If you had to be interviewed on film, how would you hope to come across? Attractive, honest, a good egg? Or pathologically shifty, to the point that audiences want to throw their shoes at the screen? I found myself unlacing my Doc Martens this week, watching a documentary about the biggest hoax of the last century.
In 1995, a grainy film was released that purported to be of an autopsy conducted on a creature recovered from a crash site on military land in Roswell, New Mexico. The incident had long been hallowed in ufology, but no moving footage had ever been uncovered. You’ve seen it. Hazmat figures loom over a bulbous-headed humanoid, spreadeagled on the table. Its dead, oval eyes are black, mouth agape, belly distended. I saw the shocking footage again last night, or thought I did. It was actually my laptop screen going dark, after I fell asleep in front of Netflix.
Globally, news outlets heralded the footage as the most important ever recovered. The Alien Autopsy Scandal (Friday, 9pm, Sky Documentaries) playfully lets us into how it was actually created in a Camden flat in 90s London; the brainchild of two businessmen, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield. The pair employed a sculptor who worked on Doctor Who to create the alien, and a magician to shoot the film. Their homegrown ET was filled with a mix of animal organs including a lamb’s brain and pig’s pluck, which is why it all looked convincingly moist.
Hellbound and Down 