From: Gildas Bourdais <GBourdais@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 12:57:35 EST
Fwd Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 06:37:48 -0500
Subject: Re: FOX Hoax Special - Reaction



>Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 22:59:22 -0500
>From: James Easton <pulsar@compuserve.com>
>Subject: UFO UpDate: Re: FOX Hoax Special - Reaction
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>

>Regarding the FOX 'Hoax Special' program...

<snip>

>Still many more questions than answers.


Thank you for your interesting analysis, and your very
appropriate conclusion, it seems to me. Just a few more
thoughts:

I find very improbable that Ray Santilli, a small music
producer, would have launched in such a risky and costly
operation of producing a highly complex hoax by himself. Just
think of the risk of a member of the production team leaking any
part of the story, even inadvertantly, any time in the future.
For instance when talking to a friend, who would repeat it, etc.
Santilli would soon have several dozens of TV networks suing him
and would end up in jail for swindling.

On the other hand the mere fact that he put the film on the
market means that he was very sure of not being prosecuted.
However, many parts of his story, such as the camaraman's story,
are not credible. Just to mention the claim of having kept
highly secret reels and developped them himself. The story is
preposrerous, and therefore Santilli did not get the film the
way he says.

So what happened ?? I am surprised that the very possible
hypothesis of a "secret services" operation has been paid so
little attention, apparently (or am I wrong here ?). And yet,
there are many precedents. If we go back in time, we know that,
for instance, AFOSI issued doctored documents and informations
to ufological circles, some of them through William Moore, who
confessed it. So, why not a film ?

What would be the purpose of such an operation ? Perhaps two
purposes. The first one would be to jam inquiries on Roswell
getting too close to the truth. Please note the worldwide
release of the film coincided with the GAO report which, as a
consequence, drew little attention in the press. In France, the
autopsy footage was a disaster, not only for Roswell but for
ufology itself, from which we are slowly recovering.

The second purpose, on the other hand, might be to accustom the
general public to the idea of the alien presence on Earth, and
to the future revelation of secret operations, which require
obviously a long preparation (That's my optimistic touch). All
this does not necessarily mean that the film is authentic. Il
may just be close to the truth, but with some deliberate
inaccuracies, just like, perhaps in other operations such as the
MJ-12 documents, etc.

I would be interested to read convincing arguments against this
hypothesis. When the film was shown in France, on the TF1
network, I was invited for my book on Roswell, and at the end of
the show I asked this question to Bob Kiviat, who was there :
"What about the "secret services" hypothesis ?" He did not
reply, and I did not insist. But he would have been well advised
to think about it because his recent show does not seem to be
the end of the story.

Incidentally, I may have some information to release soon on the
"KGB secrets" TV production. Russian ufologist Boris Shurinov,
to whom I sent the video, has already presented a rather
devastating analysis of it at a recent conference in Italy
(Cagliari, in Sardinia, 12 december 1998). He is to send me soon
a summary of it (he was completing his inquiry)  with his
authorization to circulate it. Just to give an example,  he
claims that the uniforms of the soldiers are not correct : they
wear an officer's belt! Again, we will have to wonder about who
made that video.

Gildas Bourdais