Film "Verification" - the Real Story
A while back we were amused to discover a
website which
not only repeats the mistaken belief that the age of the autopsy
film has been "verified by Kodak", it also claims that
everyone who says the opposite (including Time
Magazine!) was only quoting us.
Neither statement is true (though it's flattering that someone
thinks we're as influential as that).
We were only pointing out the fact that the autopsy film could
easily have been made recently because the age of the film stock
has never been proven. The information about the so-called "verification"
was all well-documented elsewhere, so we didn't think it was
necessary to go into detail about it here on our page. Instead,
we briefly summarized the whole thing by writing:
Despite the claims of some, the autopsy film has never
been examined by Kodak or any other reputable source.
And oh, the email just poured in. Apparently some more detail
is required after all...
We've known from the very beginning that a
piece of film was examined by Kodak, and other
pieces were given to other interested parties. We never meant to
suggest otherwise.
At least two of the samples have been made public, and here
they are....
One looks like a shot of a staircase. The other appears to be
a doorway. And yes, experts agreed that both samples appear to
be original 1947-era film stock. Fair enough.
However, you don't have to be a photo expert to notice one
immediate problem: neither of these frames shows the alien
autopsy. Nor do they show any person, place, or thing which also
appears in the alien autopsy sequences.
Kodak's sample was different from the two seen above. They
also verified their sample appeared to be 1947-era footage... of
... well, something. Peter Milson, Kodak's Marketing Planning
Manager and Motion Picture and Television Imaging Manager,
described their sample this way:
"...and what he's done, obviously I can't blame him for
this, is given me a bit of the leader, or given us a bit of
the leader and said this is the same as the neg, this is from
the same bit of film".
The bottom line: none of the footage examined by anyone,
anywhere, matches anything seen during the autopsy. They're just
(verified) old pieces of film. And that's all.
Our mistake was in assuming that everybody knew that.
So here's our original statement again, but with the proper
emphasis added:
Despite the claims of some, the autopsy
film has never been examined by Kodak or any other reputable
source.
There, that oughta do it.