The Alien Autopsy Film | Internet Sacred Text Archive

The Alien Autopsy Film

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                            THE ALIEN AUTOPSY FILM

                        - Facts vs Armchair Research -

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 >From _Nexus Magazine_, Volume 3, #6 (Oct-Nov '96).

 by Michael Hesemann, (C) 1996
 Editor/Publisher
 Magazin 2000
 Worringer Strasse 1
 D-40211 Dusseldorf, Germany
 Fax: +49 (0)211 354893

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 THE 'ROSWELL FOOTAGE' RELEASE
 About a year and a half ago, on 5th May 1995, the London-based film
 producer Ray Santilli for the first time presented his alleged alien
 autopsy footage to an audience of invited media representatives and UFO
 researchers at the London Museum.  Even before that date, a very
 emotional debate had already started.  Angry ufologists had challenged
 Santilli to shut up or work together with them, while others had claimed
 from the very beginning that the film is a hoax just because it doesn't
 fit into their concept of what happened in New Mexico in the summer of
 1947.

 Santilli's marketing policy, his commercial exploitation of the film, his
 ignorance in the UFO field and his violation of all the unwritten
 protocols of the UFO community didn't find many friends among ufologists,
 and quite soon many screamed "Hoax!" without being able to prove
 anything.  One researcher even concluded, "There is no [16 mm] film and
 no cameraman", after quoting page after page of all the rumours, second-
 and third-hand information and inconsistencies among Santilli's claims
 (or alleged claims), to prove that he was right from the very beginning
 when he suspected a scam, because the being on the autopsy table looked
 "too humanoid to be an extraterrestrial", yet ignoring that this is
 exactly how most eyewitnesses describe crashed ufonauts.1

 Unfortunately, those who searched for the truth, wherever it might be,
 were few in number.  Willing to listen to Santilli first, before they
 judged and checked out the information they could get before asking for
 more, were mainly Philip Mantle (UK), Bob Shell (USA) and Michael
 Hesemann (Germany)-the International Research Team (IRT)-joined by
 Maurizio Baiata and Roberto Pinotti (Italy), Johannes Baron of Buttlar
 (Germany), Odd-Gunnar Roed (Norway), Hanspeter Wachter (Switzerland),
 Col.  Colman VonKeviczky, Dr Bruce Maccabee, Joe Stefula, Lt.  Col.  W.
 C. Stevens, Ted Loman, Robert Morning Sky, Llewellyan Wykel and Dennis
 Murphy (USA), and others.

 Let me point out that we found Ray Santilli always very friendly, helpful
 and cooperative although sometimes limited in his actions by agreements
 with his business partners and the cameraman.  I wonder if any 'major
 international media corporation' would ever have been even nearly as open
 to any reasonable research approach as Mr Santilli indeed was.  The
 following is a summary of results from the IRT's first year of
 investigation.

 THE CAMERAMAN
 Yes, there is a cameraman.  We located people, besides Santilli, who had
 spoken to him over the phone: Gary Shoefield of Polygram, Philip Mantle,
 John Purdie of Channel Four (UK) and the secretary of David Roehring of
 Fox Network, USA.  He is American, an old man, and lives in Florida.  He
 was in hospital when Gary Shoefield wanted to meet him, and was coughing
 when Philip Mantle had him on the phone.  According to his story he had
 polio as a child.2 Polio victims at that time mostly walked with a limp.
 He could not have had a bad hand, otherwise he could not have worked as a
 cameraman, but maybe he had a bad leg.  The movement of the cameraman in
 the film indicates this, since he doesn't move smoothly.  Bob Shell
 enquired among senior US military cameramen if they could remember a
 colleague from the 1940s with a bad leg.  They knew one.  His name is
 Jack "X", and he is exactly the age claimed for the Santilli cameraman:
 eighty-six.3

 The cameraman is not Jack Barnett-a name used originally by Santilli to
 protect the identity of the true cameraman.  Jack Barnett worked for
 Universal News, filmed Elvis Presley at a high-school concert in 1955 and
 died in 1969.  Jack X did not work for Universal, but filmed Elvis at
 another concert, an open-air one, when the Universal cameramen were on
 strike.4 The cameraman agreed to be interviewed by a major US TV
 network.5

 In April 1996 Bob Shell was contacted by the US Air Force following an
 enquiry from President Clinton's scientific adviser, Dr John Gibbons.
 The USAF Captain told Shell that they had located footage from the same
 stock in their archives and verified that at least part of the Santilli
 material is genuine, and shows no dummy and no human.  They knew the
 cameraman's name-Jack X-but asked Shell to forward an address, since the
 military records building in St Louis had had a fire and many records had
 been lost.  A search would be time-consuming and expensive.6

 When we asked for details about the crash site, we became convinced that
 the cameraman indeed has an excellent knowledge of the area in question.
 With Ray Santilli as the intermediary-and Santilli did not know anything
 about the area in question and insisted on calling Socorro "Sorocco"-he
 even described a ruined bridge that we could locate only on our third
 visit to the area.  He knew exactly what he was talking about.

