Roswell

THROUGH THE HAZY black and white footage, the relaxed shape of a bloated, swollen-headed, six-fingered humanoid figure can just be viewed. The grainy scene is a bizarre image of death as the pathologist cuts into the alien skin. Could this be the most incredible evidence ever uncovered to prove that something out of this world really did land at Roswell over fifty years ago?

On 7th July 1947 the wreckage of a strange vehicle and some non-human bodies was found on the Foster ranch just outside Roswell. The next day, a press officer from the Roswell Army Air Fields was happy to announce to the Roswell Daily Record that the 509th Bomb Group, an elite section of the Air Force, had salvaged an alien vessel. Immediately his words were refuted. The US 8th Air Force?s commanding officer, General Roger Ramey, said they had actually recovered an experimental balloon. Ramey?s explanation was quickly adopted as the official line throughout the following years, and this technique of outright denial would continue to be championed by governments questioned about flying saucer stories.

Although the public initially accepted the official version of events, this episode sparked a consistent stream of UFO sightings, particularly around remote US Air Force bases. Sites such as Area 51 in Nevada, and the government?s denial of its existence, led to suspicion and conspiracy theories. The 1947 ?Roswell Incident? itself has also never quite left the public consciousness. In 1994 a New Mexico congressman instigated an inquiry into the affair. The investigative department of the US Congress, known as the General Accounting Office, discovered that many relevant US Air Force documents had gone missing or had been destroyed. However, the GAO also came to the conclusion that it was, indeed, a weather balloon that had been recovered from the Foster ranch, and the bodies there were in fact anthropomorphic dummies. Case closed.

Little did US officials realise that the ?Roswell Incident? was about to dramatically appear on television screens across the globe. In 1992, a British media businessman, Ray Santilli was in Cleveland, Ohio to meet a retired cameraman. Santilli wanted to buy some vintage 1955 Elvis footage from the man, who revealed he also had some interesting alien autopsy film from his time in the military. Santilli purchased the film in November 1994 and agreed to show it at the British UFO Research Association annual conference on 19th August 1995. However, by March 1995 news of the film had been released to the media, and a serious world premier of the footage was needed. It took place in front of invited guests at the Museum of London on 5th May. By the end of August 1995, millions of people around the world had seen moving pictures from a supposed alien autopsy.
Although this was compelling evidence, doubters immediately began voicing their theories about the film. The most obvious suspicion was that the autopsy had been created by movie special effects processes. Many experts believe the film is fake, but they also believe it is very high quality. The Hollywood effects industry is a closed shop, with insiders having friends and contacts across the range of companies, but so far no-one has an inkling as to who created the Roswell film. Other experts in the field of biology are less convinced that the body is entirely man-made, and some suspect that it may be a human being adapted to look other?worldly.
There is a whole host of further questions about the Roswell autopsy. Whoever captured the footage has never been revealed, although a bizarre film was released where someone purporting to be the cameraman attempted to explain his involvement. Santilli has never uncovered the footage he has of another alien autopsy and has never really allowed any of his films to be subjected to proper scrutiny. Most importantly, the aliens in the footage look nothing like the bodies witnesses saw recovered from the New Mexico desert floor. All experts who view the autopsy film agree that it is a fake. Santilli has made a great deal of money from the Roswell autopsy footage, and he still maintains that it is genuine. The rest of us will probably never know. The public?s natural instinct is to question governmental denials, but the other options here are also so unreliable that it is very hard to determine the truth.