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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....

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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.




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