Well, first of
all, this is an interview conducted on Wednesday afternoon at three on the 10th
of May between
SPYROS
Yeah… I was an independent producer/director
working out of a very small studio in
What here in
SPYROS
In
So this is
when, which year are we talking about?
SPYROS
Oh this was
1990… I believe it was late ‘94 I think it was October/November ’94 and eh… we
arranged to meet for lunch. And the first time I cancelled, the second time Ray
cancelled and he said, ‘Well look why don’t we do it in
I arrived that
evening, and I can’t remember what day it was or anything, with my assistant at
the time who was an Austrian girl who at the time was very short to say the
least, very rude lady. We arrived in
I’ve been in
that position with Ray a number of times.
SPYROS
Yeah and we
were talking about everything you can imagine and eventually it got round to,
‘I’ve got some film that I need to make into documentaries and it needs a bit
of tidying up.’ And he said, ‘What level of security do you have at your
studio?’ And I thought well that’s an odd question and I said, ‘Well what do
you mean? I’ve got an alarm.’ He said, ‘Well the material’s very sensitive I
need it so it’s kept safe so nobody can get to it.’ He said, ‘One frame is
worth £20,000.’ ‘What’s this then?’ you know…
Got your
attention.
SPYROS
I’m thinking is
this the assassination of Kennedy what is this? So I said to him, ‘What is it?’
And he said, ‘If I tell you promise you won’t laugh?’ And so I said, ‘Ok.’ And
he said, ‘It’s the autopsy of an alien’. And I said, ‘What a foreign person?’ And
he said, ‘No, an alien being from another place another planet.’ And I said,
‘Oh come on Ray’ you know and he said, ‘No really.’ He told me the story. And
he said, ‘I’ve got this film’ and he said, ‘it’s very delicate.’ He said,
‘Anyone that knows you’ve got it is going to come and break in and take it.’ He
said, ‘And I need to know that one: I can trust you (because you can sell the
story you can do stuff without me)
Secondly: he
said, ‘I need to know you can do the job.’
‘So what’s
involved?’
‘I need you to
take the film. I need to you to turn in into video because it’s on real 16mm
film. And then I need you to clean it up and then I need you to make a
documentary from it and anywhere I’ll sell it around the world they’ll ask you
for the footage I’ll make sure you get to make a documentary and you’re the
master of the key if you like.’ So I said, ‘We’ve only just met how do you know
that I am trustworthy?’ He says, ‘I’m going to sign you to a contract and make
it watertight so that you can’t.’ He said, ‘But I’m not a bad judge of
character.’ And I said, ‘Ok well you’re not a bad judge of character.’ and I
said to him, ‘So what?’
‘So when we go
back I’ll show you the footage and you can tell me what you think.’ Anyway this
went on for a while didn’t get any footage didn’t get to see any footage.
Oh really so
you came back and there was some time past?
SPYROS
It took a
little while but it was because he was waiting for the meaty stuff to arrive
apparently it was more than the reel and it was all… Anyway cut a long story
short a distraught Ray phoned me up and he said, ‘I’ve got the stuff back…’ He
said, ‘And it’s terrible condition, it’s really bad condition.’ He said, ‘I
haven’t got enough…’
So when he had
the conversation with you in
SPYROS
And it was
clean…
And it was
clean. So when he said he wanted you to clean it up? What did he mean?
SPYROS
He meant he
wanted me to take away the tail trails, the trailers and just make a good
script. Cos it comes… when you shoot film it comes in
very small reels, 50 foot reel, and then it’s spliced together now often what
happens is it’ll be spliced together with the…
Right I’m with
you.
SPYROS
And then it’s
just a big blank. So he says, ‘When it comes back I just want you to go through
it and make it watchable.’ So he recited to me what
he saw in
Right, right.
SPYROS
And his very
words at the time and I never forget the words he used which were, ‘I don’t
know what’s on that film but it’s going to make us a lot of money.’ And I said
to him, ‘What do you mean you don’t know what it is?’ ‘I don’t know what it
is.’ He said, ‘I find it hard to believe it’s an alien.’ And he said, ‘It might
be a deformed human, it might be a special effect, it might be whatever it is,
it’s going to make us money.’ And I said
to him, ‘Well if it’s a special effect it’s not going to be worth anything.’
