STATEMENT BY MICHAEL HESEMANN
Author of "Beyond Roswell" (1997)

I admit we were deceived by Ray Santilli. For ten years I would have made any bet that the darn thing is authentic beyond a shadow of a doubt. John Humphrey indeed did a bloody good job (pun intended) creating a piece of film, which not only impressed UFO researchers, but indeed physicians and pathologist all over the world.

When I was confronted with the Alien Autopsy in 1995, my intented approach was to perform an interdisciplinary research. The case was too big for any single researcher, involved too many areas of expertise which had to be judged by professionals. This was the reason why we formed the International Research Team (IRT) and I concentrated on MY area of expertise, being a historian and cultural anthropologist, with experience in historical and field research.

I have no medical background and never performed any autopsy in my life, so I never felt qualified to judge what I saw on the film. Therefore I (and others) presented it to specialists. What does a policeman do when he finds a corpse? He sends it to a pathologist! We only had one choice: asking the experts!

Indeed not we alone, but all physicians and pathologists consulted by us and the international media were deceived: Prof. Cyril Wecht, Former President of the US Academy for Forensic Sciences, Home Office Pathologist Prof. Christopher Milroy of the University of Sheffield; Prof. Mihatsch, University of Basle/Switzerland; Prof. Dr. Carsten Nygren, Oslo; Prof. Dr. Pierluigi Baima Bollone, University of Turin; Prof. Jean Pierre, University of Paris, as well as a dozen pathologists shown the film by my colleague Luc Bürgin, a whole auditorium of Mexican physicians and professors of the University of Cluj/Romania, to which I showed the film, all believed the film showed a real corpse, not a dummy. The German dermatologist Dr. T. Jansen even wrote an article for the "Munich Medical Weekly", claiming that the film shows a (human) girl suffering from Progeria. More than one critic claimed that Santilli exploited the corpse of a girl deceased from a genetic disorder out of sheer greed. ). If I am guilty of anything, than it is trusting in leading representatives of the medical profession. But who was more competent to judge an alien autopsy than a professional forensic pathologist?

That FX-expert did not agree and suspected a hoax is something I never denied. Instead, I already stated in NEXUS ("The Alien Autopsy - Facts vs. Armchair Research", Vol. 3 No.6, Oct/Nov. 1996): "Nearly all special effects experts concluded that it is certainly possible to fake footage of a realistic looking autopsy." In "Beyond Roswell" we quoted their critical comments on four pages (198-202).

As I stated before, I never felt competent to judge an autopsy; instead, I trusted in the expert's opinion. Being a historian by education, I was much more interested in the (alleged) cameraman's story, published by Santilli in 1995. According to this, the (alleged) crash took place not in Roswell but just outside of Socorro/New Mexico, and not in July but already in June 1947. Obviously Santilli never really tried to deliver evidence in the prominent Roswell incident. Was there indeed another crash, there would have been witnesses who would be able to confirm at least a part of the "cameraman's" story. When Bob Shell mentioned the date of the incident in a radio show, the daughter of a Native American lady from the Acoma/Laguna reservation in New Mexico wrote and claimed that her mother and her girlfriends witnessed a low-level over flight of a "fireball", leaving blisters on their skin. She remembered the date, since it was her birthday. Thanks to her, Bob and myself were able to interview the mother and two more eyewitnesses. We also learned that Frank Strozzi, a farmer living near Socorro, witnessed the crash of a "meteorite, bigger than a basketball" in the time and area in question.

In search for the crash site, Ray, allegedly after talking to the cameraman, was suddenly able to give us detailed instructions where to find it, mentioning landmarks like an old railway bridge and dirt roads used in 1947, but ignoring more modern streets. Eventually we found a location which looked exactly like the landing site on the alleged cameraman's drawings (or were they drawings based on single frames Ray had?). We - Bob, John von Buttlar and myself - all had the impression that Santilli in fact was in contact with someone who remembered this remote desert area very well; not like it appears today, but like it was in 1947, as old maps revealed. We were even able to confirm that the area in question indeed was cordoned off in June 1947 on request of the US Department of Interior Affairs, allegedly for mining purposes. Mining indeed was used as a cover story for several top secret operations of the military during that era.

The eyewitnesses and the discovery of the crash site convinced Bob, John and myself that Ray Santilli was indeed in contact with an eye witness of a UFO retrieval in June 1947 near Socorro/New Mexico. Bob Shell, Linda Moulton Howe, Ted Loman, Philip Mantle and myself interviewed five eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw the Alien Autopsy Footage - or something very similar - in the possession of the US military. Are these witnesses - Sgt. Clifford Stone, Master Sgt. Bob Allen, Mile Maloney, Dan Burisch and Lt. Kewper - all opportunistic liars? Or is Santilli's story, his claim that there was indeed a real Alien Autopsy Footage which he just re-enacted, true?

Santilli told me already in 1995, that the film was heavily damaged when he received it. "Part of the rolls were in very bad condition and Santilli had to get each of them conserved and restored", I wrote in "Beyond Roswell" (page 188). I admit that I have a different understanding of the word "restored" than good old Ray, and would have never thought he meant "re-enact" instead.

Of course this all, the "decomposed footage" story, smells (again, pun intended). And still I am tempted to believe in Santilli's new version of the story, although I have serious problem to believe him anything today. But I have to admit that this is the only answer to the Alien Autopsy dilemma which still corresponds with the facts we established during our field research in New Mexico.

"But even if this film is proved to be a fake", I wrote in 1996 in "Beyond Roswell", "it seems certain that the film is based on a real occurrence and that factual information and material was used in filming the scenes."

Now, in 2006, Ray Santilli claims that this is exactly what happened. And as much as I hate to believe him once more, I have no other choice …

Düsseldorf, May 3rd, 2006
Michael Hesemann
Historian, Cultural Anthropologist