10 Great Hoaxes - The Roswell Autopsy

Throughout history, there have been some hilarious, controversial, and confusing hoaxes that have been created. Hoaxes are different from urban legends, rumors, pseudoscience, or even jokes since a hoax is a deliberate and intentional attempt to create something that is false but present it as the truth. We will look at ten of the most interesting hoaxes that fooled a lot of people.

8. The Roswell Autopsy

On August 28, 1995, a video aired on the Fox network. The program was called "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction". You may even remember this event. It was hosted by Johnathan Frakes, known for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which made him perfect for the program. The video aired three times on Fox, each one surpassing the previous in ratings, as well as being shown in 32 countries.

The video's story begins and ends with Ray Santilli. Santilli came from London and has said that he came across the video from a man who claimed to be ex-military. This man said that he was the cameraman of the video. Santilli came to Fox with the video, claiming it was the authentic video of an alien autopsy from a UFO crash. Fox was excited and thought they had a gold mine with the video.

John Jopson was enlisted to direct the interview sequences and the segments with Frakes. When he viewed the video, he immediately thought it was a fake. He let his feelings be known to Fox, but they didn't want him to pursue any kind of investigation. Jopson insisted, but Fox felt that if it was revealed to be a hoax before the show aired, then ratings would drop significantly. Jopson hired a private investigator to determine the video's authenticity, but Fox intervened and ordered that the only investigating would be on the identity of the ex-military man who'd given the video to Santilli.

There were a couple of interviews made for the show, specifically with a pathologist and a special effects guru from Hollywood who both said that the footage looks like a real autopsy, but didn't actually say that they thought it was real. They both actually felt that it was a fake, but their comments were edited out of the final show. Jopson later confirmed this a few years later, saying that there were some arguments during the editing of the final show. Meanwhile, the Alien Autopsy became Fox's highest rated show up to that point.

Still of Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction

It wasn't until 2006 that the truth came out. A comedy was made called simply "Alien Autopsy", which was based on the events that supposedly led up to the release of Santilli's autopsy video. Two days before it was released, Eamonn Holmes's show aired an episode where Eamonn investigated the famous video. Santilli and a producer admitted on this show that the video was a reconstruction of a film that Santilli had seen in 1992. He claimed that the original had degraded too much to be seen, so he reconstructed it. He said that there were a couple of frames from the original in it, but he wouldn't say which ones. He also went on to say that the film was shot in an empty London flat using a dummy alien body filled with animal parts to make it look real. The video contained a man reading a statement saying that he was the cameraman. Santilli admitted that he was a homeless man from LA that they had convinced him to play the part.

The alien autopsy fooled a lot of people all across the world, and some still maintain it's authenticity. It's a great story of how people can be led to believe something. It is a well-documented hoax from recent history, so it is available online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRDtG6N7qQ
Here is the first part of Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-LgUFx8xv8
Here is part 1 of 4 of the Eamonn Investigates documentary.

Bet you didn't know that!