 Although some have criticised the cameraman's technique in the autopsy
 film, other military cameraman think this is exactly the way they, too,
 would have filmed it.

 "The cameraman keeps moving to get out of the way of the surgeon and
 keeps trying to get the best perspective.  The job of an army cameraman
 is to record a procedure on film, not to deliver beautiful pictures.  And
 that, here, is an adequate filmic protocol," said Dr Roderick Ryan, US
 Navy cameraman during the '40s and '50s who filmed many secret government
 projects including the atomic tests on Bikini Atoll.7

 "Among these circumstances, no one could have made a better job...he was
 not only a well-educated and experienced movie man, but, additionally, in
 full knowledge of editing and production of documentaries.  Evidence:
 filming the autopsy activities from various view angles," said Col.
 Colman VonKeviczky, who studied at the UFA Film Academy in Berlin
 Babelsberg, was head of the audiovisual division of the Royal Hungarian
 General Staff, cameraman and director of the 3rd US Army at Heidelberg
 and member of the audiovisual department of the United Nations in New
 York.8

 THE FILM STOCK
 Careful study of stills made from the original film and high-quality
 Betacam copies confirmed that the film was indeed shot on 16-mm material.
 The camera handling seen on the autopsy film indicates the use of a
 small, lightweight camera with fixed lenses (therefore, the out-of-focus
 close-ups), like the 16-mm Bell & Howell Filmo Camera used by US military
 cameramen in the '40s-the camera the cameraman claims he used.9

 Leaders of 16 mm film were sent to Kodak Hollywood, London and Copenhagen
 and turned out to bear the symbols (a square and a triangle) used by
 Kodak either in 1947 or in 1967.10

 Two segments with three frames each, one clearly showing the autopsy
 room, were given to Bob Shell, editor of Shutterbug magazine and also a
 phototechnical consultant for the FBI and the US courts.  After a careful
 physical analysis, Shell confirmed the segments to be pre-1956 16-mm
 film.  In 1956 Kodak changed its film-base from acetate-propionate to
 triacetate, and the samples were clearly on acetate-propionate film.  The
 film type was Super XX-Panchromatic Safety Film, a high-speed film used
 for indoor filming but which had a life-span of no more than two years,
 when cosmic radiation would cause a 'fogging' of the material.  Shell is
 sure the film was exposed and developed within two years.  This, at
 least, dates the film as pre-1958.11

 THE EQUIPMENT & OBJECTS IN THE AUTOPSY ROOM
 Everything in the film dates to the time in question.  The telephone is
 an AT&T model from 1946,12 and spiral cables had been optional since 1938
 and standard for US Army telephones.13 The wall clock is a model on the
 market since 1938,14 and the microphone is a 1946 Sheer Bros mike.15 The
 table with the instruments was standard equipment for a pathologist, as
 confirmed by Prof.  Cyril Wecht, ex-President of the American Academy of
 Forensic Sciences.16 The bone hammer was not unusual; nor was the Bunsen
 burner which, in autopsies, served the purpose of burning away body fat.

 THE BODY
 The corpse on the autopsy table has been the subject of many disputes as
 to whether it is a dummy, a girl with a genetic disorder or, indeed, an
 alien.  Nearly all special effects (FX) experts concluded that it is
 certainly possible to fake footage of a realistic-looking autopsy.  There
 have been many concerns about 'snuff' movies and the origin of the
 corpses used in them.  South America had been named as a possible origin,
 but reports from there have indicated the use of very realistic dummies.
 However, no one has found any evidence of special effects being used in
 this autopsy film-although today, unquestionably, nearly everything can
 be faked with the latest state-of-the-art FX techniques.17

 On the other hand, pathologists and physicians from all over the world
 who saw the film were pretty sure the body was not a dummy, but actually
 a corpse-human or humanoid.

 It is indisputable that some of the characteristics of different genetic
 disorders can be found in the being on the autopsy table-mostly disorders
 such as Turner's syndrome or progeria, combined with polydactylism (which
 is not a typical element of Turner's syndrome, although possible in
 combination with it) and other anomalies.  This prompted a German
 dermatologist, Dr T. Jansen of the Policlinic of the University of
 Munich, to publish a study in a medical journal, trying to prove that the
 body is that of a girl who died from a rare form of progeria.18 On the
 other hand, he forgot to explain why there could be two girls with
 identical symptoms including polydactylism, when progeria is so rare that
 there are only 20 cases worldwide.  Unfortunately, the only case of
 Turner's syndrome twins, although obviously documented on film, was never
 published in the medical literature.

 Indeed, Dr Jansen's 'findings' do not explain the extreme precautions
 taken when the autopsy was performed, i.e., why would the team have worn
 bio-hazard protection suits if the body had a genetic disorder, and why
 would the being have been fitted with black eye-lenses?  Although Dr
 Jansen diagnosed a stroke (common for progeria patients) as the cause of
 death, this does not explain the damaged right leg, the broken and
 swollen left leg, the cut-off right hand and a bruise at the left temple
 with a possible bullet wound.  Should we assume that our creature broke
 its legs, cut its right hand and shot a bullet in its head before it died
 from a stroke?

