Despite the rapidly shrinking number of punters, the "Alien Autopsy" circus still attracts the attention of a few determined believers. Mr Santilli continues to figuratively dangle the carrot in front of these asses and, although the promises which they have been given are never fulfilled, hope, it would seem, springs eternal.
There have been several promises of meetings with the mysterious alleged cameraman. Michael Hesemann was to have met him in February when he travelled to the US. Bob Kiviat, who made the dramatic Fox TV documentary "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" has been promised the first exclusive interview with the cameraman. All of these meetings have yet to materialise. Bob Shell and Michael Hesemann had what was described as a teleconference with the cameraman -- but we find that this consisted of them being on one line to Santilli and the alleged cameraman being on another. This can hardly be called an interview. As I have predicted previously, the cameraman will no doubt sooner or later suffer an unexpected demise which will bring an end to this charade.
The actual number of "cameramen" also seems to be multiplying. A media company called Orion has allegedly found another cameraman, different from Santilli's. Others have identified a certain "Jack Snow" who was a US military cameraman at that time with a high level security clearance, though we have yet to hear what became of him. The number of alleged crash sites for Mr Santilli's flying saucer has also multiplied. Months after he told me that the saucer crashed just outside the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation (perhaps 85 miles west of Roswell), and last summer Michael Hesemann was directed, by the cameraman, to a site further west near Socorro. Bob Shell has more recently been pointed, by the cameraman, to yet another site to the west of Magdalena nearly 200 miles west of Roswell. A further site in that area has been been identified by yet another researcher. It seems that the cameraman's memory of where he went and found the "crashed saucer burning in the desert" is anything but consistent.
Mr Santilli had said he would appear and speak at the Ozark
UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on April 12/14
together with Bob Shell. Bob was going to be given a copy of
the "First Autopsy" footage, which had never before been seen
in public, to show at the conference. However, in the event,
there was no Santilli and no new autopsy footage. It was said
that Volker Spielberg had blocked any move to make available
the videotape of this footage. More unfulfilled promises ...
could Ray Santilli's non-appearance have been due to the fact
that I was at the conference and due to appear on the panel
discussion of the whole business ?
Alien HILDA: developments.
At a lecture on "Area 51" which I gave to a BUFORA audience at the University of Westminster in London on February 3rd, the notorious Gang of Three -- Irving, Lundberg and Dickinson -- were seen to be sitting in the second row of the audience. This was not unexpected and inevitably the subject of Alien HILDA was raised and discussed at the end of the session. I said that I believed these three were involved in the making of the "Alien Autopsy" film, and after turning up the lights in the lecture theatre and pointing them out to the rest of the audience, I specifically accused them of just that.
Never has one seen three more uncomfortable looking
individuals. Initially they made no reply at all. If body
language was anything to go by, the three were undoubtedly
guilty as charged. Irving finally launched into a heated
verbal attack on me, and three times I interrupted him to say
"Did you, or did you not, take part in the making of Mr
Santilli's Alien Autopsy footage?". He avoided any denial of
this accusation and so did John Lundberg. Afterwards Rod
Dickinson came up and did make a denial of involvement but
immediately spoilt this by stating that he had never set eyes
on Ray Santilli. That, I said, was patently untrue since I had
seen Rod myself within a few feet of Santilli at the inaugural
showing of the Alien Autopsy film, when it was presented by
Santilli in the Museum of London on May 5th 1995. To the best
of my knowledge, Rob Irving and John Lundberg have yet to make
any public denial of their involvement in the making of the
hoaxed footage. This is a very peculiar omission on the part
of an innocent party.
Irving's counterblast.
At any time now it seems Irving will issue a furious counter- blast against me saying that the basis for my article on Alien HILDA (Bulletin 12) was spurious and was based entirely on false information which was deliberately fed to me by someone with whom he was in league. His counter-accusation will most probably be posted on the Internet now that he has a net connection via Compuserve. Most likely venue: Compuserve's Encounters Forum. He is also likely to publish private e-mail claiming that I sent it to this person: Chris Kenworthy.
