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ficult is it to copy methods used by psy- Viewers Find Flaws with 'Alien chic healers to fake blood? (Take a small hidden balloon or a hypodermic full of Autopsy' Film colored corn syrup and squirt it down the blade of a scalpel and you will get the I do most of the public Yerkes The film looks entirely too full of very "realistic" appearance of real bleed- Observatory tours, as well as private scratches and light leaks. It is as if some- ing cuts.) I do not believe the special programs, and so consider myself will- one were told to make a modern film effects people when they say they can't ing and able to answer questions about appear old and went a bit too far. imagine how such a thing could be faked. astronomy. During the question-and- The special effects people may be At least one of the advertisements answer period someone inevitably asks, experts, but not in exobiology or sci- was for the "alien autopsy video," which "What about Roswell?" The SKEPTICAL ence. They too were probably told they suggests we are watching an "infomer- INQUIRER has provided me both the were watching the real autopsy of the cial" designed to sell us the product. methods and information necessary to real alien. Extraordinary claims require extraor- answer the question. The Sharper Image catalog sells for dinary proof. Not once are we given People have been asking me about more than $1,000 an "authentic" fake anything real, no knowledge we could the so-called alien autopsy video. "alien" made from the same mold that only have gotten from an authentic None of die people interviewed could produced die "alien" in the movie Roswell. extraterrestrial, no real artifacts. possibly be said to be experts in exobiol- I find it fascinating that the Sharper In brief, the "alien autopsy film" was ogy! Where were die real biologists? The Image "alien" looks quite different from about the least likely candidate for proof astrophysicists? The pathologists? that shown in the alien autopsy film. that aliens exist that I have ever seen. It Many of those interviewed assume The entire movie was filmed with the is not scary, not realistic, and it is poorly the "film" was made in 1947 because camera person moving continuously, made (despite what we are told). For the dial's what they were told, over and much in die style of "N.Y.P.D. Blue" and same price of the video you can buy The over. If, however, the film was made indeed many modern commercials. I Day the Earth Stood Still and be more recently, all of their subsequent com- believe such motion is intended to con- thoroughly entertained. ments are worthless. vince viewers that they are watching a One of die nonexperts marvelled home movie. I think this is a dead give- Richard Dreiser that the organs came out "like chunks of away. T h e anonymous camera person was Lake Geneva, Wise. meat," and that ihcrc was no connecting filming in a modern style. Real autopsy tissue. Now that's a correct assessment. films would not be made this way. If the organs aren't connected, they What's a telephone doing inside an I had an opportunity to view "Alien would slide around every time the operating theater? Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" on its "alien" moved! I propose they were There are almost too many "props," November 25, 1995, rebroadcast. To me indeed "chunks" of something. The more than necessary. Most are inexpensive the most blatant Hollywood effect was the more I diink about it, the more the props one could find at a scientific or army scalpel cut along the side of the neck from "alien" resembles something that could surplus store (I have half in my dark- the ear to the shoulder/chest region. It was have been half-baked in an oven. room). Where are the more sophisticated typical of a contemporary knife-cut effect, There did not appear to be any sign instruments one might expect to see? exhibiting the following characteristics: of ribs or the equivalent. The poor crea- No X rays appear to have been taken! (1) As the blade was drawn along the ture's organs must have sloshed around How does the "surgeon" know how deep neck, the "blood" appeared immedi- every time it moved! to cut into the cranium? ately, adjacent to the blade. (2) The We are told over and over that no No bones were removed from the blood appeared in a uniformly wide one in 1947 would have had the tech- "alien." The insides of the "mouth" were line. (3) The blood appeared entirely to nology to make such a realistic film. We never checked. No teeth were shown. A one side of the blade ("uphill" from the are told such an elaborate hoax could tracheotomy was not performed! All of blade, at that). (4) The blood appeared not be made today. Over and over we these would be routine, especially if the only on the side of the blade away from are told how well made the film is, as if "alien" were real. The lack of such exam- the camera. (5) Once the blood by repetition we will come to believe it. inations is consistent with the idea that appeared, it didn't drip or run, but Through sheer repetition, many watch- the "alien" is not much more than a stayed where it had first appeared, in a ing may come to believe that the stuffed mask. line of uniform width for the duration of the cut. Only in later shots did we see autopsy was real. However, it is really a We are led to believe the blood drip a couple runs of blood from this cut. rather shoddy piece of filming. ping from the scalpel incisions is signifi- Even then, the two drips had ceased Since there are so many obvious cant. Why is there no sign of blood com- flaws, the question about when the film ing from the right damaged leg? (Would was made is moot. a dead alien continue to bleed?) How dif- Readers continued on page 59

