appeared to believe that the film had definitely be proven to be of 1947 vintage. Strangely, in an internet statement dated 9th May 1995 Mantle was already back-tracking from this position, stating that Kodak had only promised to test the film's age. In fact, as Graham Birdsall was to discover, Kodak hadn't even heard of the film, and were becoming annoyed at the way in which their name was being used to authenticate something they claim they had not even examined. However, according to George Wingfield, on 30th May Philip Mantle again confirmed that Kodak had "tested the original film cartridges and found them to be celluloid cine film of that period". Clearly someone somewhere was being economical with the truth!

In his major internet statement dated 3rd June 1995 Santilli stated that "When we were first made aware of the footage there was an obvious need to establish its authenticity. Of course we had the benefit of knowing and dealing directly with the cameraman however we went to great lengths to satisfy ourselves that his story was genuine (we only had to satisfy ourselves not the world). We had sight of, not only the cameramans many old photo albums which clearly proved his story (life story) but his enrolment and discharge documents, his diary and a wealth of other material all of which was easy to check. In addition the footage itself contained film stock code which we were able to confirm as 1947. (solid square next to a solid triangle on selected frames)."

In a widely circulated internet posting on 6th June Santilli again claimed that the edge markings on the film proved that the film had been manufactured in 1947. Santilli stated that "In addition the footage itself contained film stock code which we were able to confirm as 1947. (solid square next to a solid triangle on selected frames)." We all know now that the symbols were a solid square followed by a black triangle. Thanks to Tony Dodd's research we know that these symbols actually relate to either 1927, 1947 or 1967, so for Santilli to claim that the symbols definitely confirm the year of manufacture to be 1947 is a fine example of his selective presentation of evidence.

Throughout May and June Santilli was to play the Kodak authentication game to extremes. In early June Tony Dodd spoke to Peter Milson at Kodak's moving pictures department in Hemel Hempstead. Mr Milson checked with relevant departments within the U.K and U.S. and in written reply confirmed that, "no-one from Kodak has heard or seen anything about this film."

On 24 June Ray Santilli claimed that he had received written authentication of the film's age from Kodak. During a live open forum on the Encounters newsgroup Ray Santilli stated that "the film has been authenticated in writing by two separate offices of Kodak. The most important aspect of this is that Kodak (in writing) have stated that apart from the date of the safety print film which is 27,47 or 67 the ORIGINAL NEGATIVE was also 27, 47 or 67". Four days later John Ratcliffe publicly confirmed that he had received a fax from Santilli which contained a copy of a letter sent by Kodak to Santilli confirming that the film negative was manufactured in either 1927, 1947 or 1967. Amazingly Ratcliffe explained that he could not release the name of the Kodak office or the name of the Kodak employee concerned without Ray Santilli's permission. Michael Hesemann joined in this game and confirmed that he too had received this same fax and that this confirmed that UFOlogists could "trust" Santilli and that Santilli was telling the truth about the film footage.

In what was to become a play of pure farce an increasing number of people contacted Kodak's Hemel Hempstead headquarters asking for confirmation of the existence of this crucially important document, whilst Santilli himself refused to release the document - a document which would have gone a long way to authenticating the age of the autopsy footage. To each and every enquirer Kodak repeated their claim that they had not inspected the film and that they took a very dim view of the way in which their name was being used to authenticate the film footage.

Eventually, following a letter from Gary Shoefield to Kodak, on July 14th Kodak's Hemel Hempstead office finally issued a public statement explaining that they had seen "sections of either the Film or its projection leader in 3 Kodak locations : UK, Hollywood and Denmark" and that "In our manufacturing process we put a code on the edge of the film which repeats every 20 years. The symbols we have seen on the Roswell film samples suggest the film was manufactured in either 1927, 1947 or 1967. We are, therefore unable to categorically confirm when the film was manufactured." Kodak add that "It should also be remembered that even if the age of the film manufacture is confirmed, this does not necessarily indicate that the film was shot and processed in the same year. So, the bottom line is, that although we would like to know if Aliens actually exist Kodak cannot categorically confirm either the age of the film or when it was shot and processed". This statement was issued by Peter Milson but confusingly Kodak's Copenhagen office definitely dated the film to 1947. Milson subsequently issued a correction, re-iterating the 1927, 1947 or 1967 option, and explaining the Copenhagen error as due to the "inexperience" of the staff. Again it is important to stress that this footage was blank leader film - not film with images of the alien.

