TIME Magazine
November 27, 1995 Volume 146, No. 22
SHOW BUSINESS
AUTOPSY OR FRAUD-TOPSY?
A "documentary" about a purported alien stirs the
liveliest debate of any home movie since the Zapruder film
BY RICHARD CORLISS
On an operating table in a small white
room, a naked humanoid creature lies supine and inert--its
stomach bulbous; its six fingers slightly curled; a deep,
foot-long gash in its right leg. Two humans in white
contamination suits circle the creature, slicing its chest,
sawing its skull in half, removing internal organs. A third
takes notes on a sheet of paper. Behind a window, a fourth
person watches, hidden by a surgical mask. The only
identifiable figure is the humanoid. Its face shows strain,
perhaps pain. When the camera recording the event catches the
creature's sightless gaze, an eerie poignance fills the
chamber.
The 17-minute film, silent and in muzzy
black and white, has enough implicit melodrama to fill a
satisfying sci-fi epic. But some people believe, or hope, that
it may be genuine--evidence of an alien life form on earth,
conceivably connected with the report (and alleged government
cover-up) of a UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Professional skeptics find the film a clever or clumsy hoax.
Others believe it's real, but not from Roswell. The UFOlogical
combatants duel it out in magazines and on the Internet while
poring over the footage with an intensity not lavished on any
home movie since the Zapruder film.
The controversy has created a hot little
industry. Ray Santilli, the Englishman who is peddling the
footage, says it has been seen in 32 countries. Britain's
Channel Four aired a documentary on the subject. In the U.S.
an hour-long show called Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? has
become a staple of Fox TV--the X-Files network--and has been
among the top 25 sellers in video stores. Before the end of
the year, the tape will be offered in 35 catalogs, including
the Publishers Clearing House mailings.
The Fox show, with Jonathan Frakes of Star
Trek: The Next Generation as host, debuted to surprisingly
high ratings in late August. It was hastily scheduled to play
again a week later with some unaired footage. The program will
air a third time on Saturday, with clips that may reveal hints
of the alien's spacecraft and language. Says executive
producer Robert Kiviat: "We're approaching it like a
detective story." By doling out a few new clues in each
episode, Alien Autopsy could end up running more times than
Murder One.
Santilli says that on a trip to Cleveland,
Ohio, in 1992, he met an elderly man who identified himself as
a former Army photographer present at the autopsy of the
Roswell alien, performed at Fort Worth Army Air Field. This
man, says Santilli, offered to sell the movies he made there.
Says the entrepreneur: "The whole thing was just way too
fascinating to let go." The mysterious cameraman still
declines to reveal himself, though Santilli says, "I
think he will step forward within the very near future."
He will have a few questions to answer from
a host of instant film critics. Why does the film go so
conveniently out of focus at crucial moments? Why is the
camerawork so jumpy, in the modern ER fashion, instead of
having the smoothness that even World War II combat cameramen
aimed for? Why hasn't the original film stock been submitted
to Eastman Kodak, which has a standing offer to do a chemical
analysis that would verify if it was indeed manufactured in
1947? Why are there film cuts, suggesting a lapse in time,
that return to the same continuous incision? Judging by shots
of a wall clock, an autopsy of this importance took only 2 and
a half hours? It's no wonder that nearly all
special-effects artists think this is bogus. Says
Toronto-based Gordon Smith (Natural Born Killers, JFK),
thought by some pros to have built the "alien": "A
lot of us think it came out of England, from a B-grade studio."
Part of the show's appeal is its pretense
of objectivity. "We remain skeptical," Frakes
intones, summing up the opinions expressed by a number of
expert pathologists and cinematographers. But the evidence is
loaded to suggest that the film is genuine. At least two
experts insist that their critical observations were deleted.
One is Kevin Randle, whose investigations into the 1947 event
inspired last year's provocative Showtime film Roswell. Randle
believes that extraterrestrials did land there but that "the
alien-autopsy film is a hoax"--a suspicion the Fox show
doesn't make clear. Steve Johnson, a movie-effects
designer who created the aliens in Roswell
(and worked on The Abyss and Species), viewed the autopsy
footage at the Fox producers' request and told them it looked
"pretty phony." His comments were not used. Says
effects expert Stan Winston (Aliens, Jurassic Park), whose
on-camera interview suggests otherwise: "Do I think it's
a hoax? Absolutely."
This weekend, perhaps somewhere in England,
a small group of effects artists could be having a quiet
giggle and counting their cash. But it's a big universe out
there, big enough to harbor canny hoaxers, true believers,
wily debunkers--and lonely time travelers. So in some
alternate universe, Marvin and Mindy Martian just might be
sitting down to watch Human Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? Whether
that is likely or not, one point is beyond debate: the show
will be on Fox.
Reported by William Tynan/New York
Article reproduced for review purposes.
Copyright 1995 Time Inc. All rights reserved.