1995. General public awareness of the UFO phenomenon and its associated motifs was at its zenith: paranormally-themed magazines sprung up by the multitude, The X-Files was riding high, the image of the Grey was everywhere, Travis Walton and Whitley Streiber – their respective stories both filmed – dined out on their apparent experiences and the Schwa corporation quietly took the piss out of it all.
Hints abounded of official knowledge of alien life, a notion mirrored and inadvertently reinforced by Mulder and Scully for an hour every Tuesday night. Suddenly a whole nation was at least on nodding terms with the whole UFO culture. Central to all of this was Roswell, alleged site of a crashed ‘flying saucer’ in 1947, and the subsequent retrieval of the craft (or at least what was left of it), its technology, and even its inhabitants. As always proof was seriously lacking, but as per in conspiracy circles lack of evidence implies a cover-up: there had been persistent rumours of solid artefacts deep in the hangars (or under them) of Wright-Patterson AFB, reports ranging from handkerchief-sized pieces of metal that magically unfolded when crumpled all the way up to the whole complex being the unofficial Zeta Reticulian Embassy on Earth. Into this cultural miasma, like a well-timed pinball propelled into the game came an altogether juicier rumour: actual film of the autopsy supposedly performed on the extra-terrestrial crew. For a number of years there had been rumours circulating in Ufology circles that such footage was out there: for example Mike Maloney, former Group Chief Photographer at Mirror Group claimed to have had a private viewing in Los Angeles at the house of a Disney executive in the late 1970s, but now it was apparently to be revealed to the wider world. The timing could not have been better.
The story went that Ray Santilli, a home-video entrepreneur, had travelled to the USA in 1992 in search of rare Elvis Presley footage. Whilst he failed to find this, instead – so he claimed – he met a retired US Military cameraman with a much more interesting story to tell and film to back it up: the fabled autopsy footage, which the cameraman claimed to have personally filmed. Santilli said he immediately realised the significance of the find, and just had to buy the 22 reels of stock, bring it home, show it to the world to answer one of our greatest questions, and in so doing make his investment back many times over.
A preview of the edited-down, seventeen-minute autopsy footage – Santilli claimed there was considerably more, including film of the crash site – was presented to journalists, including the FT’s very own Bob Rickard on 5th May 1995. Bob said at the time that the autopsied subject was “..(all) very humanoid. Immediate impression: clever model.” As the film progressed Rickard spotted a number of inconsistencies, such as the brain appeared to just lift out from the skull with no apparent attachment, that none of the removed organs were measured, weighed, bagged up or otherwise preserved in any way (which you would think would be scrutinised to a molecular level in the circumstances), and all within – according to the period-authentic clock on the wall – half an hour. Overall, Bob concluded that it was a “fantasy post-mortem on a fake E.T.” The overwhelming impression he got was that the room felt much the same way, and indeed related that at the end, when someone from UFO Magazine started pressing Santilli about authentication the latter picked up his bag and scarpered. (1)
Regardless, wider anticipation of the film kept building until on August 28th, 1995(2), Channel Four in the UK broadcast the autopsy footage as a segment of The Roswell Incident, part of their Secret History series (which often as not covered rather more sober topics such as the confidential operations leading up to the D Day landings and cold war operations, along with occasional forays into more Fortean areas.) In keeping with the series’ usual format it was unsensational, and just related the story and surrounding arguments pro- and con, with comments from experts such as noted pathologist Dr Iain West of Guy’s Hospital and Special Effects specialist Bob Keen of Pinewood Studios, both of whom pronounced it a clever fake.
At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, the first American showing was a lot less understated affair, enveloped as it was in a Fox special hosted by Commander Riker himself, Jonathon Frakes, with the title “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction”(3). Experts galore were wheeled on to pronounce upon its veracity, including pathologist Cyril Wecht, who said procedures in the film looked technically authentic, along with the make-up and effects specialist Stan Winston and cinematographer Allen Daviau. The whole thing was presented in such breathless, and somewhat uncritical fashion that its entire connotation was that here was proof of alien life, and that it had landed on Earth. Perhaps predictably given the cultural atmosphere at the time it caused an uproar: in fact such was its impact that viewing figures actually went up on subsequent screenings. Time magazine went as far as to compare its significance with that of the Zapruder film of Kennedy’s assassination (4).
However, behind the scenes, there were deep misgivings about it. John Jopson, the director tasked to put other factors of the programme together such as interviews, etc told the producer Robert Kiviat from the start that he suspected the entire thing to be a fake, and following his interview with Santilli he became convinced they were being duped. The producers, with eyes firmly on the ratings, made it clear that any such suspicions would not be voiced, certainly not for the time being at any rate. Stan Winston subsequently claimed that his interview was heavily edited to imply that he was unsure about whether or not it was fake, whereas in fact he had maintained from the start that it wasn’t at all genuine, and the UFO investigator Kevin Randle had stated outright that it was a hoax, which also didn’t make the final cut.