Eventually the Sunday Times (30 July) tracked down the source of the Hollywood authentication, a salesman called Laurence Cate. Cate explained how Gary Shoefield of Merlin and Don Linck, an American TV producer, had walked into his office and asked him to authenticate the film footage. He typed up the letter of authentication on Kodak headed notepaper stating the 1927, 1947 and 1967 dates based on a cursory examination of the edge codes on the small piece of film he saw. He stated that "I didn't think we were looking at a scientific enquiry. There is no way I could authenticate this. I saw no image on the print. Sure, it could be old film but it doesn't mean it is what the aliens were filmed on". By this statement Cate was emphasising that the film he saw did NOT contain images of the alien. Santilli responded to this criticism of his methodology with

"THIS IS A VERY MISLEADING STATEMENT. WHEN WE WENT TO KODAK'S HEAD OFFICE IN HOLLYWOOD THEY CALLED THROUGH TO THE RIGHT DEPARTMENT FOR FILM VERIFICATION AND THE PERSON WORKING WITHIN THAT DEPARTMENT UNDERTOOK THE EXAMINATION. IF HE IS ALSO A SALESMAN WITHIN THE COMPANY THAT'S KODAK'S AFFAIR. "

One amusing result of this episode was that Laurence Cate became known as "authenti-Cate" at his Rochester office, but more seriously this Kodak authentication statement seems to prove that something was seriously wrong with the film footage. Let's pause for a moment and think about this. Santilli had spent a great deal of money - some say over L 100,000 - to obtain the autopsy footage. Throughout June he had released selected stills from the footage to magazines, TV companies and radio stations across Europe and America. He clearly had film available for analysis and he even boasted in his internet statement about making that film footage available to broadcasters world-wide so that THEY could do the appropriate analysis and chemical dating - something he surely didn't need to do if he had already successfully proven the film to be fifty year old film in the first place!

In my opinion it must therefore be a giveaway that when Santilli finally allowed Kodak to examine some of the film footage - and this was after several months of stalling and bluster - he didn't allow Kodak to conduct a simple chemical dating test by punching a single hole through one of the frames which showed an alien. Had he done so, and had Kodak confirmed that the tested frame definitely had the correct chemical signature for 1947, then the value of the autopsy footage would have increased immensely. In my opinion, the fact that he simply provided either the projection leader or non alien parts of the film to be inspected for the edge symbols is a dead giveaway that Santilli himself didn't believe that he had the real genuine article.

The day after Kodak confirmed that the edge codes of the film they were sent could come from any one of three years Santilli himself told Meryl Johnson that he intended to allow a "well known lab" to "destroy one frame in order to pin point the date with chemical analysis", and have the entire process filmed for TV. A year later, to my knowledge, this has still not happened - and of course simply by making such an offer Santilli was indicating that he accepted that he had not properly authenticated the film to other peoples' satisfaction.

15) BOB SHELL

Santilli continued his authentication claims on Talk Radio UK on 21st August, when he stated that "The tests have already been done, we had a fax this weekend actually from the States to say that they've given us a 95 percent probability now that the film is 1947. They've actually determined that the film stock is something called CINE KODAK SUPER XX which was discontinued in 1956, and they can determine from the attributes of the film itself that, um, that it was shot within 2 years of manufacture".

The source of this crucial claim is Bob Shell, a court certified film expert and the Editor of "Shutterbug", the world's third largest photo magazine. Shell is based in Virginia and has held a long-standing interest in UFOs and Fortean subjects, having met with Robert Anton Wilson, Ivan T. Sanderson and Donald Keyhoe, whilst living in Washington DC in the 60's and 70s. It was Shell who confirmed as early as 19th May that he had authenticated the film's date of manufacture as 1947 following receipt of a phone call and a photocopy of the edge codes from Santilli. Its clear from what transpired that Shell simply accepted Santilli's word that the photocopy of the edge codes came from the section in the raw footage which includes the images of the alleged alien. Its also clear that Santilli told Shell that the film was Kodak Super XX because this was what was recorded on the film boxes.

