From: James Easton <pulsar@compuserve.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:08:01 -0500
Fwd Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:25:09 -0500
Subject: Re: Santilli Knew 'Tent Footage' Was a Fraud?


Regarding:

>From: Roger Evans <moviestuff@cyberjunkie.com>
>Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 08:20:40 +0000
>Subject: Re: Santilli Knew 'Tent Footage' Was a Fraud?

Roger wrote:

>Hi James,

<snip>

>If the info about Santilli processing the film is true, then it
>should be fairly easy to find the lab that did the work.


Roger,

We already know who it's claimed carried out the work. As Bob
Shell will no doubt recall, he confirmed having been informed,
"Film to video transfer was done in London by Rank".

Following a discrete enquiry, Rank clarified that any such
specialist work would be carried out by Rank Video Services in
London and suggested speaking to Roy Liddiard, the senior
manager there.

Familiar with the 'alien autopsy' film, Roy categorically and
formally refuted any suggestion his laboratory had been involved
and noted that even if another specialist laboratory had
processed the 'alien autopsy' film, he would have expected to
have heard something 'on the
grapevine'.


Bob later added:

"When I asked Ray who had done the copying of the original film
to a 16 mm dupe, he said that he wasn't sure.  He told me that
they had gone to one company who had agreed to do the work while
they waited, and that this firm had then changed their story and
said they would have to leave the film and come back and pick it
up later, which they certainly would never have done.

There was then a general conversation in the office as to who
had ultimately done the work.  Ray said something like "We ended
up having it done by Rank, didn't we?" and Chris [Cary] said
something like, "yes, it was Rank.  I'm pretty sure it was
Rank."

They promised to provide me with documentation when they had a
chance".


If Bob ever asked Ray Santilli for an explanation, perhaps he
can comment further.

I did ask Ray about it on a couple of occasions and the
questions were
never answered.



Regarding:

>Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 07:25:51 -0500
>From: Steven W. Kaeser <steve@konsulting.com>
>Subject: Re: Santilli Knew 'Tent Footage' Was a Fraud?

Steve wrote:

>I believe that Santilli also said the "film" was very fragile and had
>to be transfered to video a frame at a time, which may be the
>"processing" that he has referred to in some statements.


Steve,

Re the supposed condition of the 'archive' film, you may
remember "'My Story', by Ray Santilli", which was posted on the
Paragon web site, in which he claimed:

"After hearing the story I was taken to the cameraman's house
and viewed the footage. The cameraman had one reel of film that
he was able to show on an old projector. He moved the projector
over to a wall and projected the image on the wall itself".

However, in an early interview published by 'Strange Daze'
magazine/newsletter in the UK, he stated:

"...it's an interesting situation, you know, an alien autopsy,
you don't get that offered every day, so we took an internal
flight to his house which was some distance away from where we
met him, and he showed us on film everything that you have now
seen and that everyone has become interested in".


Whether any of the 'aging' film could have been projected, given
its claimed condition, was a question I asked Bob Shell and he
replied:

"The film Ray/Volker have is, according to them, extremely
brittle. If the pieces I have indeed come from this film, it is
far too brittle to be projected.  That is why I assume a later
copy is what was projected".


>Santilli indicated that the "cameraman" had to process a number of
>reels of film that required special processing, which I assume means
>a varying degree of 'push' processing for those rolls that needed it.
>These rolls he allegedly had to be processed by hand, which is why
>they  were still in his possession and not sent to Washington with
>the rest.

>From that alleged to be 'statement' by the 'cameraman':

"After filming, I had several hundred reels. I separated problem
reels which required special attention in processing (these I
would do later). The first batch was sent through to Washington
and I processed the remainder a few days later. Once the
remaining reels had been processed, I contacted Washington to
arrange collection of the final batch. Incredibly, they never
came to collect or arrange transportation for them. I called
many times and then just gave up. The footage has remained with
me ever since".

This story bites!