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/Apnl 1996 57 Readers continued from page 57 the worst possible design of an I beam. I ported alien wreckage and two purported beams were invented as a more efficient alien "typewriters" designed for six-fin- running by the time they were seen. way to carry a load. This is done by gered hands. T h e program enthusiastically These characteristics are the result of a putting as much material as possible compared them to our most advanced tube hidden behind die blade that deliv- away from the center axis of the beam. ergonomic hand-shaped keyboard. ers stage blood from a syringe operated The best design uses thick top and bot- Only one problem. The alien "key- off-camera. Remember the times you've tom cross sections and a thin vertical board" has two closely set "hands" cut yourself with a sharp hobby knife or section. The middle section of an 1 beam angled inward toward the user, complete razor? Rather than appearing instandy, does little to contribute to the load-car- with depressions for the wrists. The the blood seems to take a couple of sec- rying capacity of the structure. In fact, aliens would have to glue their elbows many times holes will be drilled through onds before it gushes up. For a corpse together in front of their navels to use it! the middle section of an I beam to with no circulation, the blood appeared The remainder of the wreckage in no reduce its weight even more with little at the cut without delay, yet only in quan- way resembles the Roswell foil-and-balsa effect on its load-carrying capacity. The tity sufficient to form a line without run- described by (for want of a better term) beam shown on this broadcast appears ning. This would indicate tls.it the source "witnesses." of blood had moved on with the blade, as though someone tried to make an I I recently mailed to [pub- rather than originating from inside the beam that "looked alien." But no matter lisher's representative, SI] a tape contain- body. At no time during this cut did the what planet you're from, the laws of ing a mid-1950s episode of "Science camera move around for position as it did physics are the same. Only beings with Fiction Theater," titled "Bulletproof." in the rest of the film. This would be nec- subhuman knowledge of structural The program concerned the discovery of essary to conceal the blood delivery tube design would have designed an I beam bulletproof alien "foil" left in the desert on the far side of the scalpel. like the one shown on this broadcast. by a damaged saucer. I wonder just People trying to launch careeis in the Since the first time I heard about the when the Roswell story developed the motion picture industry must demon- incident near Roswell, I had hoped that "super-foil" detail. I suspect a check of strate their skills to the establishment. someday the truth would come out the records will prove the television This often is accomplished dirough one about what really happened, but this show came first. or more demonstration films done as stu- film is an obvious hoax. dent film projects. George Lucas's THX R. D. Horton 1138 was one such student film project. Gene Schildmeier Wilmore, Ky. If the participants demonstrate their skills Anderson, Ind. adequately, they stand to land themselves careers in the industry. Remember Stan With regard to die "Alien Autopsy" film, I Winston's statement after viewing this There is no need to go into any fine noticed in die still frames reproduced on film? "If you came to me and said that detail to decide whether or not the pages 18 and 19 of SI (Nov./Dec. 1995), you created tins illusion, you'd be work- Roswell alien autopsy film was a hoax. If that die wall telephone clearly has a coiled ing here [snaps fingers] like that!" It's my it had been an autopsy of a genuine handset cable. I thumbed through some opinion that we've witnessed a skills "alien" it would have been the most old magazines (National Geographic) and demonstration film, and that the talents important autopsy in the history of found die earliest depiction of a coiled behind it soon will be coming forward to medicine. Any official film would have handset cable occurred in a Bell claim their new careers. been of the highest possible quality— Telephone advertisement in December of but what we saw was pathetic. 1954. Has anyone determined when Wayne Orlicki Secondly, as pointed out in the coiled handset cables became available? If Hemet, Calif. (Nov./Dec. 1995, they were not made until the 1950s then p. 16), it would have been attended by the film, which purports to have been several unmasked official observers, but shot in 1947, is proven to be a hoax. The Fox television network aired "Alien not one was seen. W h y not? Because any Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" for the third faces seen would have been identifiable E. Vernon Buck time on November 25, 1995. However and the physical presence of these iden- San Lorenzo, Calif. this time, in addition to showing an tified verifiable. Hoaxers could not risk autopsy of an alien creature, they pre- this, so every person seen in the autopsy Several other readers commented similarly. sequences had to be masked. sented footage showing pieces of the alien The phone and the coiled cord at first craft that crashed near Roswell. Pieces of appeared to be obvious anachronisms, a a control panel and an I beam were Stanley Shoop 'smoking gun" proving the film to be a shown. Being a mechanical engineer, the Elstrce, Herts., U.K. hoax. But very recently several photos pub- shape of the I beam caught my attention. lished in 1947 of such a phone and coiled The top and bottom cross sections of cord have been found, and a similar wall the beam were very thin and the middle Fox recendy showed "Alien Autopsy" phone (Western Electric Model 354) existed vertical section was very thick. This is again—with "added footage" of pur- as early as 1937.—EDITOR