Shell originally planned to meet Santilli in Washington DC in early July, but despite Shell flying to Washington DC to meet him and offer his services for free Santilli stayed in Europe. Santilli later explained this as a simple breakdown in communication caused by pressure of work. On August 4th Santilli attempted to send Shell a package containing some of the crucially important film frames. Unfortunately Santilli claims that his secretary sent the package via the TNT international delivery company, rather than via DHL. This resulted in the package being sent to Germany for several days, thus reducing the time available for Shell to examine the film prior to the upcoming Sheffield conference.

On August 7th Shell told James Easton that he'd received a phone call from the producer of the "Sightings" TV program who told him that they had been told by Santilli's office that Shell was working for Ray, and that they should contact Shell for information on how the destruct testing was progressing. Shell reported that "This is, of course, news to me!!!!!" Shell reported that someone was "spreading lies on the internet that I am on Ray's payroll, and now I hear it coming from Santilli's office directly." Shell reported that "Kodak have not agreed to do the tests as yet, and keep stalling me when I talk to them. I think they haven't got the corporate guts to take any risk at all, and don't want to be involved in this."

On the very weekend of BUFORA's Sheffield conference Shell issued another crucially important statement saying that he was "95 per cent" certain that because of the edge codes the film was manufactured in 1947. Shell also stated that the film used was Cine Kodak Super XX, which was discontinued in 1956-57. He stated that "I am only hedging 5 per cent, because I still want secondary chemical verification from Kodak based on the chemical signature of the film. I do not put my name on a statement like this lightly, and it is only after very careful consideration, and detailed examination of the film, that I do so at this time."

Of course, with support like this Santilli was laughing all the way to the bank. This statement was used time and time again all around the world as Santilli sought to demonstrate that he had properly authenticated the film footage and had the support of a leading photographic expert in claiming authenticity. A few days later Shell told Michael O'Hara that "My brief is not to determine if the film shows what the cameraman claims, but simply to determine if it was shot when he says it was. I'm 95 per cent or better convinced that it was shot when he says it was shot."

Well it soon became clear that something was not right. Shell complained in his e-mail that his attempts to organise proper chemical 'signature' testing of the film at Kodak's Rochester, New York, laboratories was being hindered because a package of film sent to him by Santilli had been intercepted by Fox TV at JFK Airport. Shell alleged that he just managed to avoid a second package being intercepted as well.

On 22nd August Shell told one of my colleagues that "Kodak WILL test the film for me. This is being done as a favour to me, and they have not been 'commissioned' (which implies payment) by Ray or anyone else in this matter. They require a sufficiently large strip of film and some additional supporting information which is supposed to be on its way from Ray. FOX have intimated that they will attempt to intercept this shipment, so it is a cat and mouse game with them". Three days later Shell told my colleague that Kodak would conduct chemical signature tests on the film in about a fortnight's time. Shell also complained that because of Fox TV's actions Kodak's date tests would not now be completed prior to the world-wide screening of the autopsy footage the following day.

On 28th August Shell told my colleague that "all" the original autopsy footage was in the hands of Santilli's "German financier" who would be carrying the film personally to Kodak to conduct the chemical signature testing. On September 9th Shell claimed that Kodak had refused to conduct chemical signature tests on the footage because the samples they had been sent were "not large enough, and could not be proved to be from a continuous roll on which the creature appears". The following day Lawrence Cate was quoted in "American Journal" denying that he had properly authenticated the film footage when visited by Gary Shoefield and Don Linck back in June. By September 24th Shell was admitting that Kodak want "as little to do with this [controversy] as possible". Two days later Shell told one of my colleagues that "Ray Santilli has made a lot of claims which are pure bullshit, to put it politely". One of these claims was the false claim that there had been a police raid in Italy to recover the top secret autopsy film for the US authorities.

Well the authentication claim just goes on and on and on...

On October 1st David Roehrig, the segment producer for the Fox TV "Alien Autopsy : Fact or Fiction ?" documentary, publicly explained that Fox TV never received enough film from Santilli to allow Kodak to conduct a proper authentication test. Roehrig also explained that the film they did receive had the crucially important edge symbols torn off and that contrary to Shell's allegations Fox TV had never "intercepted" the film footage at JFK Airport because the film had been theirs to test all along.