The 'alien autopsy' footage isn't a few 'problem reels', it's
effectively the entire filming of the purported event. Much of
the 'documentation' absent from the footage is in fact missing
due to broken sequences within the reels which do exist, in
other words, the missing segments were never filmed.

Entirely consistent of course with a hoaxed 'alien autopsy'.


It's easily proven by the crucial reel numbering as documented
in the 'raw footage', only released on video  - 'Roswell: The
Footage' - by Ray's company, that out of entire 'alien autopsy'
reels, which begin at reel number 53 and end at reel number 65
or 66, Ray supposedly has reels numbered 53, 54 or 55, 56, 59,
61, 62, 63, 64, and 65 or 66.

He also produced a photocopied label claimed to be from 'Reel #
52', the 'Truman' reel which was 'stuck together'.


So what did 'Washington' get?

At most they could only have received 4, maybe 5, of all the
'second alien autopsy' reels alleged to have been filmed.

Ray Santilli, as clearly evidenced by his own claims, has all
the rest.


Not only does this prove the 'cameraman' story to be somewhat
factually challenged, it's incredulous that the absence of
basically the entire film would never be noticed!

These are anomalies which any hoaxers would find difficult to
overcome if producing a convincingly lengthy 'alien autopsy'.
The ideal solution would be film unbroken sequences on each reel
and then you could declare the absent film documentation was on
the reels which were sent to 'Washington', in essence, what was
claimed. The problem would be, how to film long, unbroken
sequences which wouldn't allow time to 'skip' the more difficult
to fake 'procedures'.

What you would conceivably end up with are reels of film which
show parts of the 'autopsy', have numerous 'cuts' and which are
a summary of the entire event.

Exactly what we see on the film.



Regarding:

>Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 08:48:47 +0000
>Subject: Re: Santilli Knew 'Tent Footage' Was a Fraud?
>From: Bob Shell <bob@bobshell.com>

Bob wrote [in reply to Roger Evans]:

>>The accuracy of the price not withstanding, is it known if the
>>"test piece" was taken from a processed or unprocessed reel?

>Processed. And Kodak in London looked only at the edge markings,
>triangle and square, and said the film was definitely 1947. So did
>Kodak in Denmark. However, just like Ray these were younger people
>who did not know that the film identification chart they were using,
>printed by Kodak in Rochester, has an error which makes it seem that
>only in 1947 were a solid triangle and square used, while the ID
>marks for 1967 are shown in outline. When apprised of this error,
>they amended their statements to say the film could be 1947 or 1967
>(and remotely 1927).


Bob,

For the record, Kodak in Hemel Hempstead, London were asked to
examine a blank strip of film and confirmed the edge codes
suggested it could date from either 1927, 1947 or 1967.

It was only the Copenhagen office who didn't realise that the
edge codes repeated every 20 years.

It's something of an irrelevance as they were also asked to
offer an opinion on blank frames of film.



Regarding:

>Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:49:30 -0500
>From: Steven Kaeser <steve@konsulting.com>
>Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: Santilli's Film Scraps

Steve wrote:

>>Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 13:09:43 +0000
>>Subject: Re: Santilli's Film Scraps
>>From: Bob Shell <bob@bobshell.com>

>Bob-

>As I recall, the producer of the Channel 4 production in Great
>Britain in 1995 was sent more "samples" of the alleged film than
>anyone else. I have written to him, but got no response, and have no
>idea what kind of testing (if any) that he might have pursued.  Do
>you know how much film he had been sent, and whether or not he has
>pursued that angle at all.


Steve,

In a timely coincidence, Channel 4 repeated their 'Incident at
Roswell' documentary last night. It was essentially the same,
three-year old program, primarily addressing the 'Roswell' story
and briefly featuring the 'alien autopsy'.