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 1996 59 The "'Alien Autopsy' Show-and-Tell: nique available. Stage blood can be man- vision in the 1950s, before the advent of Long on Tell, Short on Show" report by ufactured in two separate compounds, color or when it was still something of C. Eugene Emery, Jr. reminded me of a one of which resembles iodine, while the an expensive novelty. Thus, Navy and story I read and enjoyed when it was other dries invisibly on any surface. The Marine Corps footage was transformed published 20 years ago. Theodore dear element can be painted on a subject's into black and white for documentaries Sturgeon's "Occam's Scalpel" (1971, skin and the brownish liquid on the such as Victory at Sea, The Twentieth U.P.D. Publishing) presages the present ostensible "cutting" blade. When the two Century, and Air Power. The networks craze over the distorted mythology of come into contact, realistic stage blood apparently got into the habit of assem- that "." oozes forth. One advantage of this inex- bling their own libraries of stock pensive and simple technique is that the footage—in black and white—so even In contrast to the national news "cutting" blade can be passed from hand when color became the standard, refer- releases and "questionable" autopsy films to hand with no tubes for die filmmakers ences to World War II continued to use on which 5/ dwells, Sturgeon's story is to conceal. the secondhand black-and-white stock about a closely held conspiracy of silence footage radier than the color conver- between two physician brothers whose Second, on page 18, a Kodak spokes- sions in the government archives. aim is to influence a single man into cor- person is quoted as saying that he was recting world ecology disaster. They use asked to authenticate the date of a print It was not until the English produc- one brother's highly refined moulage of the "autopsy" film. Shooting such a tion The World At War was aired in the skills to create a convincing alien documentary event indoors without United States in the early 1970s that the cadaver, along with the other's delicate providing extensive artificial lighting public discovered that the familiar stock sense of theater, to manipulate a man. would be best accomplished using a Pacific war footage was actually in color, Any sort of Roswell incident smoking negative film, especially given the evi- a point driven home more emphatically gun of incriminating evidence is thor- dent inexperience of the cinematogra- with the movie Midway, which con- oughly destroyed by their immediate pher. Making the reasoning assumption verted the 16mm originals, with incom- cremation of the model. that the original film was a negative and plete success, into the standard 35mm not a reversal stock, it is meaningless to Hollywood format. One of Sturgeon's characters quotes date the print. The "autopsy" could eas- Occam's razor as a test of logical verity The hoaxers, either unaware that mil- ily have been filmed recently on a new holding that, "Given an effect and a itary color photography was quite com- negative and then printed onto positive choice of possible causes, die simplest mon in World War II or convinced that stock of the correct vintage. cause is always the one most likely to be most audiences would accept that in 1947 true." Using this harmlessly erroneous As a longtime, yet nonscientist, black-and-white film was all that was rule (by which propounders of the reader, I am pleased to have finally found available, used black-and-white film to "Roswell Incident" deceive), he manip- a subject on which I could comment. lend an air of bogus authenticity and ulates a man into expending money and antiquity to their proceedings. Also, effort working to repel alien invaders. David Kalat because color stock tends to degrade more Could this fiction have inspired (or even Bloomington, Ind. quickly than black-and-white stock, it tainted slightly) the phony autopsy on may have been next to impossible to find what appeared to experts as an appar- usable, 50-year-old, color film. endy "standing lifecast" alien? "Ros- One aspect of the Roswell autopsy hoax The use of black-and-white film is wellites" have obviously not adhered to that has inspired surprisingly litde com- among the best evidence of a hoax. Why the rigor of formal logic, but how can ment is the nature of the film itself. Why would scientists not document this they be so gullible as to proclaim belief would a 1947 autopsy be filmed in black remarkable "discovery" as best they could? that "alien invasion" is the simplest solu- and white? The hoaxers, and most of their Color film of an autopsy would have far tion under a perverted Occam's test critics as well, seem to be under the mis- more scientific value than black-and- when discovering twisted metallic taken impression that American military white. The first atom bomb tests, two reflectors and supporting braces? cameramen of that era used only black- years earlier, were filmed in color. Why and-white film. After all, wasn't World not this even more astounding event? Jonathan S. Hudson War II "the one in black and white"? Color stock was readily available. In short, to ask die question is also to answer it. La Luz, N.M. In fact, the Navy used color stock throughout the war, a fact that infuriated the Army when it discovered it had been Edward B. Furey, Jr. Your coverage of the "Alien Autopsy" pro- one-upped in this aspect of the publicity Woodhaven, N.Y. gram in the November/December 1995 wars. In John Ford's documentary of the issue raised two points. On page 19, Joe Battle of Midway, gun-camera footage of Nickell writes that the illusion of a scalpel blasted Zeroes and kamikazes plunging Readers might with to consult our subse- leaving a trail of blood on the skin was into or just missing carriers and odier quent article, "How to make an 'Alien probably achieved using "a tube fastened men of war blaze forth in vivid hues. for 'Autopsy" by Trey Stokes, a Hollywood to the far side of the blade." In fact, there However, most of the documentaries creature effects artist (SI, January/ is a more efficacious special effects tech- using this film were produced for tele- February 1996).—EDITOR D

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