An alternative venue for publishing all of this dubious material might be the scurrilous broadsheet "Crapwatcher" which is edited by the demented and litigious Paul Fuller.
It is certainly true that I have corresponded via e-mail with
Chris Kenworthy, who is a small-time circlefaker. I hardly
know this man and would certainly not recognise him if I met
him. Some months ago he contacted me and suggested that he
could find out more about the involvement of the Gang of Three
in the making of the Alien Autopsy footage since, being a
circlefaker, he was on fairly close terms with them. I
certainly encouraged him to do just that but remained wary.
A set-up which failed.
However it was not long before he began to relay supposed details of how the footage was made at a large private house in north London, and of the other people supposedly involved, which was transparently untrue. I never published any of this material and rated it as one would rate information supplied by any dubious source such as a petty police informer. He produced various names which he now admits were contrived (such as John Marek, Clare Wilson, Greg Prentice, etc.) and tried to imply Philip Mantle was part of the scam which is something I have never believed. His advice to "be wary of James Easton" led me to think exactly the opposite.
Naturally, any e-mail of mine which Irving obtained from him - - some of which Irving recently faxed back to me together with a veiled threat -- is of considerably less import than he will imply, quite apart from the fact that it's only too easy to alter other people's e-mail in order to give it a totally false meaning. Such forgeries are undetectable. (See also the section on Irving's forged photo in the Fortean Times, below).
Whether Kenworthy was always in cahoots with the Gang of Three or whether he was duped by them is hardly relevant, since the basis for my article on Alien HILDA did not rest on anything Kenworthy had said. The accusation that Irving, Lundberg and Dickinson were responsible for creating and filming the autopsy is based on all sorts of considerations and anything contributed by Kenworthy forms the very least part of it. Irving's new attack on me is thus without real foundation.
If these people are truly innocent of the charge, let them say
so in public -- clearly and specifically. In the same way
that they have failed to deny authorship of a large number of
specific crop circles which I've accused them of making in the
last four years, it seems that they will avoid denying that
they made Alien HILDA. Irving's anger, judging by what he has
said, rests on his belief that I had no firm evidence against
him for the HILDA article. The fact that the accusation
against him was correct seems to be of secondary importance.
A forged photograph.
Rob Irving contributed an article to the Dec '95/ Jan '96 Fortean Times (Issue 84) entitled "Boom! time for UFOs". It concerned a mysterious explosion or shockwave which had been heard in the vicinity of the NATO Air Force Base at Aviano in NE Italy. Very likely this was a sonic boom made by some military aircraft but for various reasons it was elevated to mystery status, together with other fairly banal happenings at Aviano, and made the subject of this article. This has no direct bearing on the Santilli affair but what follows well illustrates Irving's all-consuming penchant for deception.
What has upset very many readers of Fortean Times is that the article included a photograph taken by Irving of what appeared to be a UFO peeking out of a hangar at the base. The caption posed the question of whether this showed a 'spacecraft' or a jet fighter, clearly implying that it was a UFO. The photo was said to have been "enhanced by computer".
Here was a blatant example of a forged photograph intended to trick the readership. In an instant the Fortean Times, which is widely regarded as an honest and respected journal of bizarre and anomalous events, sank to the level of "Weekly World News", which makes up its news and forges its photos in the editorial offices. ("World War II Bomber Found on the Moon" and "President Clinton Meets with Aliens" have been some Weekly World News headlines with bogus photos to match.) Is the Fortean Times really going to descend to this level?
Well, of course it will, if it continues to publish articles
by someone like Irving. A lame apology by editor Bob Rickard
in the latest edition explains that Irving's "trick photo" was
done by scanning his actual photo of the Aviano hangar into a
computer and then using appropriate software to insert a photo
of a "Bob Lazar" UFO model in the open doors of the hangar.
