The Alien Autopsy Film : Have we seen this before?

For almost fifty years stories have persisted that a flying saucer, piloted by extra-terrestrial beings, crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Military reports at first confirmed, then denied this story, causing suspicions to be raised that more than a simple weather balloon, as claimed, had come down at a remote ranch in New Mexico.

Then in 1995 a businessman from England, Ray Santilli, announced to the world that while researching old film material for a music production, he had obtained military footage of an autopsy performed on one of the alien beings that had died in the crash at Roswell.

The film was incorporated into several documentaries broadcast on TV and sold on video. The footage, in grainy black and white, shows what appears to be two gloved and masked doctors doing an autopsy on an alien creature. The creature is similar in form to a human, but with six fingers and other minor anatomical differences. A third person can be seen observing the autopsy from behind a window. The entire procedure is not on film, reportedly because not all the reels filmed during the autopsy were obtained by Santilli.

According to Santilli he was looking for old film of an Elvis concert when he came in contact with a cameraman who had served in the United States military. The cameraman, who wished to remain anonymous, told Santilli that he had been stationed in Washington D.C. in 1947 when suddenly he was ordered to fly to Roswell, New Mexico. While at Roswell he filmed the clean-up of the crashed saucer and later recorded the autopsies of several aliens. Due to an administrative oversite, not all of the autopsy film was collected from him. He had kept a few reels secret for almost fifty years and offered to sell these to Santilli for $100,000.

After some negotiation Santilli, and another businessman, purchased the film and made it public. So is the film the exposure of a grand cover up and conspiracy? Or a clever (and financially successful) hoax?

Skeptics of the film point out a long list of errors and inconsistencies with the footage, though many acknowledge it was a well-done hoax that was probably carried out by creating a dummy alien body. One Hollywood special effects man admitted, "The point is, if we did this, I'd be pretty proud of it."

One of their complaints include the way the body lies on the table. Not like a body at rest on its back, but more like a body standing in an upright position. Some special effect people argue this is evidence that the body was cast from a real human being, then altered to add extra fingers, etc. The easiest way to accomplish a casting is while the subject is standing up.

Medical authorities argue that the autopsy itself was sloppily done. There was no systematic, careful study of the subject, but a "hack and slash." They point out that an alien would not be subject to an autopsy, anyway, but given the rare and unprecedented opportunity of studying the alien, a careful dissection and microscopic study, that might have taken weeks, would have been done.

Finally, some of the best evidence against the film is the film itself. According to Santilli the cameraman was with the military. Military cameramen are trained to carefully record events, like autopsies, in a prescribed way. Standard procedure for an important autopsy would include two cameras. One mounted above the table looking down, and one on a stationary, raised tripod in a location where there would be a clear view of the proceedings. The cameraman's style (shifting positions, getting his view blocked, climbing around and over the medical workers) would have gotten him, according to one former military officer, "back scrubbing pots in the kitchen."

It appears that the cameraman may have been purposely obscuring the proceedings to hide defects in the hoax. Experts also indicate that for such an important event as this color, not black and white, film would have been used. Also a "still" photographer would work hand-in-hand with the motion photographer to record every step of the procedure. There is no record in the film of another photographer in the room, nor the tell-tale light from his flash bulbs.

The film itself also lacks the "flash" that usually appears at the beginning of each segment. All spring-wound cameras of that time start up slowly and overexpose the first few frames after the trigger is pressed. This indicates either a more sophisticated motor driven camera was used instead of what was claimed, or the film has been edited.

It also seems incredible that a top-secret film like this would not have been collected from the photographer immediately after it had been shot. Cameramen given top-secret assignments in the military were not allowed to develop their own film.

So is there any evidence that the footage isn't a fake? Well, there is actually film from two alien autopsies in Santilli's hands. One taking place in a tent, and the other, more familiar one, taking place in an operating room of some sort. If each sequence costs around $100,000 to make, as some Hollywood special effects people believe, why bother to do it twice?

If it turns out that the alien autopsy film is a hoax, it bears a strange resemblance to the story of the Minnesota Iceman. The Minnesota Iceman, supposedly a "missing link" frozen in ice, was being shown at carnivals around the country in the 60's.

When two cryptozoogists took the creature seriously, the owner of the beast, Frank Hansen, at first welcomed the exposure. As pressure mounted, though, he refused to permit any more close inspections claiming the thing actually belonged to a rich collector who had decided against allowing further investigations. Amazingly this is exactly what Santilli has said to people wishing to examine the original film stock.

Eventually a Hollywood special effects company admitted they had made the iceman. Will someone claim authorship for the autopsy alien? Even if someone does it still may not settle the matter. Hansen claimed that the special effects iceman was just a copy of the real creature that he'd secreted away in a safe location. And some are claiming even now that the alien autopsy film is actually a government cover up for the real alien autopsy film.

And so it goes...

Video: "Alien Autopsy Fact or Fiction?"

The TDC Alien Autopsy Page

Copyright Lee Krystek 1997. All Rights Reserved.