 More than that, Jansen's explanation for the missing navel couldn't
 convince us, either.  To quote Dr Jansen, "It's like if you put up an
 umbrella: the unevenness disappears."19

 On the other hand, quite a number of pathologists concluded that the
 being was not human at all, since its inner organs were like nothing they
 had ever seen:

 Prof.  Christopher Milroy, Home Office Pathologist, University of
 Sheffield, UK: "Although a close-up of the brain was shown, it was again
 out of focus.  However, the appearance was not that of a human brain."20

 Prof.  Mihatsch, University of Basle, Switzerland: "As for the organs
 removed, they could not be tallied with any human organs."21

 Prof.  Cyril Wecht, Ex-President, American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
 USA: "I can't place these structures in an abdominal context...  I find
 it difficult to bring in any connection with the human body as I know it.
 The structure that must be the brain, if it were a human being, does not
 look like a brain...it does not seem to be a human being."22

 Dr Carsten Nygren, Oslo, Norway: "This is not a human brain.  It
 is...much too dark."23

 Prof.  Pierluigi Baima Bollone, University of Turin, Italy: "When we look
 at the inner organs of the body we find no single organ that in any way
 resembles any human organ.  The main organ, which could be the liver, has
 neither the shape nor the location of a human liver.  The face of the
 alleged extraterrestrial shows surprising anatomical features: very big
 ocular orbits, a very flat nasal pyramid, a mouth somehow wide
 open...nevertheless, the face is flat, there is no evidence of facial
 musculature which is present in human beings and is responsible for the
 large variety of facial expressions of the human species...  My overall
 impression is that we are dealing with a creature that seems to belong to
 our species but is so clearly different from us that it seems absurd to
 speculate about the similarity."24

 There was not a single physician or pathologist who, after watching the
 full film, concluded it was a hoax or that the being on the table was a
 dummy.  They all agreed the corpse was of a living, biological
 entity-human or not.

 THE PATHOLOGISTS
 According to the cameraman the autopsy was performed by "Dr Bronk" and
 "Dr Williams".

 Prof.  Dr Detlev Bronk (1897-1975) was no surprise, since his name
 already appeared in the controversial "Majestic 12" documents.  He was
 Chairman of the National Research Council, America's leading biophysicist
 and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Army, Air Force and of the
 Atomic Energy Commission-certainly a person to whom the supervision of an
 autopsy of this relevance could have been entrusted.  After his death,
 all his papers and documents were preserved at the Rockefeller Institute
 for Medical Research, of which he was President from 1953.25

 Dr Bronk was a very methodical person, kept detailed diaries and all his
 correspondence, notes and dates.  But when Bob Shell wanted to look
 through his papers and diaries for 1947, he learnt that, mysteriously
 enough, this is the only year for which all the records are missing.
 None of the friendly librarians could tell him what had happened to them
 or why they are still missing.26

 Dr Williams might have been Dr Robert Parvin Williams (1891-1967), who
 was Special Assistant to the Surgeon General of the Army at Fort Monroe,
 Virginia.  He was a Lt.  Col.  in 1947 and was promoted to Brig.  General
 in 1949.27 Alone, the naming of Dr Williams-who was the right man in the
 right place for the task-indicates the cameraman had some inside
 knowledge.

 Were the protagonists of the alien autopsy footage indeed pathologists or
 surgeons-or just actors?  We asked the physicians who viewed the footage:
 Prof.  Dr Ch.  Milroy, University of Sheffield, UK: "Whilst the
 examination had features of a medically conducted examination, aspects
 suggest it was not conducted by an experienced pathologist, but rather by
 a surgeon."28

 Prof.  Dr M. J. Mihatsch, University of Basle, Switzerland: "I do not
 question the capability of the pathologist or surgeon who is working on
 the corpse."29

 Prof.  Cyril Wecht, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, USA: "(They)
 are either pathologists or surgeons who have performed a number of
 autopsies before."30

 Prof.  Pierluigi Baima Bollone, University of Turin, Italy: "Definitely
 surgeons, not pathologists...well-experienced."31

 Prof.  Jean Pierre, University of Paris, France: "The persons who
 performed the autopsy were certainly of the medical profession, if not
 experienced pathologists."32

 Dr Carsten Nygren, Oslo, Norway: "These were surgeons doing the work, not
 pathologists."33

 In fact, neither Prof.  Bronk nor Dr Williams were pathologists: Bronk
 was a biophysicist and Williams a surgeon.  Indeed, not one physician
 concluded they were actors or made any mistakes.

 One point of criticism was the type of autopsy performed.  Obviously it
 served the purpose of determining the cause of death rather than of
 learning more about an alien life-form.  On the other hand, this is
 explainable by the circumstances under which the autopsy was performed.