On October 5th Bob Shell reported that the film was being held somewhere in Europe - and that he didn't anticipate being allowed to bring back any samples for testing by Kodak following his trip to London on October 25th. Two days later Shell explained that the reason for this unavailability of the film footage was because of the non co-operation of the German financial backer, who has the film in a "high-security vault in Europe". Of course this German financial backer is the mysterious and elusive Volker Spielberg, whom we'll return to later!

Well by now Santilli had had the best part of a year to provide a single frame of the actual autopsy to Kodak to allow them to conduct a destruct test which would allow proper authentication of the film's chemical signature, but the long list of excuses, stallings and silly games were beginning to tell. On the compuserve MUFON Encounters newsgroup Shell was coming under increasing pressure given his "95 per cent certain" statement of the film's authenticity, particularly in respect of whether or not he was on Santilli's payroll and why the film had not been properly tested. In early October I asked UFO Sweden's Clas Svahn to check the claims being made by Shell that Kodak were refusing to test the film footage. Svahn contacted Kodak by phone and received an e-mail reply from Tony Amato, who is based at Kodak's Rochester laboratories. Amato appears on the Fox TV "Alien Autopsy : Fact or Fiction ?" documentary. Amato told Svahn that Kodak

"...have no interest in this film, we were simply contacted and asked if we could identify the approximate manufacturing period of the film. Our answer is yes. Our conditions are that we are reasonably convinced the footage we identify is of the Roswell incident, if we are not, we will not participate. There are several different methods we can use to determine manufacturing date, and we would like to use more than one, to be absolutely sure we are correct. We will not accept 3 frames [that's 3 separate frames PF], nor will we accept a piece of blank footage or footage of an empty room. The film must clearly show the alien body. If these criteria are not met we have absolutely no interest in participating in the identification of this film." From this statement I think its clear that Kodak were suspicious about what what they were being asked to do and why the original footage was not being provided. Of course, this is confirmation that the footage they DID receive did NOT contain an image of the alien.

In my opinion this statement is confirmation that for several months Ray Santilli had failed to provide Kodak with enough footage including images of the alleged alien despite Bob Shell's intervention and assistance in setting up the tests. It is proof that Santilli and his backer ensured that no proper authentication test was ever conducted on the original footage, even though Santilli was still making single frames available for testing as late as mid August and clearly could have supplied additional footage. Despite this failure Shell continued making his "95 per cent" certain statement.

It wasn't until 12th October that Houston Sky's Rebecca Schatte persuaded Shell to own up to the fact that the snippets of film Santilli had been sending Shell were ALL minus the all-important edge codes - the edge codes which Santillli quoted time after time as being proof that the autopsy footage was manufactured in 1947. Later Shell admitted that part of his test of the age of the film was to sniff the film, which apparently had a "very characteristic, acidic odor". Of course, this led to a series of highly amusing posts addressed to someone called "Sniffy"- posts which eventually led to threats of legal action by Shell against Rebecca Schatte and John Powell, one of my internet colleagues. Strangely, Shell never carried out his threats...

Instead, on 16th October Shell felt it necessary to defend himself against charges of foot-dragging by emphasising that his "95 per cent certain" statement was "preliminary" and that he could obviously only verify the pieces of film he saw. Shell's position was further undermined when MUFON's Clive Tobin conclusively demonstrated that the pieces of film Shell had received were not camera-original reversal film - as Shell had originally claimed - but copies of the film. Shell responded by reducing his "95 per cent" certain statement to "85 per cent" certain. He also revised his estimate of the year of manufacture from 1947 to pre 1957, which was the year when Kodak Super XX film was discontinued.

Of course, we now know that Shell never had access to original footage showing the alien body, and that he never saw the original film footage showing the black square and triangle edge codes - the ones which apparently proved that the film footage was manufactured in one of three years. Eventually Shell himself admitted that "at this point everything is filtered through Ray". By this April he was discounting his own "95 per cent" certain verification statement.

16) RANK CLAIM

On 29th October Shell continued the authentication scam by telling James Easton that the original transfer from the raw uncut footage to video was conducted by Rank in London. Two days later Shell repeated this claim, stating that Ray Santilli would provide documentary evidence to prove the claim. On 2nd November Graham Birdsall spoke with Roy Liddiard, a senior manager at Rank Video Services in Brentford, London. Liddiard denied the claim and in shades of Kodak, the Royal Society, the Natural History Museum and Sheffield University Liddiard stated that Rank were very unhappy that their name was being used to authenticate something they had not seen. Rank Video Services also confirmed to Graham Birdsall that Roy Liddiard was aware of all the work which took place within their processing laboratory and that he was the proper person to speak to regarding this claim.