And he said, ‘No they couldn’t do this in 1947.’ And I said, ‘How do you know
it’s 47?’ And he said, ‘Well I had it checked I wouldn’t buy it until I knew it
was 47.’ So I said, ‘You’re right, Hammer House of Horrors were making crap
films in ‘68 so, you know, so in ‘47.
Kensington
Gore.
SPYROS
So I said, ‘I’m
intrigued.’ And I said to him, ‘I can give you the level of satisfaction
security you want.’ And I said, ‘I’d love to do the job.’
Was it here?
SPYROS
No, no, no I
didn’t own this place at the time it was this place in
Oh I see tell
him to stop it.
SPYROS
It has to run
though you can’t stop it you’ll burn the cell, but I saw an image, now as an
editor I see frames you know. I can watch a film and it be one frame, pow, I see it you know focally I see it. But that’s what we do that’s our job. I
didn’t say anything I said there is images on the floor on the film, I said
what’s happened is it’s oxidised…
And that’s
quite common is it for a film stock?
SPYROS
It really
depends on what film stock it is. Some film blows up into flames. That’s why
it’s kept in metal containers over time they can become combustible. So you
open the can and the air hits it and it bursts into flames.
Really? What’s
it made…?
SPYROS
Phosphorous.
Ah I see.
SPYROS
And it can go
up quite dramatically like a bomb you know.
So this is
particularly the case on older film?
SPYROS
Yeah, yeah it
depends on the certain make-up of film. You got phosphorus, you got silver
compound, you add them all together in fact what could happen is just a bit of
a jolt could set it off.
Really?
SPYROS
So what
happened with Ray’s stuff it was flaking it deteriorated quite badly. And I
said to Ray, ‘Right what we’ve got to do is not run it through the machines
anymore what we’ve got to do is Telecine it put it
through a projector and actually video the output. So we can see what’s there.
Then we can freeze-frame and look at the frame.’
So how does
that work? Telecine it?
SPYROS
All that
happens is you put it through a projector and instead of going onto a screen it
goes through a tube and that tube is attached to a camera and you actually film
what comes off the Telecine.
Right so there
is a slight deterioration in the quality of the image?
SPYROS
It’s pretty
good. I mean that… Telecine image is pretty good. So
that’s what we did. And we managed to retrieve some images, very compelling
images and at that point I remember I was looking at it and I was thinking…
because I did believe it was real. I was looking at it and I’m thinking how
would I recreate this if I had to recreate it and I’m going through it and I
was looking at it and I’m thinking. Now there was a sequence of images on
another reel, which actually showed moving images. And when you got a moving
image you’ve got tell, tell signs, various tell, tell signs, that I didn’t see.
For instance if it was a made prop you would see all sorts of give away signs,
they weren’t there. So I’m looking at it and I’m thinking that’s a still again
the other thing as well that I remember was, etched in my mind was how scary
the image was because every alien you’ve ever seen an image of before is quite
a jokey image, is quite a Mickey Mousey kind of you
know… and this was so eerie because it looked sinister it looked like someone’s
dead here, right this is someone that’s died, it’s someone that’s real and this
is not a good thing.
And what were
these images of?
SPYROS
It was… what
you know as the alien autopsy, that was pretty much what we saw… now we had to
make up what might have been on this side and what might have been over here
because we couldn’t see.
When you saw
that? When you first saw it, the first time you saw it in your studio in
SPYROS
Totally blown
away and the whole time…
Who else was
with you?
SPYROS
At the time it
was just Ray and the whole time I was saying to Ray “How much did you pay for
this Ray?” he said “oh that doesn’t matter right now, it’s not important.” I
said to him, “Well what if it isn’t real?” I said, “You might have got done,
have you considered that?” He said, “No I went to the guys house I know the
guys real.”
And the guy was
the cameraman?