At the time, though, this didn’t even break the surface such was the brouhaha. Entire magazines were formed around the footage. Nascent internet forums lit up with people either predicting the Great Official Alien Revelation (which it should be noted we’ve been awaiting since about 1955, and at the time of writing still hasn’t happened) and people dismissing it on the basis that there are no such things as aliens, QED: this discussion too continues. The film received a great deal of scrutiny. A detailed report in Nexus Magazine (Oct 96) by Michael Hesemann examined it from multiple angles, concluding:
While nobody has been able to present any proof that the Santilli autopsyfootage was faked, we have some convincing indications that the filmmight very well be genuine. If it is a hoax, it is definitely the most ingenious fake of the century.(5)
Mike Moloney, the Mirror photographer who claimed to have seen it in the late 70s said he believed it to be the same footage.
Others were less convinced, however. Philip Mantle of Bufora, who had initially expressed optimism about its content has in the following quarter century more or less made a career out of examining both the footage and the story surrounding it. As always though, sceptics dismissed and believers endorsed with the usual spectrum of opinion in between.
And so the is it/isn’t it debate rumbled on. By the end of the 90s, public ardour for all things alien had calmed down considerably, and what had once been a whole tide of discussion had retreated leaving little isolated rockpools of bickering. With it, presumably, its general lucrativeness also dried up somewhat, so it was perhaps unsurprising that ten years on, in 2005, it became known that a film was being made that would dramatize the events leading up to the broadcast. A hint about the overall treatment of the saga could be found in the casting: the stars of the movie would be Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly – Ant & Dec, light entertainment and comedy stars in the mould of Morecambe and Wise. A serious docudrama this wouldn’t be, but rather a knockabout farce, in which terms, in fairness, many researchers would readily categorise the whole story anyway. The movie, “Alien Autopsy”, written by William Davies and directed by Jonny Campbell was apparently based wholly on Santilli’s description of events. It was due for general release in the UK on April 7th 2006. What seemed odd to many was that the usually-insistent Santilli would knowingly and willingly participate in a film which made a comedy out of his putatively serious, earth-shattering discovery. In the words of Dr David Clarke in the FT:
“But why was the man who discovered ‘The Greatest Story Ever Sold’ selling out by making a comedy, even one billed as being “based on true events”? The reason soon became clear: Santilli was finally going to reveal the real ‘truth’ about the AA film, and it could be no coincidence that this ‘truth’ was to be revealed just two days before the film hit the cinemas on 7 April.”
And so it came to pass – on April 4th, Sky broadcast “Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy” featuring the forensic journalistic skills of Eamonn Holmes being put to the test (the same Holmes who recently distinguished himself in the “open-minded” stakes by opining about Coronavirus / 5G claims by that well-known authority David Icke.) This was hardly Pulitzer material though – again to quote Clarke (ibid) “..This was post-modern docu-comedy at its best (or worst), with all parties clearly in the know and hamming it up to create yet another ‘truth’ about the AA film.” Santilli used it as a showcase in order to present his revised version of events directly and in person before everyone else saw it on the big screen re-enacted by cheeky-chappie Geordies. He – partially – came clean. The aliens in the film, he admitted, were actually fake. The autopsy footage (obviously) was fake. The weird extra-terrestrial internal gubbins? Sheep brains and jelly mostly stuffed into puppets made by a local sculptor, John Humphreys, who also created various props that were presented as alien artefacts, and who himself appeared in the sequence as one of the pathologists team performing the post-mortem. However – and on this Santilli was quite clear – it wasn’t a hoax. Oh no. The footage was in fact a faithful recreation of the real film Santilli had first seen back in ’92 and had subsequently spent so much of his hard-earned cash buying. Tragically that original footage had apparently degraded to the extent that it was unusable, thus effectively forcing Santilli to remake it in order to get the truth out, given its importance. So, painstakingly and with the greater good at heart (alongside the need to recoup his alleged expenditure) he’d lovingly remade it frame by frame, incorporating the few frames of the original that had been salvageable, although he can’t remember which ones they are now, soz. The filmed statement by the alleged cameraman? An elderly homeless chap they’d found in Los Angeles, whom they’d showered, put into some thrift store clobber and got to recite a script to camera in a motel room, in keeping with all the best dubious footage. The whole thing came over as a bit of a loveable rogue wheeler-dealer who’d come across something amazing, suffered a major setback but had used his ingenuity to overcome it and in so doing reveal an amazing secret to the world in as good a way as he could in absence of the actual evidence. The imminent Alien Autopsy film starring Newcastle’s finest would tell the story. Enjoy the movie, then we can all move on. Neatly tied up, then, happy days, trebles all round.(6)