 According to the cameraman, four living aliens were found at the crash
 site.  One did not survive the recovery operation, the second and third
 died about four weeks later, and the fourth survived until May 1949.

 We do not know anything about the autopsy of the first creature, and it
 might very well have been that it was subjected to a 'big' scientific
 autopsy.

 The cameraman filmed the second and third autopsies on 1st and 3rd July
 1947, when the main concern might have been to find out the cause of
 their sudden deaths in order to find a way to keep alien no.  4
 alive-unless they could establish communication and find out why these
 visitors had come to Earth.  This was surely of a higher interest for the
 national defence forces than a scientific study of an alien life-form.
 Nevertheless, we assume that organs were taken for further study during
 the dissection.

 Furthermore, according to the cameraman, the fourth alien was autopsied
 scientifically in a medical theatre in Washington, DC, in the presence of
 leading scientists from the US, England and France.34

 THE DEBRIS FOOTAGE
 The Santilli footage showing metal samples was analysed by Dennis W.
 Murphy, who has an Academy of Science degree in marine diving technology
 and welding and has studied all types of metalwork.

 He concluded: "I have never seen anything that resembles the
 manufacturing techniques used in the construction of the I-beams in the
 Santilli debris footage.  I know of no manufacturing process that could
 produce the multitude of details found on the I-beams."

 Murphy refused possibilities like milling ("When I look at the lettering
 I see precise rounds as part of the symbols.  I do not think that you can
 do this with current milling machines..."), extrusion, rolling, casting,
 moulding ("against moulding...the apparent lack of weight for all the
 pieces..., the acute right-angles at the roots, the thinness of the
 flanges of the I-beam and the finely detailed definition of the raised
 symbols...", which could only be produced with metal of a high density
 which is much heavier than the indicated weight), and the use of
 foam-core paperboard ("the crystalline nature of the break in the broken
 beams, the reflectivity of the material in the break, the rigidity of the
 I-beams..." argue against this possibility, according to Murphy).

 The nature of fractures, the flexible, light and highly reflective
 appearance of the I-beams baffled Murphy and brought him to the
 conclusion that, indeed, metal with an extremely fine, crystalline
 structure had been used, manufactured with an unknown technique.35 The
 same conclusion was drawn by Prof.  Dr Malanga of the University of Pisa,
 Italy.36

 Master Sergeant Bob Allen, USAF security coordinator at a top-secret
 research facility near Tonapah, Nevada, recognised the panels on the
 film: "The army came, after many years, to the conclusion that the beings
 had taken the boxes out with them because they were waiting to be picked
 up.  Each panel was constructed for each of the ETs individually.  They
 could be fitted into slots in various apparatus.  The entire
 system-propulsion, navigation, everything-could be started and controlled
 by these panels.  We tried it too, but our brain frequency was not fast
 enough to operate them." According to Allen, they were presented,
 together with other "alien hardware", every 10 years to the Lawrence
 Livermore Laboratories for examination as the basis of latest
 state-of-the-art science.37

 This was confirmed by a USAF engineer, working for Sandia Laboratories in
 Albuquerque, who identified them as some kind of "biofeedback computers
 responding to neural impulses".38 "We learned how to feed information
 into them, but we were not able to get information out of them," he
 added.

 Bill Uhouse, a mechanical design engineer who worked at the top-secret
 facility at Area 51 on the Nevada test site-where he allegedly worked
 with alien technology-identified them as "personal control panels.  They
 served to communicate with the individual member of the crew and possibly
 to interact with a computer on board or, better, the steering unit.  When
 the craft crashed, each crew member took his panel with him.  Possibly
 they served as communication with a mother ship, which could locate and
 rescue them."39

 THE HIEROGLYPHS
 When I first saw the hieroglyphs on the I-beams, I immediately recognised
 a similarity with the Greek and Phoenician alphabets.  Indeed, both of
 them have a common origin and belong to the same 'family' as the many
 different Semitic alphabets-Aramaic, Sabaeic, Samaritan, Hebrew,
 Protocanaanitic, Nabataeic and Arabic-which all originate from the
 hieroglyphic alphabet, one of the four main groups of Egyptian
 hieroglyphs (the others being two- and three-syllable signs and
 ideograms).40

 Interestingly enough, inscriptions which clearly belong to the same
 family of alphabets, but pre-date the Phoenician or even the Egyptian
 culture, have been found all over the world-in Peru (Ylo),41 Ecuador
 (Cuenca),42 Brazil (Piedra Pintada),43 France (Glozel, Maz d'Azil),44 on
 the Canary Islands,45 and elsewhere.  Because of their similarity with
 the Phoenician alphabet, I call them "Proto-Phoenician".