Shell replied to this set-back by suggesting that "Rank, if they indeed did the work, may wish to deny involvement simply because they've seen what a circus this has turned into. I wouldn't blame them for wanting to stay an arm's length away from it." On 7th November Shell changed his reply, stating that "Rank had nothing to do with the film, ever. Actually Rank was a typo made by Ray when he e-mailed me. He intended to say that the work had been done by Bronk labs in London, Ontario, but you know Ray and computers. Like oil and water. " Apparently this statement was a joking reference to Dr Detlev Bronk. There is no Bronk Labs in London, Ontario.

Well on 8th November Shell changed his defence yet again, stating that "When I asked Ray who had done the copying of the original film to a 16 mm dupe, he said that he wasn't sure. He told me that they had gone to one company who had agreed to do the work while they waited, and that this firm had then changed their story and said they would have to leave the film and come back and pick it up later, which they certainly would never have done. There was then a general conversation in the office as to who had ultimately done the work. Ray said something like 'We ended up having it done by Rank, didn't we?' and Chris said something like, 'yes, it was Rank. I'm pretty sure it was Rank.' They promised to provide me with documentation when they had a chance. " Of course, the documentary proof promised by Shell has never been produced in public - presumably because it doesn't exist.

Once again Santilli had been given the opportunity of proving that someone independent of the Merlin Group had actually handled the original raw footage and that they had conducted the computer enhancement mentioned the previous January to Colin Andrews. Once again Santilli failed. In my opinion it is almost inconceivable that someone dealing with a real film of alien beings would not know which company had conducted the enhancement work on the raw uncut footage. Can we really believe that Santilli didn't even know which country the footage was being enhanced in ? Yet Bob Shell continued giving the impression that the original film really had been independently examined when he claimed on November 9th that Ray Santilli had "delegated" the work to "someone else to handle". In my opinion that's one hell of a statement to make for someone who arrived at the Sheffield Conference last summer with the film being guarded by Securicor and everyone being asked to leave the lecture theatre whilst it was searched for hidden cameras.

Bob Shell finished this debate with the claim that "I've had the video looked at by experts in film to video transfer, and a crack team at MIT is currently doing some analysis for me, and the conclusion so far is that this video is a transfer from motion picture film running at 24 fps. Naturally they can not say that it is 16 mm film, since it could as easily be 35 mm, but it is a film original with a 24 fps projection speed. There definitely is a film." To date none of the people involved in analysing the film at M.I.T. have come forward to back up Shell's claim. Shell himself was to admit that Santilli's earlier claim that NASA were examining the footage was based entirely on Bob Nathan analysing the footage in his own time.

17) FILM BOX LABELS

Now authenticating the film's age is one method of determining the true status of the autopsy footage. Another method is to test the age of the labels on the film boxes. In June 1995 my colleague John Stepkowski e-mailed Bob Shell and suggested this method. Shell replied that he had arranged for a "Christie's accredited" document specialist to examine the film labels. He publicly confirmed this on 23rd September. According to Shell this specialist could have dated the paper and the ink to within a decade of their manufacture. Like the film authentication scam the testing of the labels was put off for months and months, with Santilli always being too busy. Then, on 18th October, Shell told James Easton that he was unsure whether Santilli had the original boxes and - somewhat astonishingly - that Santilli didn't seem to appreciate the importance of testing the labels at all. Eventually Shell announced that Santilli never had the original film labels in the first place - and that all he had were photocopies of the labels sent to him by the cameraman!

18) THE MYTH OF THE CAMERA-SHY CAMERAMAN

Of course, the whole autopsy film saga could be solved if the cameraman was to come forward and allow himself to be questioned and examined. Unfortunately, according to Ray Santilli, he had promised the cameraman that he would never reveal his name or identity in order to protect him from the U.S. military, the media and the US Inland Revenue Service, who might want to take their share of the large sum of money Santilli allegedly paid the cameraman for the autopsy footage.