SPYROS
Yea he said,
“He’s definitely real.” He said, “What I saw there was this but moving and
full.”
How is it
possible for him to see it?
SPYROS
A lot of time whet by as I understand it the
film was kept in damp conditions and hadn’t been looked after and I don’t even
know, it even looks like water might had got into it. Although it was dry it
didn’t look… you know when film is clean and flat this was buckled it felt like
it had been in… It had been mistreated. But I’m looking at Ray and I’m looking
at this and I’m thinking to myself well.. and he obviously had spent a lot of
money and he had this face on him which was the end of the world had happened.
Right and I’m looking at this amazing piece of footage and I said, “Ray look no
one else has seen it right? Why don’t I recreate it?” He said, “You can’t.” So
I said, “I can I can re-create this and no one will know.” He said, “But it needs to stand up to all
sort of tests, it needs to stand up to NASA who want to look at it, to Kodak
who want to look at it, to all the experts, we’ve got the Queens pathologist
lined up to look at it. We’ve got all sorts of people.” He said, “They have to
look at it and it has to pass.” And I said, “Now I’m a magician.”
Are you?
SPYROS
That’s one of
my things.
Literally?
SPYROS
Yeah.
I said to him, “Ray this is my job.”
This
is you been put on this earth for this purpose
SPYROS
I
said to him, “This is tailor made for me, I am in my own mind a talented film
maker and on the other hand again in my own mind because I’m not going to say
that I’m the best of this and that but I am.” And I said to him, “I can create
the biggest illusion that any magician to be perpetrated on the world and they
won’t know.” He said, “How will you do it?” I said, “That’s not your problem. I
said, “What your problem is is can we get some money?
I’m happy to just do it don’t want to make any money out of it.” I said to him,
“Lets just do it, see if we can do it, the key to this is that we minimise the
amount of people involved so that the secrecy level, that the security is
high.” He said, “I don’t know, you see I’m nervous about this.” I said to him,
“I tell you what we’ll do, lets do it and if we fail we’ll know we’ve failed
right and we don’t release it.” I said, “But I can do this.” So he went off to
Had
you met
SPYROS
No.
“Never gonna get away with it, it can’t be done, how
can you do it?” So they came back and they quizzed me and they said, “Look… we
don’t believe it can be done.” So I said to them, “Look I’ve got a very, very
good friend who is like my brother who I trust with my life, who I can bring in
who can make the creature.” “Who is he?” I said, “It’s a guy called John
Humphries, he has worked on lots of frontline movies he has worked on lots of
frontline television I said you would have seen his work again and again and
again. More importantly he is trustworthy, and we can work together.” So he
said, “What would he want?” I said, “John will take what I give him, he’s my
brother. But we’ll do this.” So they sat down and said, “Right we’ve got to
bet, look we’ve got costumes, we’ve got props, we’ve got a set, we’ve got a creature,
we’ve got to film it… we’ve gotta dadadada. And at the end of
it all we’ve got to make sure that all the experts in the world won’t ever
know.” He said, “We can’t do that it ain’t gonna happen.” I said, “Look for the last time right I said
I can do this, if you want me to do it Ray I will do it.” He said, “Well how do
we position it?” I said, “Look we know it exists, we know it’s real. If I can
make it look like that.” I said, “To him you’re not telling any lies.” I said
to him, “We’ll present it as what it is and then we’ll tell the world what
we’ve done.” But I said to him, “That
that’s the proof.”
How many images
were there?
SPYROS
We got I think
in total about 2 and a bit minutes spread across the 2 minutes of… yea
And where is
that film now?
SPYROS
Ray’s got
it.
Have you seen
the movie? The alien autopsy movie?
SPYROS
Yea.
Is this thing
at the end, the sequence at the end? Is that the real film?
SPYROS
You know I can’t
remember because I was actually appalled by the film. I left early and I can’t
remember what was on it. My character was played by a Turkish kebab shop owner
who does wedding videos on the weekend and I took that as an insult. Now it’s
not Ray it’s not
Warner brothers
SPYROS
Warner brothers
they made a comedy. But the reality is, the enormity… they said to me, “Do you
want to be a part of this film.” I said, “No not in a million years.” I said,
“Why would I want to do that? It’s just belittling the whole and…”
So
you and john Humphries sat down…
SPYROS
I sat
down with john and I said, “John we’ve got these clips.” He said, “What is it?”