OK, but why did the magazine allow this to be presented as a
supposedly genuine photo? And the question must arise whether
Irving is capable of publishing anything other than hoaxes.
The Roswell 'Incident' !!! Party.
On Saturday October 7th of last year, "from 8 till late", John Lundberg and his partner Rachel threw a fancy dress party entitled "The Roswell 'Incident' !!!". This was at his home in Leighton Road, Kentish Town, N. London, in their two-storey terraced house with a blue front door. When I wrote the Alien HILDA report in Bulletin 12 (November 22nd) I was quite unaware of this party and its theme, and a copy of the invitation, has come from a reliable source (obviously not Kenworthy). The Gang of Three will probably claim this too was a set-up -- but there is no doubt that the party actually took place.
The invitation sheet is half taken up by a large photo of Alien HILDA's open-mouthed but lifeless dummy-head being gently touched by the hands of the "autopsy surgeon". The very tongue-in-cheek wording beside this is all of the "nudge nudge, wink wink" variety and it gives a brief synopsis for "those not in the know":-
July 1947. Something crashed in the New Mexico desert. Mac Brazel finds strange debris -- including a shard of metal with the words VIDEO TV embossed on its side -- over three quarters of a mile of the sheep ranch he manages. Could it be a flying saucer? The military are called in sparking off a massive cover-up.
August 1995. London businessman Ray Santilli releases on video the 'original' archive footage of the Roswell incident including one of the autopsies carried out on a recovered latex dummy -- I mean alien!!!
Suggestions for fancy dress: Come as ---
One of the Roswell aliens President TrumanRay Santilli(or his company Merlin) One of Brazel's sheep
A 'Deep Throat' informant USAF personnel
A MIB (Man-in-Black) One of the witnesses
A pathologist (complete with anti-contamination suit)
You get the idea ?
But remember, "there isn't a single shred of evidence to say the film is a fake. The evidence is mounting fast towards that it's genuine." --Ray Santilli ... ooh, er!!!
No doubt great fun was had by all and I'm only sorry I wasn't
invited. Of course this doesn't PROVE that Lundberg & Co.
created Alien HILDA but it certainly gives a very interesting
insight into their involvement with the autopsy saga. One
might conjecture that some of the attendees could have worn
the actual anti-contamination suits used in filming the
autopsy footage. One wonders too whether ordinary uninvolved
people ever give Roswell Alien Autopsy parties like this with
snidely worded invitations ?
Identifying the hoax perpetrators.
For anyone who still doubts that the autopsy footage is an elaborate hoax, there is Kent Jeffrey's excellent analysis of the autopsy saga which reveals major flaws both in the story and what is seen in the footage. This is entitled "Santilli's Controversial Autopsy Movie" and it can be found on the International Roswell Initiative (IRI) Internet web page: http://www.roswell.org
This article will leave one in no doubt. Having accepted the sad but unavoidable fact the footage is a hoax, one obviously must consider the question of who did it. That was the purpose of my Alien HILDA article in Bulletin 12. (A minor error in this bulletin was in saying that the autopsy footage may even have been shot just using modern video. It was certainly initially shot on 16 mm cine film, though the date of that film was undoubtedly much more recent than 1947! Thanks go to John Lundberg for pointing out this error.)
The police, when confronted with an unusual and distinctive crime, look in their files and sometimes come up with records of crimes of a similar nature and who was responsible. The UFO community only has to do likewise in this case and it will see that the Gang of Three perfectly fit the required profile for the hoaxers. And, as I've said previously, such hoaxers are never invisible: they cannot resist hanging about in the wings watching the effect of their deception and adding to the confusion which they have caused. Nor can they resist taking part in the ensuing debate (which these days will be mostly on the Internet), speaking as skeptics but firmly trying to place the blame other than where it really belongs.
George Wingfield, April 23rd 1996.
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