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So that wraps that one up...Max Headroom creator made Roswell alien
Marc Horne
THE creator of Max Headroom, a 1980s television cyber-presenter, has claimed he was one of the hoaxers behind the Roswell film, the grainy black and white footage supposedly showing a dead alien being dissected by American government scientists after a UFO crash.
Alien Autopsy, a movie about the footage, is currently on release across Britain. It stars real-life television presenters Ant and Dec.
John Humphreys, a sculptor and consultant on Alien Autopsy who has also worked on special effects for Doctor Who, said it was he who made the models for the alien dissected in the original fake footage.
His confession, 11 years after the Roswell footage was first shown, will raise questions about the role of Channel 4, which unleashed Max Headroom on the world in the 1980s and bought the UK rights to screen the Roswell footage in Britain.
The footage was first exposed as a fake by The Sunday Times, but an estimated billion people still watched it around the world.
Rather than being shot in 1947 near Roswell in the New Mexico desert as previously claimed, the film was actually made at a flat in Camden, north London, in 1995.
Philip Mantle, a UFO researcher and author who has been investigating the Roswell hoax for 10 years, said Humphreys had been a prime suspect but had never before admitted involvement.
Mantle, who next month will deliver a lecture at Glasgow University on the Roswell story, said: “I didn’t think it would take so long, but I am delighted this hoax has finally been exposed and the mystery has been solved.”
Humphreys, who is based in Manchester, says he also appeared in the Roswell film as the chief surgeon. The bug-eyed alien models were filled with sheep brains, chicken entrails and knuckle joints bought from Smithfield meat market. After filming, the dummies were cut up and dumped in bins across London.
For a few short weeks the world held its breath after the 91-minute silent film was unveiled by Ray Santilli, a London-based video distributor. He claimed to have bought the footage, shot on 14 reels, from a retired American military cameramen.
Humphreys said the Roswell film was shot by himself, Santilli and three others. He said he spent four weeks fashioning the models from latex using clay sculptures.
Humphreys, a graduate of the Royal Academy who has also created special effects for the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp, says he only told his wife about the hoax when he was hired to work on Alien Autopsy.
“It was a very, very strange feeling to know that I had played a key part in it,” he said.
Santilli, who is played by Declan Donnelly in Alien Autopsy, insists he was trying to “re-create” a real Roswell incident. He claims he bought genuine footage that was badly damaged when it was exposed to the air after 48 years in a can. “John was given very precise images to work with and what he did was sheer genius,” he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 17,00.html
DrPLee said:"And does 1947 Kodak safety film really disintegrate after time and exposure to heat and humidity?"
The most elaborate Roswell hoax, however, and the one that probably reached the largest audience was the "Alien Autopsy" film. It will be remembered as a classic of the genre. The truth about "the Roswell incident"—that the crash device was merely a secret U.S. spy balloon, part of Project Mogul, which attempted to monitor emissions from anticipated Soviet nuclear tests—continues to be obscured by hoaxers, conspiracy cranks, and hustlers.
GadaffiDuck said:V.American....
Jesus Christ Old Master Q, your life's events are even weirder than mine ! .. please continue posting Sir, that's an anecdote and a half ..Very old news surely?
I recall being at one of the press showings and sensing instantly that what I was watching was not film at all but 'field-dropped' video; a cheap effect. I wasn't the only broadcast technician to voice that opinion either as I recall!
I also happen to have 'cornered' Bob Shell - Ray Santilli's cited expert - on a Compuserve forum round abut the time it was shown on British TV; wherein I ripped his 'forensic' analysis of the 'film' apart as being no-such thing. Those with a technical background will understand the difficulty in transferring film to PAL video, transcoding that to NTSC and then attempting to make any kind of forensic analysis of the original film from that! - Yet this is just exactly what Bob Shell had done! - In fact, it emerged poor Bob was unaware of the technical issues!
Oddly enough, after my ripping the 'persistence' out of him in public he graciously sent me a delightful Christmas card that year along with warm wishes for to the family. - A few years later he was banged up for killing a young girl in a bizarre fetish-photography scenario... He's probably still in jail AFAIK. - Truly a man of strange contrasts!
Ray Santilli - the real face behind it all - is a nice bloke... bit of a cheekie chappie, little bit wee, little bit woo, hard to pin down etc. T'was all a great jolly jape IMHO. 'Specially when they got Ant and Dec involved! - But really, that was it!
This horse is dead and surely beyond any and all flogging now though?
Jesus Christ Old Master Q, your life's events are even weirder than mine ! .. please continue posting Sir, that's an anecdote and a half ..
I can count the perverts I've met on one hand .. no bad taste 'wanking' joke intended btw ..Is it?? I happen to work in TV, that's all. What can I say? Plumbers find strange things in drains. No big deal. I was reading in a post earlier about a Signalman who's phone started levitating - now that's weird!
I really enjoyed the Ant and Dec film, although I seemed to be part of a tiny victimised minority Hopefully it will eventually earn some kind of cult status, like Withnail & I - which I think received a lukewarm reception on its initial release.
I can count the perverts I've met on one hand