Philip Mantle Sets The Record Straight

As this new information came out, many people who may not know the who, what, where and when of Philip Mantle's involvement with the Alien Autopsy story, made certain assumption, in public, about Philip. Here he tried to but to rest these assumptions.

To all list members.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to set the record straight especially for the uninformed individual who thinks I'm an opportunist.

I have been actively involved in UFO research since the late 1970's. I joined the Yorkshire UFO Society and the British UFO Society as well as Contact International. During that time I have investigated many sighting up and down the UK either on my own or with colleagues.

I was the Yorkshire UFO Society's investigator of the year in l984 and I went on to become BUFORA's Director of Investigations and Press Officer and also the MUFON Representative for England. I think its fare to say that I've served my apprenticeship so far as UFO research and investigation is concerned.

In l993 I was the press officer & conference organizer for BUFORA. This was the year that I was first contacted by Ray Santilli. Yes, 1993. He told me the story of how he'd found the film, etc, etc and invited me to view it. It was well over year before I finally saw it at his office in London. This was now l995.

I already had a conference planned for August of that year so I invited Santilli to show it at the conference. Much to my surprise he agreed so long as I would help him 'research' the film. Over the coming months the news spread about the film and the rest is history.

Right from when I first met Ray Santilli I knew that if you antagonized him you would not get anywhere. I therefore decided that the best policy was to try at all costs to get the film out into the public domain. Hopefully then someone, somewhere would be able to shed some light on it. I never thought it would take this long. But, right from when I first saw the film in Santilli's London office I was determined to get to the bottom of it no matter how long it took. I told Santilli this to his face and he accepted this.

Down the years I kept badgering and probing and trying to keep the film in the public domain in the hope that we would get a breakthrough. That breakthrough came when my colleague Tim Matthews and I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the tent footage section of the film was 100% fake. We even managed to get those responsible to own up and our findings eventually made it onto TV in Bob Kiviat's 'WORLD'S GREATEST HOXES' show.

I now fully expected Santilli's wall to come tumbling down gut they didn't. No one came forward and claimed responsibility for the Autopsy and debris film.

In February 2002 I wrote an article for Graham Birdsall's UFO MAGAZINE entitled 'Alien Autopsy Update'. This was an overview of our research so far. I was still working with Tim Matthews at this time. It was as a direct result of this article that I was contacted by a chap named 'Simon'. Simon went on ton tell me and Tim that a friend of his was responsible for making
the dummies for Ray Santilli.

He didn't give us a name but some clues to his identity. He wondered if anyone in TV might be interested in this so I immediately thought of Bob Kiviat. The information was passed to Bob and he took over from there. In the meantime I continued to try and locate this individual using my own efforts. Eventually last year I finally found the man in question. He is John Humphreys. A UK sculptor originally from the Manchester area. The same John Humphreys who has recently appeared in the SKY ONE show.

Over the last 3 years Bob and I have tried just about everyone we knew in TV to see if they wanted to air a special exposing the film as a fake based on John Humphreys and others as well. No on was interested. Then, out of the blue, Channel FIVE in the UK wanted this due to the up-coming release of the Alien Autopsy movie. We didn't have the budget to include John Humphreys but Bob prepared a special telling enough as it was. I helped and featured in this. Channel FIVE notified the TV listings publications and then Santilli found out.

Over the last 3 years I had kept up an elaborate smokescreen in order to keep Santilli of our track. We almost got there. Santilli's legal representative contacted Channel FIVE and as a result the show has been suspended. It might still be screened but we will have to wait and see. This in turn gave Santilli the opportunity to peddle his new version of events in the SKY ONE show.

A great many UFO researchers dismissed the Santilli film right away. This to me is the easy option. Just to dismiss something is not good enough for me. I was determined to get to the bottom of it no matter what. I have to say that I have been ably assisted by a number of colleagues around the world including: Bob Shell, Maurizio Baitata, Steve Kaeser, Dave Vetterick, Odd-Gunnar Roed, Ed Gerhman and many others. But special praise must to Mark Center in the USA and Tim Matthews in the UK. They like me stuck at it and never gave up.

I don't pretend to have all the answers but I'm satisfied that I can almost finally lay this matter to rest. I have spent a great deal of time and money on this damn film and my involvement in it went a long way to adding to the breakup of my marriage. There were those who suggested behind closed doors that I was on Santilli's payroll and that I'd even helped him make the fake in the first place. None of these individuals will have the balls to apologize.

I don't know the individual who calls me an opportunist but in future I'd ask that they do their homework first before making themselves look even more foolish. If a few more researchers stuck at it like myself, Tim and Mark, then we might have got to the bottom of this a lot sooner than we did.

For those unfamiliar with some of our research into the Alien Autopsy film you might like to check out the alien autopsy archive section of our web site:
http://www.outtahear.com/beyond_updates/index.html

Regards,

Philip Mantle.