 In this context I was able to decipher both I-beams and translate their
 inscriptions using languages from the same context and language families
 as the alphabets.  They say: "DIREQH ELE/ECE" and "OSNI".  "DIREQH" is
 related to the Hebrew "Derekh", meaning "way, path, journey".  "ELE"
 could be a plural of "El", meaning "God", like the Hebrew "Elohim", and
 "ECE" is related to the Egyptian "ase", meaning "to introduce" or "to
 approach".  So, depending on whether we read the second sign as a
 "lambda/lamed" or a "gamma/gimel", we can translate it alternatively
 (since we don't know the grammar) as "the journey of the gods", a prayer,
 like "Go with God", or "a journey to approach/ introduce".  I translate
 "OSNI" as the Egyptian "asni", meaning "to make to open",46 either
 philosophically, as in "to open for a contact" or "to open the
 consciousness", or, in a practical sense, as in "Open here".

 But why would extraterrestrials speak and write like Phoenician, Hebrew
 or Egyptian?  Maybe because it's the language of the gods, who introduced
 it on Earth.  In fact, the ancient Egyptians believed their hieroglyphic
 system had been brought to them by Thoth or Tehuti, the God of Wisdom,
 one of the Neteru ("Watchers") who travelled in the celestial barks on
 the celestial Nile-the Milky Way.47

 Is it a coincidence that the mathematical system of both ancient Sumer
 and Egypt was based on 12, when here we meet beings with 12 fingers?  We
 find twelve-toed footprints on Anasazi petroglyphs in the Canyonlands of
 Utah, USA,48 and a twelve-fingered Sky Kachina in the tradition of the
 Laguna, Hopi and other Pueblo Indians.49 The Brazilian Ugha Mongulala
 believe their "Ancient Fathers", who came from the stars, had "six
 fingers and six toes as signs of their divine origin".50

 ROSWELL OR SOCORRO?
 Ray Santilli's claim that the film was "the Roswell footage" caused a lot
 of controversy, since none of the witnesses to the July 1947 UFO
 crash/retrieval event had confirmed either the bodies or the debris.
 Indeed, the corpses found in Roswell were smaller, more slender, and had
 four or five fingers, according to eyewitnesses.51 None ever mentioned
 six fingers.  In any case, if the film were a fake, why did those
 responsible for it not care to read at least one of the many books on
 this subject or see the excellent TV mini-series, Roswell, by Paul
 Davies, as shown on Showtime?

 The very first information I got from Santilli about the source of the
 film made me wonder if it actually had anything to do with Roswell at
 all.  Ray already insisted on 5th May 1995 that the autopsies had been
 filmed on 1st and 2nd July 1947, and that the recovery had taken place
 "in the beginning of June"-one month too early for Roswell.

 When I went to Roswell on 30th June 1995 to confront the eyewitnesses
 (including Robert Shirkey, Glenn Dennis and Frank Kaufmann) with the
 just-released stills from the film, I asked Santilli for details about
 the crash site.  He could only tell me it was "about four-and-a-half
 hours away", "close to White Sands test site" and "an Apache
 reservation", and "at the northern shore of a small dry lake at the end
 of a small canyon".  I asked him to call the cameraman to obtain more
 detailed instructions, which, indeed, he did.  He said the crash site was
 "between Socorro" (Ray said "Sorocco") "and Magdalena".

 By the end of July 1995, Santilli released the full story of the
 cameraman who confirmed he had learnt of the crash on 1st June 1947-which
 dates the event back to the late hours of 31st May 1947.  Date, location
 and everything we see on the film didn't fit with Roswell.  Conclusion:
 it was a different event.

 The fact that the cameraman had been flown into Roswell and brought to
 the crash site by car, caused him to believe he'd been involved in "the
 Roswell incident" that he'd heard about-and Santilli believed him.

 THE CRASH/RETRIEVAL SITE
 Following the instructions given by the cameraman, I was able to find the
 small dry lake at the end of a canyon by following "the last dirt road
 before the (Magdalena) mountains".  It was about 15 miles away from the
 White Sands Proving Grounds and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife
 Resort, a former reservation.

 On the third visit to the site, Ted Loman was even able to find the ruins
 of a (railway) bridge mentioned by the cameraman.  After we sent
 photographs to the cameraman, he was able to confirm the site.

 In September 1995 Santilli released the cameraman's drawings, enhanced by
 a graphic artist, showing the crash scene.  Although the scenery in our
 photographs looked different, we found that, coming from the canyon, it
 looked exactly like it was in his drawings.  Right where he drew the
 craft crashed into a cliff, we found an area, 20 metres in diameter,
 where someone had deliberately sizzled off the rock as if trying to
 remove traces.  Above the dry lake bed we located an old mine.  According
 to the New Mexico Office of Mining & Technology in Socorro it was a
 manganese mine, called "Niggerhead Mine", which was closed in 1938,
 reopened during the war when manganese was precious and needed, and
 closed down again in 1945.  According to the cameraman, it was again
 reopened by the US Government (Department of the Interior), but with no
 further mining, on the very day the retrieval began: 1st June 1947.52
 Mining operations were used as cover events for the Manhattan Project and
 maybe also here.  Isn't the reopening of a mine a perfect excuse for
 moving in heavy equipment-cranes, flatbed trucks-and personnel, and
 cordoning off of an area?

