Philip Mantle, an investigator with the respected British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), claims to have seen a portion of the film himself, and says it depicts an alien creature, evidently dead, being worked on by two men in a desert location (see below). To date, however, very few other people claim to have viewed any of the film. Meanwhile, stories and speculations proliferate.
Kent Jeffrey, U.S. author of the Roswell Declaration, and his German counterpart in the International Roswell Initiative effort, Joachim Koch, have both expressed grave concern that the film will damage the credibility of the Roswell case if it proves fake. In a recent statement, Koch said: "We see the danger that the whole current Roswell effort is torpedoed if it emerges that the footage is a hoax. There is a danger that the public looses interest when another thing that was blown up by individuals and by the media vanishes into thin air.
"Perhaps exactly this is intended," Koch said. "We do not have to be naive...Please stay cautious!"
CNI News thanks Sheldon Wernikoff for the first three of the following articles, and James Sutton for the last article in the series.
1) FILM OF "ALIENS" OFFERED TO MOD [Ministry of Defence]
From THE TIMES OF LONDON, March 28, 1995
FILM that is claimed to show the bodies of alien beings who died when a "UFO" crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947 is to be offered to the Ministry of Defence for analysis.
The 91-minute film, which purports to show a number of dead aliens with neither hair nor facial features and the wreckage of their craft, was allegedly shot by US government officials and kept under wraps for 47 years until an unauthorised copy emerged recently.
Philip Mantle, director of investigations of the British UFO Research Association, said yesterday: "I am sceptical by nature but potentially this is mind-boggling."
The claim is the latest twist in the story of the world's most celebrated UFO mystery which has sparked decades of speculation and conspiracy theories. According to a report in The Times, the US Army announced on July 8, 1947, that an object resembling a "flying disk" had been found near Roswell and sent to the military research centre at Wright Field, Ohio. But last September the Roswell incident was officially identified in a US Air Force report as part of a secret American atomic spying programme.
Flying-saucer enthusiasts, reluctant to abandon their theories, denounced the Air Force report as a cover-up and produced the film.
The cameraman who leaked the black and white footage passed it to the British TV documentary film-maker Ray Santilli. It will form the basis of a BBC TV documentary due to be screened in August and also shown to an international audience of UFO spotters during a two-day conference at Sheffield Hallam University on August 19-20.
2) From THE INDEPENDENT (London) March 29, 1995; by Philip Mantle
Dear UFO Disbeliever,
For years now you have heaped scorn and ridicule on our belief that there are such things as Unidentified Flying Objects. The time is fast approaching for me to say, "I told you so," and for you to eat your words.
A film has arrived from North America which is the Holy Shroud of the UFO movement. It is the closest we have yet come to proving not only that UFOs are plying our skies but also
The film was taken in the summer of 1947 in a place called Roswell, New Mexico. It was taken by a military film cameraman who was flown to the desert from Washington DC to film the crash of a UFO. There are 14 canisters of 16mm film of the incident. I have only seen a fragment.
That shows a scene which at the very least is enigmatic and intriguing. It is grainy black and white. There is no sound. It shows a scene in the desert. Two men in white coats are working, taking samples and inspecting something on a bench. That thing is the inhabitant of a crashed spacecraft.
The alien is humanoid, of slight build and average height. It has no hair, eyes, nose or ears but it does have large, dark eyes. The men in white coats are taking samples and inspecting the humanoid. Behind them stands a man in a dark suit, who looks as though he is a military officer.
The implications of this film are far-reaching. First, it is the best proof we have yet obtained that an alien spacecraft did crash that summer in 1947. The Roswell case is legendary. We have more than 300 witnesses to the incident. Now we have this detailed film; and the cameraman, who went on to a distinguished career in the private sector, is prepared to go on the record in public to explain what he saw.
Second, the film also implies there has been a massive and prolonged government cover-up of this, and possibly other incidents. The US military has known for decades that UFOs have landed on earth but poured cold water on all our theories.
