ALIEN AUTOPSY: How the Infamous Alien Footage Was Made

The 2006 film Alien Autopsy is a humorous retelling of events from the 1990s. In 1995, the world went crazy over a short film that shook major TV networks and captured the imagination of viewers worldwide. The 17-minute black-and-white footage, allegedly showing an autopsy of an alien recovered from the 1947 Roswell crash, electrified skeptics and believers alike. Was it fact or fiction? Mystery hunters wondered. Was it undeniable proof that we’re not alone in the universe and that the government had been deceiving us for decades? Or just an elaborate hoax? Pathologists, UFO researchers, military experts, and special effects technicians analyzed the film frame by frame, calling it the most significant piece of footage since Abraham Zapruder’s recording of the Kennedy assassination. The world split into those convinced of its authenticity and those who dismissed it. As it turned out, the skeptics were right.

In 2006, Ray Santilli, the man who owned the tape, admitted it was a hoax. Still, he insists to this day that he once held genuine footage—an authentic alien autopsy—which was ruined due to improper storage. According to Santilli, his version wasn’t a fake but a reconstruction, based on his own memories. He claims the original was shown to him by an anonymous cameraman summoned by the military to the Roswell crash site in the 1940s. After its first screening, exposure to air destroyed the film, except for a few salvaged frames, which were supposedly integrated into Santilli’s “reconstruction.” He never specified which frames those were.

The whole affair has gone down in pop culture history, leaving us to wonder what’s more remarkable—Santilli’s ingenuity or the gullibility of the rest of the world. A parody reference to the incident even appears in The X-Files episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” where Mulder plays a “mysterious man watching from behind glass.”

The small-scale British comedy Alien Autopsy (2006) offers a lighthearted take on these events. Starring well-known UK TV presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (as Ray Santilli and his business partner Gary Shoefield), the film has them recounting the details of their clever con to director Morgan Banner (played by a scruffy, three-day-bender-looking Bill Pullman). We see how they went to Miami in search of Elvis memorabilia, met a mysterious cameraman (Harry Dean Stanton) with an equally mysterious tape, conned a dangerous mobster out of $30,000, and recruited friends to recreate the destroyed footage on the kitchen table of Gary’s sister’s flat. The cherry on top is a brief appearance by the real Ray and Gary before the end credits.

The movie itself is a light, quirky British comedy—clearly niche, clearly low-budget, and without much of a deeper message, except perhaps the suggestion that promoting the “authenticity” of an obviously fake film might actually serve the U.S. government as a convenient smokescreen.

It’s worth watching if only to admire Ray and his friends’ determination in using their odd skill sets—a butcher, a corpse makeup artist, a wedding videographer—to fool the entire world. It’s hilariously satisfying knowing they pulled it off. You’d think such a clumsily staged operation could never convince anyone… and yet it did. People want proof so badly, want to believe so much, that they willingly set aside logic—especially when the appearance of authenticity is reinforced by a handful of authoritative “experts.” Some even swore it was a genuine 1940s autopsy, accurate to the medical knowledge of the time.

Apart from an over-the-top mobster character and one irritating blooper involving Kyiv, the film is a light, pleasant watch and a charming account of what is, in its own way, a fascinating sociological phenomenon. It’s not to be taken too seriously, but it still leaves you with a few thoughts to chew on. Perfect for a relaxed afternoon movie session.