 An Air Accident Report, allegedly written by General Nathan Twining of
 the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field and published by the late Len
 Stringfield, mentions a "Flying Disc Aircraft found near White Sands
 Proving Grounds" at some time before 16th July 1947, the date of the
 report.  Since the report covers the full technical evaluation of the
 craft, we can assume the crash happened at least one month beforehand, if
 not more.53 Stringfield quoted another witness, Major V. A. Postleweith
 of US Army Intelligence, who had seen a classified telex mentioning a
 disc crash "in the vicinity of the White Sands Proving Grounds".54

 CRASH AND RETRIEVAL WITNESSES
 We located several witnesses to a 'crash' that very day in question: 31st
 May 1947, in the evening hours.  Fred Strozzi, a local rancher who lived
 just a few miles away from the crash site, claimed to have seen a
 meteorite "bigger than a basketball" falling during that time and in the
 area in question, according to Betty and Smoky Pound, another local
 rancher couple.55 Unfortunately, Strozzi passed away years ago, so we
 couldn't ask him for details.

 But the same 'meteorite' had also been seen by a group of Native American
 children of the Acoma tribe who went to school in Gallup, New Mexico.
 That day, 31st May-which one of them remembered quite clearly because it
 was just before her birthday-was a very hot day, so they played in the
 evening when it had cooled down.  "Suddenly the whole sky was lit up as
 if it was daytime," one of them recalled.  "In less than four seconds, a
 big ball of fire glided silently over our heads from left to right, i.e.,
 northwest to southeast"-which is the direction of Socorro.  "The light
 was so bright that we kids held our hands before our faces to protect our
 eyes."56

 Two days later, most of the children had blisters on their hands and
 arms-"itchies" as they called them.  We received a letter from the
 daughter of one of the witnesses and interviewed two others, one on the
 phone, the other on camera.57 A meteorite wouldn't cause blistering like
 this.  According to the cameraman, when he moved in about 24 hours later,
 the crashed disc was still hot and there was the danger of a fire, so we
 can indeed assume that the craft was a 'fireball' when it crashed in the
 late hours of 31st May 1947.

 Did the local newspapers cover the 'meteorite' sighting?  Ted Loman tried
 to find out, and visited the office of the Socorro Chieftain.  He was
 told that in the late 1960s a fire destroyed some of the papers and that,
 in fact, some were missing-those between 10th May and 15th June 1947.  At
 the suggestion of the editorial assistant he spoke to, Ted tried at the
 library of the local mining university, where he found microfilms of all
 the issues of the paper-with the exception of those between 10th May and
 15th June 1947.  His attempt to find them in the Rio Grande Collection of
 the New Mexico State University at Las Cruces, New Mexico, was also
 unsuccessful.  Bob Shell tried at the neighbouring town of Magdalena.
 Again, all papers from that period were missing.  He was told, "You won't
 find them.  I have been looking for them for years and nobody has them."
 He also tried at the Zimmerman Library of New Mexico, without success.

 According to the cameraman, the craft was delivered on the back of a
 flatbed truck to Wright Field, Ohio, by the middle of June 1947.  A
 witness, Howard Marston, a civilian engineer who worked at a testing
 laboratory at Wright Field in the summer of 1947, claims he was present
 "when they brought in a disc...  It was on the trailer of a truck,
 covered with tarpaulins.  They unloaded it in a hangar.  I saw it from a
 distance when they uncovered it.  It was a metallic disc, about 30 to 40
 feet in diameter," Marston told me when I interviewed him.58

 WITNESSES TO THE FILM'S ORIGIN
 We located four eyewitnesses who had seen footage from the same stock as
 the Santilli film in the possession of the US military and intelligence-a
 fact recently confirmed by USAF Capt.  John McAndrews.59

 Master Sgt Bob Allen was security coordinator at a top-secret test site
 near Tonapah, Nevada.  When he was briefed for his work, he was shown
 films for about two-and-a-half hours.  When he saw the Santilli film on
 TV he immediately recognised them as part of the same stock.  "I saw
 three autopsies," he told me.  "During one, Truman stood behind the glass
 screen in the autopsy room.  He wore a surgeon's face-mask, but one could
 see it was Truman.  After a few days the first one died, then the second.
 They said, 'Damn, they are dying like flies and we have to find out if
 they have any hostile intentions and what they are doing here.  We must
 find a way to keep the fourth alive.' That's why the autopsies were done.
 The fourth extraterrestrial lived for another two years..."60

 Sgt Clifford Stone, US Army, was stationed at Fort Ley, Virginia, in
 1969.  He was part of a Nuclear/Biological/Chemical Accident (NBC) Quick
 Reaction Team.  He said, "My mission on that was to be the NBC NCO, the
 communications NCO.  I had the opportunity to take our Lieutenant to Fort
 Belvoir, Virginia.  At Fort Belvoir, myself and another person, a person
 from the Air Force, an airman, went to gallivant around and went up the
 stairs in an auditorium there, and we went into one room and sat down,
 and there was this plexiglass window down into the theatre...and they
 were watching down there what we believed to be trailers of
 science-fiction movies.