And I said, “It’s an alien autopsy.” He said, “Yeah right.” I said to him,
“John, whatever you think I’ve been there myself I’ve done all of it now, and
that’s irrelevant. Whether it’s real, whether it’s a human being that’s
deformed. We need to recreate this.” I said, “Now can we do it?” And he said,
“Well yeah.” I said, “that’s what I think I think we can do this. The thing
that you don’t realise is it has to be made a secret, nobody can know any
aspect of it, nothing, not where the clock came from, not where… nothing. He
said, “we can’t do that how are we gonna do that? it’s
impossible.” I said, “it is possible. We just got to be very clever and it’s
very much like, my training as a magician is there are a lot of techniques
where you can involve people and they haven’t got a clue that they are part of
it.”
What
when you should somebody a coin or something or?
SPYROS
But I
don’t do that kind of magic, I do mostly mind magic. Nothing exists but I can
have you think that I’ve just read your mind and I can also have you confirm it
to five or six people who also think I read there mind in actual fact they’re
all in on it. Nobody knows that you’re in on it only a little bit because
you’ve genuinely seen magic and because I’ve pieced together a string of events
you’re all sitting there giving testimony to what you’ve just seen in actual
fact if you all cross-examined each other you’d break it down. And there’s ways
of doing stuff. So the most difficult part of making this film was persuading
everyone around me that it could be done.
It’s
weird isn’t it?
SPYROS
That
was the most difficult thing.
But
you had enough images… because obviously the alien is key. You had enough
images of the alien for you to be able to see the whole length of it? Or?
SPYROS
We
had enough images to see enough of it to make an image. The long shot we
couldn’t see any detail we could see where everything was. The close up shot
showed us information like how many digits on the fingers and toes and all that
sort of stuff. We saw images…
Could Ray, do
you think, have conned you before this point?
That film that
you saw couldn’t have been faked?
SPYROS
No, not in a
million years. First of all with all due respect to Ray, Ray couldn’t have the
way or withal to make it. To con us. If he did why would he want us now to
recreate what he’s created.
Yeah you’re
right it doesn’t make sense.
SPYROS
Doesn’t make
sense, and he’s persuading me not to do it. He’s saying we can’t do it so what
we going to do, I’m buggered that’s it I’m buggered. So what we did was, I sat
down with John and I said, “Right. We’ve got… these are the pieces.” And I did
a few sketches and I said, “Right this is what I think these frames look like
from all these angles so when you’re looking here that’s what we’ve got in the
room, when you’re looking here that’s what we’ve got in the room, so we’ve got
to create a situation where a camera can do this and these images are pieced
together in a 3 dimensional scenario.”
Because
presumably there are people still alive, who were in those days, who are still
alive, who were in that room?
SPYROS
I’ve
interviewed nearly 30 people as a filmmaker not the person that made this film.
As another person I went to
When you say
there were there, do you mean in the room or they were in
SPYROS
They were in
What sort of
things?
SPYROS
For instance
the suits, they… one guy who happened to know about the fallout suits he
basically said, “What they are wearing is a first generation fallout suit.” He
said, “I only know about the existence of one of those today and that’s in the
Because you
didn’t know what they were wearing?
SPYROS
No because
there would have been a tube coming out of the boot and that’s how they would
have been breathing. So we didn’t want to go to that extent so as long as there
wasn’t a tube so we simply said, “Is it possible that they were breathing
through a tube in the boot?” and he said, “Well yes that’s possible.” And I
said, “So why is this not real.” And he said, “Yeah you’re right.” He said,
“That was done then that’s what they had.”
But the suit
that’s in
SPYROS
I didn’t see it
we found books.
So you had
reference of the suit it self?
SPYROS
My assistant
yeah, my assistant did all the research throughout the whole film came back
consistently with loads and loads of different things. And we said, “Right
that’s the one we need to make it fits in the… it’s 1945.”