According to Philip Mantle's taped interview with Ray Santilli on 27th June 1995 Ray Santilli claimed that "two and a half years ago" he was "looking for some early footage of people like Bill Haley, Pat Boone and Elvis Presley" when he "came across a cameraman who in the 1950s was a freelance ... working for various different people ... and [who was] employed by Universal News to film ... rock concerts at high schools across America". According to Santilli he bought what has been called the "Pied Piper of Cleveland" footage of Elvis Presley's first public appearance. Santilli claims that he paid cash to buy this footage. A few days later, Santilli claims that the cameraman came back and offered to sell Santilli some more footage of "something else". Santilli claims that he flew from Cleveland to the cameraman's house and met the cameraman and his wife at his home. Santilli claims that the cameraman had diairies, records, photo albums and a camera collection which proved that he was who he claims he was. Acc ording to Philip Mantle this cameraman's name was "Jack Barnett".

Philip Mantle claims that on 22nd June he received a phone call from someone with an American accent and a persistent cough, who identified himself as the cameraman. On July 27th John Purdie of Union Pictures flew out to the United States in an attempt to track down the cameraman. Sometime in early August it was claimed that the Channel 4 documentary team actually filmed Ray Santilli as he spoke with the cameraman, but that the cameraman had hung up when he had realised that his phone call was being filmed. On 14th August - that's five days before the world premiere screening of the film footage at BUFORA's Sheffield Conference - George Wingfield reported that a pre-arranged meeting between Channel 4's John Purdie and the cameraman had fallen through. On 25th August Clas Svahn of UFO Sweden phoned John Purdie and asked him if he had met or spoken with the cameraman. Purdie denied the claim, yet the following day Michael Hesemann reported that "The existence of the cameraman was confirmed by two independent researchers who talked with him, Philip Mantle and the Channel 4 crew [who] ... spoke with him at his door". Again, someone somewhere was being economical with the truth.

On 13th September Bob Shell told Rebecca Schatte that he and FOX TV had both independently tracked down the cameraman and that the news would be made public shortly. The following day it emerged that the leading French TV company TF1 had tracked down the cameraman. Shell responded by stating that the cameraman would "go public" in "two weeks or less". On 23rd September Shell confirmed that the real name of the cameraman was "probably" Jack D. Barrett, who was a Motion Picture Technician for the Army Air Force who "fits the bill in every other way". Unfortunately Jack D. Barrett died in Los Angeles on August 3rd.

On 27th September Shell reported that Jack D. Barrett was "NOT the man in Florida that Ray Santilli has been dealing with". On 7th October Shell reported that this Jack D. Barrett was NOT the autopsy cameraman and that his widow knows nothing about the Roswell case. The same day Shell reported that another Jack Barrett who filmed Elvis Presley and Pat Boone in the 1950s and who was a military cameraman, died in the late 1950s.

On 4th October the news that the 80 year-old cameraman was planning to fly to London in December to meet Ray Santilli and other UFOlogists was accidentally leaked. Three days later Bob Shell told a colleague of mine that this meeting was supposed to be a secret and that UFO group responsible for the leak would be disinvited from the meeting, which would now take place on another date. The group allegedly responsible for this leak were furious with this accusation and denied the allegation that they had leaked news of the planned meeting.

On 24th October Shell had breakfast with John Purdie in Paris. According to Shell Purdie claimed to have spoken with the cameraman by phone. Two days later John Ratcliffe reported that the French TV channel TF1 had tracked down the cameraman and uncovered major contradictions in how the autopsy film had been bought by Santilli. On 23rd October TF1 screened an hour long documentary called "Odyssey de L'etrange". The programme featured Ray Santilli, Volker Spielberg and Bob Shell, along with French UFO writers, pathologists and scientists. Santilli was interviewed via a satellite link from London. Amongst the most important developments were :

Of course this is proof that Santilli has misled researchers over how he came to obtain the film footage - something he freely admits. It is also proof that he based the mythical cameraman on the real Jack Barnett, who died in 1957. It is also important to remember that Jack Barnett's name was well-known to Elvis Presley fans because he is mentioned in the book, "Elvis, His Life from A to Z." - and that Ray Santilli may well have known this when researching his earlier video on the life of Elvis Presley.