 "There were these common saucer-shaped UFOs, cigar-shaped UFOs...and you
 also had bodies.  The airman and I went ahead and tried to figure out
 what movies these came from because we had an interest in SF...  There
 were several types of bodies...  When we did this, some people came in
 and told us to follow, in no uncertain terms." Both were arrested and
 underwent an "intensified debriefing" which took four nights and five
 days.  "When I saw the Santilli tape, I saw the pictures first: they were
 haunting, because they took me back to this day in 1969, to these movies
 that they were watching.  There were bodies that looked very, very, very
 close to that one.  And there were alive ones, also.  I have knowledge
 that there is footage within a tent.  I have knowledge of a film with-if
 that is not Truman in the film, it is a very convincing double."61

 On 26th June 1995, the British researcher Colin Andrews visited Ray
 Santilli in the presence of the Japanese researcher Johsen Takano, who
 advises the Japanese Government in UFO matters, and Dr Hoang-Yung Chiang
 of the National Research Centre for Biotechnology in Taipeh, Taiwan.  Dr
 Hoang-Yung teaches at the Cultural University and the Medical University
 of Taipeh and, through his initiative, ufology is now officially
 recognised by the Taiwanese Government as a scientific discipline.

 After a private viewing, both Takano and Hoang-Yung told Andrews they had
 seen the film before: Johsen, when his government had requested UFO
 information from the US Government, which was then brought to Tokyo by a
 CIA courier; Hoang-Yung, when he had visited the CIA's headquarters in
 Langley, Virginia.62

 CONCLUSION
 While nobody has been able to present any proof that the Santilli autopsy
 footage was faked, we have some convincing indications that the film
 might very well be genuine.  If it is a hoax, it is definitely the most
 ingenious fake of the century.

 Instead of continuing the polemic of the last year or so, serious UFO
 researchers should continue to evaluate the evidence and search for the
 truth, in what might turn out to be the most provocative proof yet that
 we are not alone in the Universe.

