by Philip J. Klass Skeptics UFO Newsletter "Alien Autopsy" Movie Lawsuit Terminated CIA, NSA Get Many UFO FOIA Requests Roswell Museum To Expand Former USAF Technician Admits to Creating Radar UFOs Wild Tales From CSETI Director Steven Greer Santilli Controversial Autopsy Movie (SCAM) Lawsuit Terminated Kiviat Productions and Trimark Corp., who had acquired U.S. rights to Ray Santilli's "Alien Autopsy" movie, have withdrawn their $60 million lawsuit against talk-show host Chuck Harder for selling a video which contained a few brief scenes from the TV show produced by Kiviat and shown on the Fox TV network in mid-1995. Their action avoided a Federal court decision on the validity of Santilli's copyright on film which he claims was shot by a U.S. Air Force cameraman -- which would make it the property of the U.S. government. Harder's attorney, Robert Persante, also challenged the $60 million in damages which Kiviat and Trimark claimed they suffered, because Harder sold fewer than 6,000 copies of his video while Trimark sold 100,000 of its videos. After Harder/Persante filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the Kiviat/Trimark case and require Kiviat and Trimark to underwrite Harder's $150,000 legal expenses, attorneys for Kiviat and Trimark asked the court to dismiss their case with prejudice, meaning they could never refile their complaint. The court agreed to dismiss the Kiviat-Trimark case but suggested the two sides negotiate Harder's request to be reimbursed for legal expenses. Bob Shell, editor of Shutterbug magazine, who made his debut in the UFO field three years ago as an appraiser of Santilli's Controversial Autopsy Movie (SCAM) -- and who then said he was 95 percent confident that the movie was authentic -- is now "leaning toward the conclusion that the Alien Autopsy movie is an elaborate hoax." Shell told SUN that his current view "is based on Santilli's behavior -- not the film itself." In mid-1995, according to Shell, Santilli agreed to provide him with a small film sample for analysis by Eastman Kodak [SUN #38/March 1996], but has never done so. Also for several years Santilli has been promising to arrange an interview for Shell with the (alleged) SCAM cameraman, but it has never materialized. Shell says that Santilli refuses to accept his telephone calls and does not answer Shell's e-mail messages. One of the first UFO researchers to denounce "Alien Autopsy" as a hoax was Kent Jeffrey, who coined the acronym SCAM (Santilli's Controversial Autopsy Movie). CIA, NSA Get Many UFO Requests Under Freedom of Information Act Roughly 15 percent of all FOIA requests received by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seek information on UFOs, while approximately one-third of those received by the National Security Agency (NSA) since early 1997 involve UFO data, according to an article in the April 25 edition of The Baltimore Sun. Ironically, when the USAF was responsible for investigating UFOs, NSA was not directly involved. NSA's primary task is to covertly intercept foreign government communications and to decipher encrypted messages. Thus, any "UFO secrets" obtained by the NSA would come from intercepted messages of foreign governments. SUN may be partially responsible for at least some of the more than 250 FOIA requests received by the NSA last year. In early 1997, in response to SUN's request, NSA released 156 partially declassified "TOP SECRET -- UMBRA" communication intercepts from Soviet air defense centers from 1958 to 1979, which referred to "UFO" and which NSA had refused to release in 1980 in response to an FOIA request by Peter Gersten [SUN #43, January 1997]. Most of these involved balloon-borne radar targets used to train Soviet radar operators and assess radar surveillance which the NSA translator-analyst referred to as "UFOs." Since Gersten's 1979 FOIA request for all of NSA's "UFO documents," the agency's translator-analysts no longer refer to Russian balloon-borne radar targets as "UFOs." Roswell Museum To Expand Roswell's International UFO Museum and Research Center, which currently occupies a former theatre, hopes to raise $15 million to build a much larger facility on a 25-acre plot west of the city. The new facility is to include a children's museum and, eventually, a large auditorium. The museum says it expects 300,000 visitors this year -- a more than 50 percent increase over last year when Roswell held a week-long 