During the pre-production phase of the Kiviat/Green produced, Fox broadcasted; Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction television show, the producers talked with Mr. Larry Cate from the Hollywood office of Kodak. Their intent was to have Cate recount what his findings were regarding the film footage he was asked to date. Please refer to the finished program for historical reference.

I’ve followed up with Mr. Cate (or Mr. Authinti-Cate, as he is now known to his work associates), recently (July, 1997) and found a surprising omission. This important fact will not be found in the program itself, in the producers investigative questioning techniques, or in the (authoritative) book, "Beyond Roswell."

Mark Center: Hello Mr. Cate, can I ask you a few questions about your involvement regarding the Alien Autopsy film?

Larry Cate: Sure, call me Larry.

MC: Great, Larry. What exactly did you see and under what circumstances did you see it?

LC: Two gentleman (Producer Dick Link and Ray Santilli associate Gary Shoefield), walked in off the street and asked me to try and date some old footage.

MC: What did they show you?

LC: They had an old 16mm film can with them. It was obviously an old can, I’ve seen them before. I looked inside and there was anywhere from 50 feet to 100 feet of footage in the can. I pulled out a few feet of the film stock and inspected the edge of it. I matched up the geometric codes with our chart and I told them it was from either 1927 - 1947 - 1967. And that’s about it.

MC: Did you see any image on the film?

LC: I never looked at the footage for image, only the codes on the edge. We get a lot of "walk-ins," people asking for this type of thing. I’m very busy and I just wanted to give them what they wanted and get them out as quickly as possible.

MC: Did they discuss the footage and its image contents with you?

LC: No.

MC: How long did your exchange last?

LC: I’d say 15 to 20 minutes tops.

MC: Anything else to add?

LC: Mark, I’m kicking myself in the ass that I didn’t look at the film for image! I wish I would have looked at the image on the film! I was asked to try and place its date and that’s what I did. Those geometric codes do not prove that the Santilli footage is from that time period. It only gives us a reference that whatever they showed me might have come from those time periods. I have no idea if what I looked at was the Alien Autopsy Footage.

MC: Has anyone ever asked you what you saw on that day? What you held in your hands?

LC: No. You are the first person to ask me what I actually saw the gentlemen bring in and what I held in my hands.

MC: Just for some background information, what is it you do at Kodak?

LC: Basically, among other things, I sell raw footage to movie studios, etc.

MC: You mean like Warner Brothers?

LC: Yes, I sell to them.

MC: How much would it cost for the raw film to make a Batman movie?

LC: Oh, about $250,000. The cost of the film is very little compared to the finished product.

MC: You think you could show me around your place someday?

LC: Sure! Come on up.

END

My thoughts on this.

I find it interesting that the producers of the Fox show never asked these very important question. I also find it odd that I was the first person to ask Cate these questions, almost two years later! Mr. Cate was very easy to locate and he was exceptionally open and helpful. He even called me back a couple times to add whatever he could to my queries.

In what way does this new information affect the Santilli Footage story? Well, taken at face value it would seem that early on, Santilli was willing to entrust 50 to 100 feet of the most amazing and potentially important footage ever found to these two gentleman. He allowed them to take this footage all the way to the West Coast of America just to have Larry Cate check out the edge codes. Strangely, at least two more Kodak offices (London and Denmark) were contacted by the Santilli group and given descriptions of the edge codes, over the phone.

I find it dubious that Santilli would risk sending 50 to 100 feet of the footage to America (for such a cursory inspection) and then "phone in the edge codes description " to the London office, which is in his own back yard. Also, at this time an untainted relationship was being formed with Kodak, they had no idea what they were looking at. What better time than that to look into the footage more closely with their "unknowing" disposition. As it stands now, Cate feels somewhat... mis-quoted, to say the least.

Currently (regarding the testing process), Santillli has gone on record to state that he would not work with a company that has had long held contracts with the US Military and Government. This is a very telling statement in support of the hoax scenario, given the fact that the information Santilli needs to help date the film is held by Kodak and is proprietary to Kodak.

Even more incredulous is that when others (most importantly, film expert Bob Shell), asked for some footage to scientifically test, Santilli handed out little strips as his samples. These strips do not indicate lineage to the original footage and are therefore useless. Santilli now states that he has no footage left to make available for testing.

Obviously he had "something" to test in 1995 and quite a bit of it at that. Larry Cate looked at it, and held it in his hands, whatever it may have been. In the end what this proves is you can’t put much stock in a info-tainment piece like the Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.

Addendum: Currently there are a few people based in Europe, with "pieces / segments" of what Santilli says is Alien Autopsy footage. To my knowledge these people have done nothing with this footage. No attempt (that I’m aware of) has been made to "study" "verify" or "authenticate" this available footage.

The logical question is, "Why?"