 Endnotes
 1. Jeffrey, Kent, "Santilli's Controversial Autopsy Movie", MUFON UFO
 Journal, Seguin, Texas, USA, no. 335, March 1996.
 2. (a) Mantle, Philip (ed.), "The Roswell Film Footage", UFO Times, BUFORA,
 Batley, England, no. 36, Jul/Aug 1995;
 (b) Santilli, Ray (ed.), "Operation Anvil" (press release), London, England,
 1995.
 3. Shell, Bob, personal communication, December 1995.
 4. Santilli, Ray, "My Story" (press release), London, 1995.
 5. Santilli, Ray, Conference on the CompuServe Encounters Forum, 25 March
 1996.
 6. Shell, Bob, personal communication, 18 April 1996.
 7. Kiviat, B. and D. Roehring, Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?, TV
 broadcast, Fox Network, USA, 29 August 1995.
 8. VonKeviczky, Colman, "Autopsy of a Human-like 'Freak' Body" (report), New
 York, USA, 23 October 1995.
 9. ibid.
 10. (a) Letter from Eastman Kodak Co., Hollywood, USA, June 1995 (without
 date);
 (b) Letter from Kodak Ltd., London, UK, 14 June 1995.
 11. Shell, Bob, "Summary of Points in Physical Research on Film Dating"
 (report), Radford, Virginia, USA, 6 September 1995.
 12. (a) Personal information from Terry Blanton, 31 October 1995; (b) Time
 Magazine, New York, 18 December 1995.
 13. ibid.
 14. Santilli, Ray, statement published on the Internet, June 1995.
 15. MUFON Section, CompuServe Encounters Forum, Library, September 1995.
 16. Kiviat and Roehring, ibid.
 17. Stokes, Trey, "Special Effects: The Fine Art of Fooling People", UFO
 Times, BUFORA, Batley, England, January 1996.
 18. Jansen, T., "Der 'Roswell-Alien': Progerie", Münch. Med. Wschr., no. 9,
 Munich, Germany, 1996.
 19. "Wie im Lehrbuch", in Der Spiegel, Hamburg, Germany, 23 April 1996.
 20. Milroy, Christopher (Dr), statement, 2 June 1995.
 21. Wachter, Hanspeter, "Der Roswell-Film", Magazin 2000, Neuss, Germany,
 no. 110, May 1996.
 22. Kiviat and Roehring, ibid.
 23. Roed, Odd-Gunnar, "Norwegian pathologist views the Roswell footage"
 (report), Oslo, Norway, March 1996.
 24. Misterii (TV broadcast), RAI Due, Italy, 17 October 1995.
 25. (a) Modern Scientists and Engineers, McGraw-Hill, New York, vol. 1,
 1980;
 (b) Current Biography, New York, 1949.
 26. Shell, Bob, personal communication, 25 January 1996.
 27. Who was Who, p. 784 (copy without year given to Bob Shell).
 28. Milroy, ibid.
 29. Wachter, ibid.
 30. Kiviat and Roehring, ibid.
 31. Misterii, ibid.
 32. Roswell footage TV broadcast, TF1, France, 23 October 1995.
 33. Roed, ibid.
 34. Santilli, "Operation Anvil", ibid.; personal communications.
 35. Murphy, Dennis, "Discussion of Debris Details: Santilli Alien Dissection
 Film" (report), published on CompuServe Encounters Forum, 1 March 1996.
 36. Malanga, Corrado (Dr), lecture, Roswell Symposium of the Republic of San
 Marino, 7 September 1995.
 37. Allen, Bob (M.Sgt), personal communication, 24 January 1996.
 38. Shell, Bob, personal communication, 18 February 1996.
 39. Uhouse, Bill, statement on the Roswell footage panel, International UFO
 Conference, Mesquite, Nevada, USA, 1 December 1995.
 40. (a) Zauzich, Karl-Theodor, Hieroglyphs without Mystery, University of
 Texas Press, Austin, Texas, USA, 1992.
 (b) Wallis Budge, E. A., Egyptian Language, Dover Publications, New York,
 reprinted 1983.
 (c) Wallis Budge, E. A., An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Dover
 Publications, New York, vols. 1-2, reprinted 1978.
 (d) Watterson, Barbara, Introducing Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Scottish Academic
 Press, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1993.
 (e) Robinson, Andrews, Story of Writing, London, 1960.
 (f) Naveh, Joseph, Die Etstehung des Alphabets ("The Origin of the
 Alphabet"), Palphot, Jerusalem, Israel, 1994.
 41. Charroux, Robert, Vergessene Welten, Econ, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1974.
 42. von Däniken, Erich, Meine Welt in Bildern, Econ, Düsseldorf, 1973.
 43. Homet, Marcel (Dr), Die Soehne der Sonne, Walter, Olten, Switzerland,
 1958.
 44. Charroux, Robert, Das Raetsel der Anden, Econ, Düsseldorf, 1978.
 45. Herrera, Salvador Lopez, The Canary Islands through History, Gráficas
 Tenerife, Santa Cruz (undated).
 46. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, vol. 2, ibid.
 47. Hesemann, Michael, Cosmic Connections, Gateway Books, Bath, UK, 1995.
 48. Morning Sky, Robert, personal communication, December 1995.
 49. Shell, Bob, personal communication, February 1996.
 50. Brugger, Karl, The Chronicle of Akakor, Delacorte Press, New York, 1977.
 51. (a) Friedman, S. and D. Berliner, UFO Crash at Corono, Paragon, New
 York, 1992.
 (b) Randle, K. and D. Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell, Avon, New York, 1991.
 52. (a) Document in the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology,
 Socorro, New Mexico, USA;
 (b) Wykel, L. and K. Kelly, "The Six Mile Canyon Crash Site" (report),
 Albuquerque, New Mexico, 24 September 1995.
 53. Stringfield, Leonard, UFO Crash Retrievals: Search for Proof in a Hall
 of Mirrors, Cincinatti, Ohio, USA, 1994 (self-published).
 54. Stringfield, Leonard, UFO Crash Retrievals: Amassing the Evidence,
 Cincinatti, Ohio, 1982 (self-published).
 55. Wykel and Kelly, ibid.
 56. Letter to Art Bell (radio talk-show host), 10 September 1995.
 57. Personal interviews, 19 February 1996.
 58. Marston, Howard, personal interview, 2 December 1995.
 59. Shell, Bob, personal communication, 18 April 1996.
 60. Allen, Bob (M.Sgt), personal communication, 24 January 1996.
 61. Stone, Clifford (Sgt), as interviewed by Ted Loman, 20 February 1996.
 62. Andrews, Colin, personal communication, 28 June 1995.

 About the Author:

 Michael Hesemann is a cultural anthropologist and historian who studied
 at Gottingen University.  He is a best-selling author and award-winning
 film producer, with expertise in frontier sciences and extraterrestrial
 phenomena.  He lives in Düsseldorf, Germany.  Since 1984, Hesemann has
 published and edited Magazin 2000, which comes out in German and Czech
 languages.  His international best-sellers, UFOs: The Evidence, A Cosmic
 Connection and UFOs: ASecret Matter have been published in 14 countries,
 with a distribution of more than 500,000 copies.  His latest book, Beyond
 Roswell (with Philip Mantle), on his investigation into the controversial
 alien autopsy footage, will be published towards the end of 1996 by
 Marlowe, New York.  Michael Hesemann has produced several award-winning
 documentaries, such as UFOs: The Secret Evidence and UFOs: Secrets of the
 Black World, and has worked for TV programmes in Germany, Japan and the
 US.  He has spoken at international conferences in 22 countries across
 five continents, at 30 universities, and at the United Nations.  He is an
 associate member of the Society for Scientific Exploration.