Evidence that we are being constantly visited by UFOs has been mounting with eye-witness accounts, still photographs and scraps of video. This film from Roswell is the icing on the cake. It is no coincidence that the X-Files has become a cult television series.
If you want to see the film, come along to the 8th International UFO Congress in Sheffield on 19 and 20 August. There will be a panel of academics and specialists from Africa, America, Spain and Denmark to outline new evidence and theories of UFO sightings. You might just be persuaded that we are not alone in the universe and that UFO researchers such as myself have not been wasting our time for the past 50 years.
3) UFO BUFFS TO SEE FILM OF DEAD ALIEN
From AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, March 26, 1995
LONDON, March 26 (AFP) - A previously top secret film purporting to show US scientists doing an autopsy on an alien creature nearly 50 years ago will be shown in August at a UFO conference, sponsors of the event said Sunday.
US air force officials shot the 91-minute film in 1947 in the New Mexico desert after a flying saucer crashed, said Philip Mantle of the British UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) Research Association.
A former US military photographer, now 82, made a copy of the film and gave it to a British documentary filmmaker he met in the United States, Mantle said.
At one point the film shows US scientists performing an autopsy on a "dead alien," Mantle said. Other footage in the black-and-white, 16-mm film shows the wreckage of the flying saucer.
The screening is scheduled for August at Sheffield University in northern England during a two-day conference on UFOs.
"We have already had the film checked out by Kodak, who confirm it is 50 years old, and we now plan to have it examined by film experts at the university," Mantle said. "This film has never had a public screening before in the world and is already creating intense interest."
4) BEWARE...THEY'RE STILL OUT THERE! ALIENS ARE CAPTURED...ON FILM
By Jules Stenson
From THE PEOPLE (London) March 5, 1995
An amazing film showing the first real-life pictures of aliens is about to be released -- and here's what they look like.
These drawings [shown in original article] are based on statements from witnesses who saw their mutilated bodies.
American military personnel filmed post-mortem examinations carried out on the creatures from outer space, whose UFO is said to have crashed in the United States. They also filmed debris from the wrecked flying saucer.
Now the astonishing footage -- never seen publicly before -- has been bought for 100,000 pounds by London-based film producer Ray Santilli. He is making a video of the footage with Reg Presley, singer with Sixties pop band The Troggs, who is a UFO enthusiast.
Witnesses said piles of strange wreckage were found following the crash near the US air base at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
The event, the world's most enduring UFO mystery, has been dubbed the "cosmic Watergate" because of claims that there was an official cover-up.
The aliens were said to be 3 to 4 feet tall, grey-skinned with large heads and almond eyes. They were two-legged, with thin arms and four fingers on each hand.
The wreckage -- foil-like, but made of incredibly strong metal -- and the bodies were rapidly removed amid growing publicity.
US authorities said at the time that the debris was from a weather balloon, but last year the story was changed. It was claimed the crash
involved a US spy satellite.
Philip Mantle, director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, said: "The footage shows the whole event -- the crash scene
and between three and five aliens, some of them mutilated.
"The wreckage was not discovered until about a week after the crash, so some of the bodies had decomposed and were partly eaten by predators.
"The aliens have flesh and blood and are like humans. They had overly large heads and no hair. Their noses, lips and ears were small and they had dark, sunken eyes. They are very human-looking.
"The footage is unique. It is the only known instance of aliens on film.
"An air force officer from Washington was brought in to take the film. He kept some film rolls secretly for years, then sold them to Ray Santilli because he needed the money."
Despite the attempts by the US authorities to play down the 48-year-old Roswell incident, the best-documented UFO mystery, the story refuses to die. That's largely because the wreckage was seen and photographed by local people before being removed by the US military.
Harry Maguire, who works for Santilli's film company Merlin Productions, confirmed that a video was being made from the Roswell footage. He said: "There are a few loose ends to be tied up yet. But we do have the footage."
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