A major coup for the programme was to track down the elusive Volker Spielberg, who had fled from Hamburg in June to live in Austria. Spielberg's telephone interview was supposed to be a surprise for Santilli, who wasn't supposed to know that Spielberg had been tracked down. Unfortunately Bob Shell tipped Santilli off about the Bill Randle revelations and the fact that Volker Spielberg had been tracked down and interviewed. During the recorded interview, Spielberg was asked why he would not allow independent authentication of the autopsy footage. Spielberg's response was that he wanted to be left alone, that he didn't want anything to do with reporters and that he didn't believe in sharing the film with the whole of humanity. His precise quote was "There are lots of egoists in the world, and so am I". I won't repeated word for word what Spielberg then said except to say that Santilli was apparently visibly embarrassed at the use of this interview and Spielberg's foul language. Despite this obvious change in t he story of how he came to acquire the film Santilli braved the programme through and even congratulated TF1 on their research, saying how it "confirmed" that he had been in Cleveland in 1992.

A few days later Ray Santilli explained on Encounters how angry he had been with the programme makers, as the producer Jacques Pradel had apparently promised not to involve Volker Spielberg or the cameraman in the programme. Santilli alleged that the phone call to Spielberg upset his negotiations with Spielberg to release more film footage for testing. Santilli admitted that the original footage was split between himself, Spielberg and some had even been sent back to the cameraman. Santilli even admitted that it is possible that he has been duped by the cameraman, but that he still believes that the cameraman is telling the truth.

John Purdie of Channel 4 was also interviewed on the TF1 expose. He said that he pressed Ray for a contact with the cameraman and eventually someone called him claiming to be the cameraman and they talked for 3 minutes. John said the cameraman was "extremely upset" with Ray for breaking promises and said that Ray had "betrayed" him.

19) THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE ALLEGED CAMERAMAN'S ALLEGED STATEMENT

Another piece of tomfoolery originated from the alleged cameraman's alleged statement, which Santilli issued on 12th August. On 2nd September Bob Shell was interviewed late at night via a long distance telephone call by Don Ecker of California's "UFO Magazine". During his interview Shell twice stated that he had "transcribed" the cameraman's statement from a tape recording provided to him by Ray Santilli. On 13th September Shell was forced to admit that he had made changes to the camera-man's statement in order to make it sound more appropriate for an American service man. He justified his decision to tamper with crucially important historic evidence with the following comment:

"What [Kevin] Randle fails to understand is that the statement is a short encapsulation from a long tape recorded statement, and it was transcribed by an Irish secretary and edited by an Englishman. I Americanized it some when I did my version, but didn't make any major changes."

On 23rd September Shell admitted that he had "communicated with the cameraman only by written message through Ray up to this point". It wasn't until 10th October - 6 weeks after his interview with Don Ecker - that Shell admitted that he had wrongly given the impression that he had actually heard the cameraman's voice. Shell explained that his error was caused by tiredness and the fact that due to a health condition he couldn't drink coffee to stay awake at night. Shell stated that he had corrected "obvious spelling mistakes" and "put the language as it might be spoken by an American" in his Americanized version of the "transcription". Shell blamed Santilli's Irish secretary Maria for making mistakes on her transcript of the alleged tape recording. Two days later Shell admitted that he had worked on a "rough draft transcription" of the cameraman's statement supplied by Ray Santilli. Shell went on to claim that Ray Santilli had never intended the cameraman's statement to be published or distributed - despite the fact that Santilli had published a precis of the statement on his world wide web site and copyrighted it to Roswell Footage Limited! Of course if Santilli really had wanted to keep the statement confidential then Shell would never have been able to amend it in the first place.

20) ERRORS IN THE CAMERAMAN'S STATEMENT

a) Brixner and Trinity

One of the key problems in the cameraman's statement was his claim to have been present during the Trinity tests - the first atomic test on 16 July 1945. The cameraman's statement claims that

"During my time I filmed a great deal including the tests at White Sands (Manhattan Project / Trinity)"

Of course, this is a checkable claim, and even as I was thinking that someone ought to ring up whoever took the official film of the Trinity test, someone called Jeff Rassoul had actually done so and posted the results of his search onto the alt.alien.visitors newsgroup. Rassoul reported that he had spoken to Mr. Berlyn Brixner, who features on page 185 of a very famous book "At Work in the Fields of the Bomb", by Robert Del Tredici. Brixner told Rassoul that no military personnel filmed the actual Trinity site bomb blast. He claims that he and an assistant did the all the filming and that they were civilians asked to film the test by Oppenheimer himself. Rassoul asked Brixner if there were any military personnel doing any type of photography work at Trinity. He said yes there were a few with cameras, but he restated that none of them shot any film footage of the actual test blast, only himself and his colleagues. Rassoul concluded that "Santilli's 'cameraman' states he filmed tests at Trinity. But after my chat with Mr. Brixner, it seems to me that Santilli's 'cameraman's' claim that he filmed the test at Trinity is untrue."

