Nexus - 0306 - New Times Magazine-pages

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THE 'ROSWEll FOOTAGE' RELEASE A bout a year and a half ago, on 5th May 1995, the London-based film producer Ray Santilli for the first time presented his alleged alien autopsy footage to an audience of invited media representatives and UFO researchers at the London Museum. Even before that date, a very emotional debate had already started. Angry ufologists had challenged Santilli to shut up or work together with them, while oth ers had claimed from the very beginning that the film is a hoax just because it doesn't fit into their concept of what happened in New Mexico in the summer of 1947. Santilli's marketing policy, his commercial exploitation of the film, his ignorance in the UFO field and his violation of all the unwritten protocols of the UFO community didn't find many friends among ufologists, and quite soon many screamed "Hoax!" without being able to prove anything. One researcher even concluded, "There is no [16 mm] film and no cameraman", after quoting page after page of all the rumours, second- and third hand information and inconsistencies among Santilli's claims (or alleged claims), to prove that he was right from the very beginning when he suspected a scam, because the being on the autopsy table looked "too humanoid to be an extrnterrestrial", yet ignoring that this is exactly how most eyewitnesses describe crashed ufonauts.' Unfortunately, those who searehed for the truth, wherever it might be, were few in number. Willing to listen to Santilli first, before they judged and checked out the infor mation they could get before asking for more, were mainly Philip Mantle (UK), Bob Shell (USA) and Miehael Hesemann (Germany)-the International Research Team (IRT) joined by Maurizio Baiata and Roberto Pinotti (Italy), Johannes Baron of Buttlar (Germany), Odd-Gunnar Roed (Norway), Hanspeter Wachter (Switzerland), Col. Colman VonKeviczky, Dr Bruce Maccabee, Joe Stefula, Lt. Col. W. C. Stevens, Ted Loman, Robert Morning Sky, Llewellyan Wykel and Dennis Murphy (USA), and others. Let me point out that we found Ray Santilli always very friendly, helpful and coopera tive although sometimes limited in his actions by agreements with his business partners and the cameraman. I wonder if any 'major international media corporation' would ever have been even nearly as open to any reasonable research approach as Mr Santilli indeed was. The following is a summary of results from the IRT's first year of investigation. THE CAMERAMAN Yes, there is a cameraman. We located people, besides Santilli, who had spoken to him over the phone: Gary Shoefield of Polygram, Pl1ilip Mantle, John Purdie of Channel Four (UK) and the secretary of David Roehring of Fox Network, USA. He is American, an old man, and lives in Florida. He was in hospital when Gary Shoefield wanted to meet him. and was coughing when Philip Mantle had him on the phone. According to his story he had polio as a child.' Polio victims at that time mostly walked with a limp. He could not have had a bad hand, otherwise he could not have worked as a cameraman, but maybe he by Michael Hesemann had a bad leg. The movement of the cameraman in the film indicates this, since he doesn't © 19% move smoothly. Bob Shell enquired among senior US military cameramen if they could remember a colleague from the 19405 with a bad leg. They knew one. His name is Jack Editor/Publ isher "X", and he is exactly the age claimed for the SantiJli cameraman: eighty-six.' Magazin 2000 The cameraman is not Jack Bamett-a name used originally by Santilli to protect the Worringer Strasse 1(cid:1) identity of the true cameraman. Jack Barnett worked for Universal News, filmed Elvis D·40211 Dusseldorf, Germany(cid:1) Presley at a high-school concert in 1955 and died in 1969. Jack X did not work for Fax: +49 (0)211 354893(cid:1) Universal, but filmed Elvis at another concert, an open-air one, when the Universal cam OCTOBER· NOVEMBER 1996 NEXUS·61