The only possible additional information of remote consequence
(I can't recall this in the original broadcast) was that they
showed the 'film samples' which John Purdie has, with the
comment:

"After repeated requests, Ray Santilli did eventually provide
some frames of film for testing - a fragment of film leader and
an image of a Naval Officer that could have come from anywhere.
They bear no relation to any image in the autopsy footage and as
such are quite useless in establishing its authenticity".

Like the 'tent footage' which supposedly originated from the
'scrap reel' of aged, 16mm film, sold by the 'Roswell
cameraman', there is a distinct conclusion that there was never
any archive, 16mm 'alien autopsy' footage.


As that was always the default explanation, whilst open to
tangible evidence otherwise, of more interest became the
question of how this film had been perceived (and why almost
every expert opinion could be set against another one which was
contrary).

There may be numerous photographs and film, or video, which
depict apparently credible and anomalous unidentified objects.
However, none of them, even if genuine, are unequivocal evidence
of anything non-terrestrial.

The released 'alien autopsy' film depicted something which it
became clear could not conceivably be terrestrial and as footage
which was sufficiently credible to be taken seriously and indeed
determined by many medical experts to show a once living being,
it was not only compelling, it may be the closest thing to
absolute testimony of a non-human life form that many/any of us
will ever see.


So how was it generally perceived by 'ufologists'?

For some reason, there was a considerable hostile reaction to
the film.

Some of that was down to the challenge, if not threat, against
the 'true' Roswell story and the real 'alien autopsies'.

Ray Santilli had, including the largely unseen, yet apparently
equally credible 'first autopsy', some 20+ minutes of film
proclaiming to be evidence of a non-terrestrial life-form, with
some decent quality 'Roswell' debris thrown in! What was the
serious competition - the anecdotes of Glenn Dennis and Frank
Kaufmann?


A poignant commentary came from Rob Irving, who after the
inaugural 'Museum of London' showing of the 'alien autopsy',
wrote in 'Fortean Times':

"Perhaps strangest of all was the sight of that awkward mix of
known-believers in the ET hypothesis, known disbelievers,
believed fakers of it, innocent ostentionists, and the downright
disingenuous, all hissing 'hoax' at a piece of evidence that
seemed to me as impressive as any I'd seen.

But never in my lifetime had I expected to witness the
subsequent co-operation between traditional adversaries, all
seemingly galvanised into an unprecedented gush of agreement -
adopting what one of them called, 'a proper, sceptical attitude'
- that the film was a transparent fraud. Uh...? For, whoever is
responsible for the film has now provided ufologists with what
I'd assumed they had always wanted; firm, enticingly
inconclusive evidence that something _out there_ has somehow got
here".


One obvious problem was the absence of conclusive evidence,
although no preceding claims of 'non-terrestrial contact' had
provided this!

There were, however, unprecedented medical opinions which seemed
satisfied that the film was authentic and many unanswered
questions, which remain, about some of the impressive,
presumed/accepted SFX, the entire premise of financing two
superbly crafted 'alien autopsies', confidently taking it to
recognised experts in diverse, related fields, preventing any
'leaks' about its true origins, etc.

Are there any preceding or subsequent cases which,
comparatively, come close to providing so much scientifically
grounded substantiation?

Overall, surely enough to merit consideration as 'best evidence'
ever.

You won't see it in the top 10...20...30... though!

Why is that?


If Ray Santilli had merely claimed he was walking along London
Bridge, when he was abducted by aliens who told him that
'Roswell' and 'MJ-12' were real, maybe that would have been more
acceptable and he would have found a warm welcome, perhaps even
have become a celebrated 'abductee' at the annual conferences.

Yes, I know that's slightly facetious and intentionally so to
make a point.

But how far is it from 'the truth'?


What if... Ray Santilli claimed he had been threatened by
sinister representatives of the US government. Would the 'alien
autopsy' instantly have been perceived as 'probably authentic'?

Think about it.


These are questions, not necessarily opinions...

Some reflections on a saga, which I believe Bob Shell once
astutely referred to as "smoke and mirrors".



James.
E-mail: pulsar@compuserve.com