Editing Roswell incident (section)

==Later theories and hoaxes (1994–present)==
===''Alien Autopsy''===
{{main|Alien Autopsy (1995 film)}}
{{multiple image|perrow = 1|total_width=300
| image1 = Alien Autopsy Fact or Fiction 1995 screenshot cropped.png
| image2 = Jose_Chung_alien_autopsy_screenshot.png
| footer = The 1995 film ''Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction'' (top) purported to show an alien recovered at Roswell. The extremely influential program was "aggressively satirized" the following year by ''The X-Files'' in a sequence (bottom) that "bears an uncanny resemblance in its visual style to the infamous ''Alien Autopsy''".<ref name="Levy-p32">{{harvnb|Levy|Mendlesohn|2019|p=32}}</ref><ref name="Lavery-p17">{{harvnb|Lavery|Hague|Cartwright|1996|p=17}}</ref> 
}}

Pseudo-documentaries, most notably ''Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction'', have taken a major role in shaping popular opinion of Roswell.<ref name="Goldberg-2001-p219">{{harvnb|Goldberg|2001|p=219}}</ref> In 1995, British entrepreneur [[Ray Santilli]] claimed to have footage of an alien autopsy filmed after the 1947 Roswell crash, purchased from an elderly Army Air Force cameraman.<ref>{{harvnb|Korff|1997|pp=203–204}}</ref> ''Alien Autopsy'' centers around Santilli's hoaxed footage, which it presents as a probable artifact of the government's investigation into Roswell.<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=1101}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Korff|1997|pp=212–213}}</ref> The purported cameraman Barnett had died in 1967 without ever serving in the military,<ref>{{harvnb|Korff|1997|p=213}}</ref> and visual effects expert [[Stan Winston]] told newspapers that ''Alien Autopsy'' had misrepresented his conclusion that Santilli's footage was an obvious fake.<ref name="Levy-p32" /> In a 2006 documentary, Santilli admitted that the footage was fabricated, filmed on a set built in a [[London]] living room.<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=1109}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lagerfield|2016}}</ref>

Over twenty million viewers watched the purported autopsy.<ref name="ABC-News-2005-p2"/> Fox aired the program immediately before and implicitly connected to the fictional ''X-Files'', which later parodied the film.<ref name="Lavery-p17" /><ref>{{harvnb|Knight|2013|p=50}}</ref> ''Alien Autopsy'' established a template for future pseudo-documentaries built on questioning a presumed government cover-up.<ref name="Goldberg-2001-p219"/> Though thoroughly debunked, core UFO believers, many of whom still accepted earlier hoaxes like the Aztec crash,<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=1117|quote="But even after revelations like these, the stories don’t die. You can still find people who will adamantly tell you that a flying saucer crashed in Aztec, New Mexico, and that Alien Autopsy represented a real event."}}</ref> weighed the autopsy footage as additional evidence strengthening the connection between Roswell and extraterrestrials.<ref>{{harvnb|Ricketts|2011|p=250}}</ref>

===''The Day After Roswell''===
{{main|The Day After Roswell}}

In 1997, retired Army Intelligence officer [[Philip J. Corso]] released ''The Day After Roswell''.<ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|2015|loc=ch.&nbsp;6, paras.&nbsp;13–15}}</ref> Corso's book combined many existing and conflicting conspiracies with his own claims.<ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|p=204}}</ref> Corso alleged that he was shown a purportedly nonhuman body suspended in liquid inside a glass coffin.<ref name="Baker-2024"/><ref>{{harvnb|Corso|Birnes|1997|pp=27, 32–34}}</ref> ''The Day After Roswell'' contains many factual errors and inconsistencies.<ref name="Klass 1998 1–5">{{harvnb|Klass|1998|pp=1–5}}</ref> For example, Corso says the 1947 debris was "shipped to [[Fort Bliss]], Texas, headquarters of the 8th Army Air Force".<ref name="Klass-1998-p1">{{harvnb|Klass|1998|p=1}}</ref> All other Roswell books correctly located the 8th Army Air Force headquarters at Fort Worth Army Air Field, 500 miles away.<ref name="Klass-1998-p1"/>