50th anniversary celebration. Speakers at Roswell's upcoming 4-day (July 2-5) anniversary festival include Peter Gersten, Stanton Friedman and Robert Dean. Dean, a retired Army master sergeant, claims a 100-ft. diameter UFO crashed in West Germany in the early 1960s and was recovered -- along with 12 extraterrestrial bodies -- by a British army battalion [SUN #48/Nov. 1997]. Former USAF Technician Admits That He "Created Radar UFOs" Some years ago, after an interview with an official of a major avionics company for an article on electronic warfare that I would write for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, he said he had read one of my UFO books and commented: "I used to create radar-UFOs when I was in the Air Force." When I sought an explanation, he insisted on anonymity both for himself and his company, and I agreed. Mr. X explained that in his younger years he had been a radar technician/maintenance man in the USAF, assigned to air defense centers. Sometimes he would be assigned to the "graveyard shift," from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m., when there was scant civil or military air traffic to keep the radar operators occupied. "The operators would be practically falling asleep in their chairs. If I had nothing better to do, I would slip into the room where the radar receiver and transmitter were located and incorrectly set the gain control of the MTI [moving target indicator]. This would generate spurious targets and send them zipping across several radar displays. When I returned to the operations room, it had come alive and operators were screaming about high-speed UFOs. I'd offer to check the radar and would then reset the MTI. Then when I returned I would report that I had checked and the radar seemed to be functioning properly. The next morning when the day-shift radar technician came in, he also would check the radar and report that it seemed to be OK." I was so amused by Mr. X's account that I forgot to ask him how many times he had created such "radar UFOs." No UFO Tale Is Too Wild For Dr. Steven Greer, CSETI's Director Even those who support Dr. Steven Greer, the medical doctor whose Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) offers training courses in how to communicate with ETs [SUN #45/May 1997], are embarrassed by his wild claims and try to keep them under cover. For example, in late February CSETI's web site carried the following item: "A recent attack by covert [U.S.] forces with a deadly Sarin-like nerve gas on the ET spaceport under 14,345 ft. Mount Blanca, Colorado, ended in disaster when the attacking forces were overcome by gas and a quarter of the personnel involved had to be medically evacuated... According to Greer, around '30 people [in the CSETI group] saw ET craft flying nearby.' Greer, and late-director Shari Adamiak, went up the trail alone, and 'remote viewed the ETs inside the mountain.' Came back down the trail to get the group and all went back up to spot where they had remote-viewed on the trail. People in the group saw Greer disappear in a 'gold light' which seemed to be coming from above them. Then, a 'semicircle of a dozen ET elders, all different sized,' that were visible with the naked eye, surrounded Greer who seemed to then disappear. E Ts 'communed' with Greer. They [ETs] said they were 'under attack in the mountain by covert military forces.'" One of Greer's admirers -- Steve Moreno -- recognized that these claims would damage Greer's credibility and communicated with Greer, who agreed to withdraw this report from CSETI's website. Moreno then requested that anyone who had downloaded Greer's wild report not distribute it. Moreno explained: "While there are tangents of truth to this incredible report, it is premature at this time for Dr. Greer to release such information..." Moreno expressed concern that Greer's tale might jeopardize his effort to get Congress to hold an open hearing on Greer's claim that the government is engaged in a UFO coverup. From Skeptics UFO Newsletter #52, July 1998. Reprinted by permission. Skeptics UFO Newsletter is published bimonthly. Subscription rate (six issues) is $15/year for the U.S. and Canada. Overseas rate (airmail) is $20/year. Please make check/money order payable to Philip J. Klass, 404 "N" Street SW, Washington, DC 20024. Nebula: UFOs & Extraterrestrials UFO message board: Share your views The ParaStore: Books on UFOs & Aliens