Bob Shell had contacted Roger Mead, the Archivist at the Los Alamos National Library, and discovered that four people were involved in taking still and moving pictures of the Trinity test:

Berlyn Brixner, Jack Aeby, Ben Benjamin, Roger White

Of these people, only Brixner and Benjamin are still living, but neither lives in Florida. All of them were civilian photographers, not military photographers. According to Rassoul Brixner was asked by Robert Oppenheimer to film the footage following the recommendation of a mutual friend. Rassoul even asked Brixner if he filmed the alien autopsy, but Brixner just "chuckled and [said] no, that was the one thing he hadn't filmed".

Typically the Santilli camp had an explanation for the apparent contradiction that no "Jack Barnett" was known to Berlyn Brixner. On 11th September Shell reported on a "confidential communication" from the cameraman explaining why Brixner had not heard of him. Allegedly the cameraman filmed the Trinity test from an aircraft and was involved in a military project which Brixner was unaware of. According to Brixner's account in this book he used up to 50 cameras situated over a large area during the Trinity explosion, so the need to have an unknown additional cameraman perilously situated in an aircraft seems unnecessarily risky. Whatever the truth behind this claim we must remember that Shell is reporting what Ray Santilli has told him, not what the cameraman told Shell. We should also bear in mind that we are being asked to accept that Santilli's cameraman witnessed just about two of the most amazing events in human history - the first A bomb test AND the first autopsy of an alien being. Can we really believe this?

b) Little Henry tests

A second problem arose over the alleged cameraman's alleged claim that

"I had not long returned from St Louis, Missouri where I had filmed the new ramjet ("Little Henry")".

"Little Henry" was the XH-20 ramjet-powered helicopter developed by McDonnell-Douglas in 1947. The helicopter was powered by little jets mounted on the tips of the rotor blades and the staff photographers who actually shot the "Little Henry" tests were Chester Turk and Bill Schmitt. On questioning neither of these gentlemen turned out to be Ray's "Jack."

21) FINAL BITS

Some of the topics I haven't covered in this paper include

22) MY PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS are that

In summing up the controversy I have to say that I don't think that there's one scrap of positive evidence for Santilli's claim that this is genuine archive footage of an alien autopsy. I have to say that I still have some sympathy for the theory that the film shows a deceased human being with an extremely rare genetic condition, perhaps a body which has been doctored to make it appear more non human than it already does. However, as we can prove that Santilli has not accurately reported many of the key issues concerning this film, I believe that he has his own doubts about the film - perhaps he cannot make up his own mind about the film's true status. I suspect that the film was created within the past five years in response to the Roswell TV movie and the approaching fiftieth aniversary of the Roswell case, and that Ray Santilli has been duped by the person he met in 1992 in the United States.

There are two things which might change my skepticism. One would be if the cameraman was to come out of hiding and submit answers to some long-unanswered questions. The second would be if Santilli or Spielberg were to allow proper chemical date testing of the original frames which show the alleged alien and these did indeed turn out to have been manufactured in 1947. If either of these things happen, then everything would change overnight and I might have to revise my opinion. However, as long as the cameraman refuses to go public and the film remains unauthenticated then it is my personal opinion that the person Santilli met in America four years ago took him, and the rest of the world, for a ride.

Paul Fuller
Copyright November 1996

Philip Mantle has asked Paul Fuller and UFO Sweden to clarify the following points:

1) That he only contacted Polygram by fax and phone. Philip did not "visit" Polygram.
2) Philip Mantle denies meeting Ray Santilli after a BUFORA Council Meeting in January 1995.
3) Philip Mantle cannot recall telling Bill Chalker in a telephone conversation on 1st April 1995 that he (Mantle) could have made the alien seen in part of the autopsy film in his own "back garden".