Except.. it’s not remotely neatly tied up. As we see frequently with Fortean events, the narrative takes on a life of its own regardless of, or often as not directly because of what participants or alleged participants say. Santilli’s version of events had been (and continues to be) challenged from quite early on in the saga. TV producer and stage magician Spyros Melaris has long claimed that in fact he was responsible for the faked footage, and that Santilli’s role was purely that of a promoter. According to Melaris, Santilli had stuck with his story of unusable footage, so the idea that was cooked up was to fake the footage, give (not sell) it to TV channels around the world, create a buzz, and then reveal. Channel 4 in the UK got it free, but Melaris says Santilli had sold it on the quiet everywhere else, which he kept to himself. Melaris also maintains he made all of the auxiliary footage, such as finding the aforementioned homeless man, pouring coffee in one end of him, some better trousers on the other and telling him what to say. He has gone into some detail about the process, certainly, but sadly – and this is a major sticking point across the board – there is virtually no proof beyond the anecdotal. Had Spyros, whilst filming the fake footage made a “making of” documentary or kept the props used, or even copies of the original film (as all of the preview footage had been transferred to video) this would prove the actual provenance conclusively. He says he has receipts for Fuji-stock film being processed in 1995, but as he was a TV producer and film was still in very common use as video was still of relatively poor quality the receipts could be for anything. Melaris has at least kept his story consistent, however, and is receptive to discussion, and his story is endorsed by the aforementioned Philip Mantle who has spent more time and energy researching the story than anyone. Indeed Mantle has said it will take Santilli producing original stock to convince him otherwise, and in the absence of this he finds Melaris most credible.(8)
What’s perhaps more surprising is that despite the general acceptance (not least due to its promoter saying so) that it’s a fake, there are still a number of Ufologists who still regard it as real and therefore proof of extra-terrestrial visitation. Once again the Ufo/Conspiracy specialists insist the doubt and scepticism is a black op designed to discredit Santilli and in so doing cast doubt on what’s actual genuine film of an alien autopsy. It goes all fractal after this, and to pursue it down all of the rabbit-holes needs patience, a powerful torch and a large box of aspirin: not for nothing does Mantle’s Casebook run to over 600 pages, and that’s pretty focused. Despite its relatively straightforward appearance, the whole saga is so intricately convoluted that ultimately all you can really do is go with your gut. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it fake but with real elements? Is it fake but based on real (now lost) footage? Twenty-five years, a mountain of claims, counter claims, discussions, rebuttals and a feature film about it later the established facts haven’t really advanced much, indeed if at all, and in the absence of physical evidence the testimony is all we have.
In the quarter-century since it first surfaced, the Santilli film has been compared with most of the benchmark, image-based Fortean artefacts: as already mentioned the Zapruder film, the Turin Shroud, the Patterson film. However, in many respects, the closest analogue to the whole saga was another British storm in a teacup – Cottingley. Eighty years previously, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths had produced photographs that seemed to back up their claim that they played with fairies. This was seized upon by (among others) Arthur Conan-Doyle as proof of not just that particular incident but evidence of the objective existence of fairies full stop. The excitement took off rather more than the children expected, less partisan scrutiny inevitably followed, and finally Elsie and Frances admitted they were actually pictures cut from a book, mounted on pins and photographed. Crucially, however, the girls maintained until their dying days that there actually had been fairies, that they had tried to photograph them, that one of the pictures was in fact genuine (but they were unsure which), but above all their intentions were pure: they wanted people to believe them. The Alien Autopsy film follows much the same trajectory: rumour of an incident, apparent visual proof, much brouhaha with authoritative voices weighing in, eventual admission that the footage was faked but, crucially, the continuing insistence on the part of the main protagonist that the actual incident was true. Again like Cottingley, it is unusual in Fortean terms as it generally agreed – with a few dissenting voices – as fake.
The interest from our perspective rather lies more in how quickly the story took off, how many just accepted the story as presented with little in the way of critical thinking. Its timing absolutely played the major part in this. It’s very tempting to speculate that had the footage been released ten years earlier, post E.T. and in the midst of the video-nasty furore then the reception would have been less fervent and more likely dismissed as a stunt. As was, in 1995 there was a mass audience primed and ready to accept pictures purportedly showing extra-terrestrial beings who looked not unlike the ones they’d seen every other Thursday night at 8.00 pm. The UFO community buzz about an imminent revelation had been growing steadily louder, entire shelves of WH Smith featured magazines of a paranormal bent. If there was ever a better time to drop a coin into the penny arcade of Forteana, Ray Santilli picked it to the second, and the jackpot duly poured out.
With thanks to Willie Kay
1.Fortean Times #81 (Jun 1995) p.42
2.Secret History: The Roswell Incident, Channel 4 Television (first broadcast 28th Aug 1995, series 3 special episode, C4 UK)
3.Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, Fox (first broadcast 28th Aug 1995, USA)
4.Corliss, Richard (Nov 27, 1995). “Autopsy or Fraud-topsy?”. Time Magazine
5.Hesemann, Michael (Oct 1996), Nexus Magazine
6.Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy, British Sky Broadcasting. (first broadcast, April 4, 2006, Sky One)
7.Alien Autopsy , Ealing Studios / Fragile Films (released Apr 7th 2006)
8.The One Show, BBC TV (first broadcast 31st Oct 2018)
First published in the Fortean Times, issue 395 (July 2020)
theoneandonlystuneville 