And was it easy
to make the suit?
SPYROS
It was a
nightmare because… we should give the girl my assistant a name because we don’t
want to expose her because she doesn’t want to be exposed so what should we
call her?
Michelle.
SPYROS
Let’s call her
Michelle. Now Michelle had a sewing machine and she said look the material we
had to use wouldn’t go through her sewing machine. So she said, “Look we’ll
have to get a special jobby and a needle and a this
and a that…” So we went in John Lewis and…
A Haberdashery
department.
SPYROS
Yeah and we got
the bits she needed and while we were there we started looking at material they
had rolls of cloth and there was a lycra white, lycra metalized material that
stretched but it looked like it wasn’t plastic so on film we’d get away with
it, but a very modern material you know and it was quite thin. And I said to
her you know, “Do you think you could stitch this?” And she said, “Probably em… I’ve never done it before I don’t know if it will tear
I don’t know what… but we’ll try it.” So we bought enough of the material to
make four suits because we’re not going to go back and we’re going to make it
work. And we’ve gone back and she had no experience of cutting patterns. Now
what are the chances of my parents owning a dress making factory many, many
years ago in the seventies where I used to go on a Saturday and help pattern
cutter, right. What are the chances of this? So I said to her, “Well I know how
to do it, so this is what we’ve got to do” and I drew a pattern as we drew the
pattern we laid all the stuff together and cut it in one go. Em and just laid it out. And we made the pattern together
she stitched it and we made a window the whole thing, one piece suit, all the
glove the sleeve all made one piece, quite a difficult job, right? Because you
couldn’t have gaps otherwise the air would get out, you know. In the autopsy
film with Ant and Dec if you look at it they’ve got a flap here where the
helmet is separate from the thing well that wouldn’t work, right? Ours is
completely one piece, and it was an exact copy of what would have happened in
there. So that’s how we made the costumes. I sat down with John I said, “Right
John this is what the alien looks like, here are the photos, this is what the
sets going to look like, this is what we’re going to do.” Michelle came back
with a thing that she uncovered which was an eye witness report which was that
an alien had been dissected and they discovered that their internal organs were
that of a fly, similar to a fly they weren’t human, and the sense behind it
was, the metallics behind it was: That our innards
wouldn’t stand up to the kind of speeds that they would have gone to. A fly or
a cockroach you could do anything to it, it survives, so this is how it
evolved. So we said, “OK well lets look at that.” So I said to John, “Right
we’re going to create the innards to look like it could be an insect so if
anyone that knows, that’s what they’re looking at now that person that doesn’t
know it will just go top of both people’s heads. An expert will say this is not
a human being, fair enough and someone in the know will say this is the insides
of an insect now that happened there is a guy in Roswell that we interviewed
who said, “The insides don’t resemble anything to do with a human cos they are like an insects and it takes amazing G force
and a dadadada.” And that was great because we
planted the seed and… Now the same guy his name was sergeant stone he was in
the army, in the
How bizarre.
SPYROS
So the whole
thing you know…
Contradictory.
SPYROS
Contradictory.
His son died in mysterious circumstances. All sorts of stuff happened to this
guy and when you read between the lines he saw it. You know he actually broke
down and cried on tape and everything you know. So it validates a lot of our
suspicions whether it is real. Definitely something happened in 1947 in
You believe
that?
SPYROS
Definitely.
Listen I have spoken to people who are far more intelligent than you or I put
together alright and I don’t know you very well but I’m telling you, I’m
telling you these guys are super, super intelligent and you know university
lecturers we’re talking about all sorts of and they saw something, it happened.