Corso further claimed that he helped oversee a  project  to [[reverse engineer]] recovered crash debris.<ref name="Klass 1998 1–5"/> Other ufologists expressed doubts about Corso's book.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|2000|p=56}}</ref> Donald Schmitt openly questioned if Corso was "part of the disinformation" Schmitt believed was working to discredit ufology.<ref>{{harvnb|Goldberg|2001|p=227}}</ref> Corso's story was criticized for its similarities to science fiction like ''The X-Files''.<ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|2015|loc=ch.&nbsp;6, para.&nbsp;13}}: "If Corso's story sounded like the product of watching too much science fiction then perhaps it was. In the second episode of The X-Files, originally shown in September 1994, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully discuss the mysterious disappearance of a test pilot during a flap of UFO sightings near a secret airbase. The sceptical Scully asks Mulder 'Are you suggesting that the military are flying UFOs?' Mulder replies: 'No. Planes built using UFO technology.'"</ref> Lacking evidence, the book relied on weight provided by Corso's past work on the [[Foreign Technology Division]], and a foreword from U.S. Senator and World War II veteran [[Strom Thurmond]].<ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|pp=204, 207}}</ref> Corso had misled Thurmond to believe he was providing a foreword for a different book. Upon discovering the book's actual contents, Thurmond demanded the publisher remove his name and writing from future printings stating, "I did not, and would not, pen the foreword to a book about, or containing, a suggestion that the success of the United States in the Cold War is attributable to the technology found on a crashed UFO."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gerhart |first1=Ann |last2=Groer |first2=Ann |title=The Reliable Source |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/06/06/the-reliable-source/21f1e6ea-0dd1-447f-b6b7-6571ddd4d1ef/ |newspaper=Washington Post |date=6 June 1997}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|pp=207–208}}</ref>

===Related debunked or fringe theories===
Roswell has remained the subject of divergent popular works, including those by ufologist Walter Bosley, paranormal author [[Nick Redfern]], and American journalist [[Annie Jacobsen]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gulyas|2014|loc=ch.&nbsp;9, paras.&nbsp;34–50}}</ref> In 2011, Jacobsen's ''[[Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base]]'' featured a claim that Nazi doctor [[Josef Mengele]] was recruited by Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]] to produce "grotesque, child-size aviators" to cause hysteria.<ref>{{cite news |last=Harding |first=Thomas |date=May 13, 2011 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html |url-access=subscription |title=Roswell 'was Soviet plot to create US panic{{'-}} |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |access-date=February 6, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520225608/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html |archive-date=May 20, 2011 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}</ref>  The book was criticized for extensive errors by scientists from the [[Federation of American Scientists]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Norris |first1=Robert |last2=Richelson |first2=Jeffrey |date=July 11, 2011 |url=http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2011/07/area51.html |title=Dreamland Fantasies |publisher=[[Washington Decoded]] |access-date=February 6, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130305234012/http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2011/07/area51.html |archive-date=March 5, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> Historian [[Richard Rhodes]], writing in ''[[The Washington Post]]'', also criticized the book's sensationalistic reporting of "old news" and its "error-ridden" reporting. He wrote: "All of [her main source's] claims appear in one or another of the various publicly available Roswell/UFO/Area 51 books and documents churned out by believers, charlatans and scholars over the past 60 years. In attributing the stories she reports to an unnamed engineer and Manhattan Project veteran while seemingly failing to conduct even minimal research into the man's sources, Jacobsen shows herself at a minimum extraordinarily gullible or journalistically incompetent."<ref>{{cite news |last=Rhodes |first=Richard |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/annie-jacobsens-area-51-the-us-top-secret-military-base/2011/05/26/AGIZPLIH_story.html |title=Annie Jacobsen's "Area 51," the U.S. Top-Secret Military Base |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 3, 2011 |access-date=November 10, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151110044854/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/annie-jacobsens-area-51-the-us-top-secret-military-base/2011/05/26/AGIZPLIH_story.html |archive-date=November 10, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2017, UK newspaper ''[[The Guardian]]'' reported on [[Kodachrome]] slides which some had claimed showed a dead space alien.<ref name="Carpenter-2017">{{harvnb|Carpenter|2017}}</ref> First presented at a UFO conference in Mexico, organised by [[Jaime Maussan]] and attended by almost 7,000 people, days afterwards it was revealed that the slides were in fact of a mummified Native American child discovered in 1896 and which had been on display at the [[Mesa Verde National Park#Mug, Oak Tree, Spruce Tree, and Square Tower houses|Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum]] in Mesa Verde, Colorado, for many decades.<ref name="Carpenter-2017" /> In 2020, an Air Force historian revealed a recently declassified report of a circa-1951 incident in which two Roswell personnel donned poorly fitting radioactive suits, complete with oxygen masks, while retrieving a weather balloon after an atomic test. On one occasion, they encountered a lone woman in the desert, who fainted when she saw them. One of the personnel suggests they could have appeared to someone unaccustomed to then-modern gear, to be alien.<ref>{{cite news |first=Rick |last=Neale |title=Stranger things? |url=https://www.floridatoday.com/in-depth/news/local/2020/02/06/military-roswell-alien-made-woman-faint-in-1950-patrick-air-force-base-scientist/2831138001/ |newspaper=Florida Today |location=Melbourne, Florida |pages=1A, 8A, 9A |date=February 8, 2020 |access-date=February 10, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200208082017/https://www.floridatoday.com/in-depth/news/local/2020/02/06/military-roswell-alien-made-woman-faint-in-1950-patrick-air-force-base-scientist/2831138001/ |archive-date=February 8, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Young-2020-p27">{{harvnb|Young|2020|p=27}}</ref>