'I witnessed a real alien autopsy - but government insisted on denying everything'

'I witnessed a real alien autopsy - but government insisted on denying everything' EXCLUSIVE: A new documentary is resurrecting the story of 1995's elaborate alien autopsy hoax. Former Mirror photographer Mike Maloney's testimony blows the UFO debate wide open In 1995, a grainy black and white film claiming to show the autopsy of an alien was broadcast to more than a billion people across 32 countries. Allegedly found near Roswell - the New Mexico site where conspiracy theorists believe a UFO crashed in 1947 - it was later exposed as an elaborate fake, shot in a flat in Camden, North London, by a professional magician. Ray Santilli, 67, the London entrepreneur who sold it to Fox TV and global networks, has always insisted he simply reconstructed real footage he’d seen years earlier, which had deteriorated beyond use. Now a new Sky documentary, The Alien Autopsy Scandal, is resurrecting the story. And former Mirror photographer Mike Maloney - Fleet Street's most decorated lensman - makes a string of shocking revelations that will blow the UFO debate wide open. Mike alleges he was shown a film of an actual alien autopsy in 1978, when he was in Los Angeles to photograph Daryl Hannah. Invited to lunch by some studio executives, he was seated alongside four of Walt Disney's original animators, including Ward Kimball, the man who drew Mickey Mouse - a well-known UFO enthusiast. They became friends and, over subsequent meetings, Ward asked if Mike would like to see a film of an alien autopsy. Mike said: "I was a sceptic before I went there. Ward was very keen for me to see this. We had many, many conversations about flying saucers. He was an authority on them. Coming away from watching that … I started asking a lot of questions of myself." Mike remembers being taken to a suburban house in the hills above Anaheim, where a 16mm projector and cans of film bearing the United States Army eagle insignia were waiting. Ward later told Mike he was one of only nine people ever shown the footage. Describing the film, Mike said: “The camera panned and as the camera panned around, that's when you're like, oh, and there was an alien in the corner and it was moving. Its eyes were closed, its head was looking down, but its legs were moving and its arms were moving. I would say semi-conscious, but either purposely moving its legs and its arms or in a spasm. The camera didn't dwell on it long enough to pick up the detail. Today I would have taken a few pictures with my phone.” This unforgettable experience meant when Mike saw the 1995 Alien Autopsy, supplied by Ray Santilli, he knew it was fake. The living alien he had seen propped in the corner was not there, and the body on the slab looked completely different. He said: "When I saw the online version, I was pretty convinced it wasn't real. The dissection was almost like it was latex." His conviction that the footage he’d seen with Ward was genuine was reinforced by a conversation with legendary director Stanley Kubrick, who was his neighbour in St Albans, Herts. Mike said: "I remember having a beer with Stanley Kubrick. I talked him through everything I knew about the film. I said, ‘what do you think, Stanley? Do you think it was a fake?’ He said, ‘no. What you saw was real.’ He said in 1947, they didn't have the ability to fake films at that level." Ward also told Mike that he had a physical piece of the Roswell spacecraft. He claimed the authorities were watching him because of it. Mike said: "He said had a piece [of the UFO] which was totally illegal. Ward described it as about two and a half feet long, cylindrical, chrome, hard as nails. But you could crunch it up in your hand like a piece of cardboard. And when you let go, it reverted back to its original state.” Invited to visit Ward’s home to see the fragment, Mike was recalled to London before he had chance. While Mike was left wondering if he’d seen a genuine alien, two men from Hackney, east London, were about to complicate the whole debate. Ray Santilli and his business partner Gary Shoefield travelled to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1992 in search of archive footage of Elvis Presley. During the trip, Ray claimed he was approached by an elderly former military cameraman, who had filmed the Roswell autopsies in 1947 and kept the reels in his attic. Ray alleged he paid $100,000 for 22 reels of film and set about selling the ‘story of the century.’ News of the find was broken by the lead singer of the Troggs, Reg Presley, during Good Morning With Anne and Nick. Meanwhile, Fox broadcast the footage in August 1995. Philip Mantle, a UFO researcher from Pontefract, who was then director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, was among the first to see it privately. He said: "I'd been talking to Ray for about a year and a half, having not seen anything. At one point I told him I just didn't believe him anymore, because a lot of people make claims, but have nothing to support it." When the footage aired, the debate erupted. The hoax unravelled slowly over the following decade. The alien body had been built in three weeks by John Humphreys, a Royal Academy sculptor. He used entrails from a local butcher to create a lifelike effect for the autopsy, then pulled on a surgical gown and played the chief examiner. He likened creating his film to the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s mural of the Last Supper, saying: “To us, it’s a restoration of an existing work.” Now Mike believes the new Sky documentary may bring the alien autopsy - and the existence of any genuine film - back into focus. And Mike’s alien experiences don’t stop there. His friend Georgina Bruni wrote the book You Can't Tell The People, about the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident, where there were a number of unexplained UFO sightings. She was granted a private audience with Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street, and Mike said: "She said, Mrs Thatcher, are you familiar with the details of my book? ‘Oh yes, dear,’ she said, ‘we're very, very familiar with it. But of course you can't tell the people.’” And he said the senior American military officer who had dismissed the Rendlesham incident as ‘children lighting a fire’ allegedly called Georgina six months after he retired, saying: “Everything in your book is factual. I was under instruction from the government to dismiss everything you said.’" With the new documentary reopening the debate and the US government preparing to release decades of classified documentation on UFOs, Mike believes the film footage he saw may now get authenticated. While this may not be in his lifetime, he said: “It will be proven.” Mike, who has gone from sceptic to believer, continued: “I remember talking to Patrick Moore [late astronomer] at a party one night. I was interested in his views on life beyond, and I said, ‘well, what do you think about alien life on other planets and the universe?’ Patrick said, I don't think we should be so conceited as to think that we are the only life form in the universe.’ I felt: pretty good answer, actually.” *The Alien Autopsy Scandal is available on Sky and streaming service NOW from Friday Out of this world - 62% of Brits believe alien life exists somewhere in the universe - Nearly half (49%) of Brits think governments know more about UFOs and alien life than they publicly share - rising to 60% of Gen Z. - More than half (52%) say they would be more sceptical of UFO footage released today than footage from the 1990s. - 75% say no visual proof can be trusted in the age of AI - 67% believe confirmation of alien life would be the biggest discovery in human history. *Research was commissioned by Sky