Television documentaries about UFO's have become popular attractions on cable TV. The quality varies, as some are generic, rehashing the same well-known photos, videos, interviews, and stories. Some are very professionally produced and offer new insights into the UFO phenomena. One in particular, while of itself was admittedly a poorly directed hodgepodge still provided a new and extremely compelling piece of evidence for the existence of "flying saucers." On September 13, 1998, TNT Network aired "The Secret KGB UFO Files."

Purportedly smuggled out of the former USSR and obtained on the black market for $10.000 was a segment that showed the recovery of a downed flying saucer by elements of the KGB and Soviet military personnel. According to a plethora of documentation that came with the film footage, the crash occurred in late 1968 with the recovery being made in March of 1969. The doomed craft was driven, on-edge, halfway into the ground at the edge of a forest tree-line.

Extensive study of both the film and the related documents has continued to withstand investigation. The vehicles and uniforms of the people in the video match what was in use in 1969. The unit patches of the military personnel are accurate and conform to the branch that would be most likely involved in such strange recovery operations. The civilian clothing of the KGB agents are consistent with that organization's operatives. The letterhead and other features of the documents prove consistent with the time period and the organizations that issued them.

The reports indicate that part of a body was also recovered from the wreckage. This was subsequently delivered to the Semashko Hospital in Moscow where it was autopsied. In the film footage of this procedure, three doctors, Kamyshov, Savitsky, and Gordeenko undertook the work with KGB stenographer O.A. Pshonkina taking notes.

During this period of Cold War history the Soviet Union took the official stance that UFO's were an American nonsense and considered belief in such as a mental disturbance worthy of institutionalizing. As a tragic footnote to this investigation of a seemingly extraterrestrial body, the Death Certificates of all three of the attending physicians showed they died in different locations around Moscow of cerebral hemorrhages on March 24, 1969, just one week after the autopsy was performed.

Despite the film becoming public through a movie studio's production, none of the debunkers have ever been able to come up with a single shred of proof that the film was anything but authentic. The cost of hoaxing the film and authenticating documents and film canister would be both prohibitive and possibly impossible. A number of film experts have verified the authenticity of the film and its terrestrial components and showed no sign of tampering of any sort.

Unlike the undocumented crash that supposedly took place in Roswell, New Mexico, the crash and recovery in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia was well documented, however secret the Soviet government kept it. The disbanding of the USSR allowed many secret things to come to light. Among them is this film which has continued to demonstrate the veracity of the event where they in fact recovered the craft and body of some alien visitor to our planet.

In Ufology (the study of UFO’s), the phrase alien autopsy refers to an examination of an alien corpse that was allegedly performed and recorded in 1947. The recording performed by the American Government was on black and white 16mm film. The footage is also referred to as the Santilli Footage, because it was London-based Merlin Group producer, Ray Santilli who purchased the footage for £ 100'000 in 1995.

So what is an “alien autopsy”? Supposedly, an alien autopsy is a procedure that is carried out on a being of extraterrestrial origin after it has died. The belief in these alien autopsies, along with the belief that they are being carried out by the United States Government, is one of the core components of numerous UFO conspiracy theories. The term “alien autopsy” is used in pop-culture, fiction and Ufology regardless of its validity.

The 17-minute footage of the typical “Gray” alien, an almond-eyed, gray-skinned creature with a large head and small body, getting dissected was presented on television in Britain and America in 1995. The broadcast drew bigger viewing audiences than Live-Aid. The incredible images of the disemboweling of the being were sensational enough to have made front page news worldwide.

Ray Santilli claimed to have purchased the footage from a former cameraman for the military who had been behind the camera for the autopsy performed on the alien from the now famous 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash site. Each frame was examined thoroughly by doctors and ufologists along with special-effects and film experts. The authenticity of the film has been fiercely debated.

In 2006, Santilli made the announcement that the shocking film was not exactly genuine. In the televised documentary Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy, by British Sky Broadcasting, Santilli kept insisting that the film was a restoration of genuine footage while Eamonn Holmes kept referring to the film as a fake.

Santilli maintained that the film was a reconstruction of an authentic film he had watched in the early 1990’s but subsequently lost. Furthermore, Santilli claimed that frames from the original “real” alien autopsy film were embedded in the new “reconstructed” version, but could not pinpoint exactly which ones they were.

Santilli made explanations as to how he happened to come across the cameraman and subsequently purchase the footage. Altogether, Santilli acquired a lot of two reels of film, twenty-one safety prints and the negative. From this acquisition, Santilli was able to put together four films. Aside from the famous alien autopsy everyone knows from TV, there is also a second autopsy performed on a less-injured creature, footage of a Gray getting examined inside a military tent, and footage of some control panels and I-beams from the wreckage of the craft.

The other autopsy is rare and hard to find. Apparently Santilli had a private showing for only a select few people, among them the Italian journalist Maurizio Baiata. The second autopsy was never shown publicly and was bought by Volger Spielberg. The footage from the tent was eventually proved to be a hoax.