So I made the mistake of talking to Loretta Procter who, Loretta Procter was
the woman that lived next door to Matt Brazel who
owned the range where the spaceship crashed, right. And the story goes Matt Brazel woke up in the middle of the night, there was a
storm, and he went outside and he found a spaceship crashed on his range which
is in the dessert and he went to his nearest neighbour to show her the bits of
spaceship that had crashed. That’s the story right. I went out there, went to
the range and his nearest neighbour is 20 miles, right, 20 miles. Now that
story changes now for me it was ‘he went next door.’ Right 20 miles on
horseback in a storm, now I went by small plane it took ages, now he went on
horseback in a storm. I went and saw the lady that he visited and she was still
there, I’m not sure she’s still there now but you know, it was some eleven years
ago now. Loretta Procter and we sat down with her lovely lady very coherent not
at all mental not at all old she was very with it and I made the mistake of
saying to her, “Mrs Proctor could you please tell me why every time a UFO is
sighted it is always in a small town in a America somewhere?” and she got very
upset about that. And she said, “Let me tell you something you man.” She said,
“We were the only place in the world that had the nuclear weapon. We fired the
H bomb from
Interesting.
SPYROS
…was described
in 47. So I met another guy and he told me again and he said to me, “Well I’m
wearing something right now that came directly from what we learnt.” And he
said, “Cos you’ll find that there was a metal you can
crush up and it came back that he got into his garment. And he said “You can
see I can bend things like this and it comes straight back.” Which he says is
memory metal. He said we’ve got these now but he said in 1947 no one even
thought about them. He said but they existed.
And you were
making this documentary for…?
SPYROS
It was for us?
It was just to see to make a documentary to see if we did get anything out of
it, you know, and I’m glad I did it because it kind of reinforced a lot of
stuff that I…
Yeah, of
course. And so ray wasn’t with you or anything?
SPYROS
No. So going
back to how we made the documentary. The reason this worked and the secret to
our success was because everyone involved were very close and multitasked I did
the job of the director, set builder, set designer, costume designer, producer,
prop maker I also acquired props so obviously I went off on buying trips and
found stuff it had to be the right year…
Yeah of course,
the clock was one of the…
SPYROS
The clock yeah…
loads of stuff and I’ll tell you a story about the clock in a minute but
everything from filming it developing it, editing it. You know, this is the job
of a crew.
How did you get
the right film stock for it?
SPYROS
Well what I did
was I researched the film stock they would have used. Which would have been Kodak
triple X or four x, super four x. And what we did was we found the equivalent
modern stock that was available that fit the right camera. The camera that
would have been used would have had a certain frame rate and it would have had
certain features that for instance if you couldn’t have the right about of
stock you know exposure stock on the
camera that we were using if we had more because of the more modern camera an
expert could tell, right if the frame rate was different an expert could tell,
it was electronically driven and not a wind up they could tell. So I had to
find a camera which was exactly the same as the one they would have used. So
imagine my delight. When my friend Lance, Lance Aston phoned me up, he’s a pop
promo, at the time he was a pop promo producer/ director and he phoned me up
and he said, “Do you want to come and help me film this pop promo with this
band? I want to film it, I want to shoot it on film as well as video and I’ll
go buy a camera.” He said, “I’ll just find a camera on Portobello market.” And
he said, “And we’ll just shoot some stuff and see if we can get some arty stuff
out of it.” And he knew that I could work film. So I said, “Yeah I’d love to.”
And that was it. Now Lance married to Marcella Detroit from ‘Shakespeares Sister’. I don’t know if you know the band?
Yeah, yeah.
SPYROS
His sister’s
Jay Aston who was in ‘Bucks Fizz.’ So it was quite a celebrity outfit/ Showbiz
outfit and I turned up and he handed me this camera and I’d been looking at
photos and photocopies of cameras for the last week looking for one and he
handed me this camera and I was mesmerized by it. And I said to him, “Where did
you get this?” He said “What? It’s no good?” I said to him, “No, no it’s
great.” I said to him, “Where’d you get it?” He said, “At Portobello market.”
So I said, “That’s fantastic.” I said to him, “I’ve wanted to play with one of
these for a while.” I said, “Do you think I can borrow it after the shoot?” He
said, “Yeah how long do you want it for?” I said, “A couple of weeks?” He said,
“Yeah no problem.” So the whole time I was filming his job I am jumping through
hoops and wanna phone Ray up. I wanna
phone Ray and say I can’t believe dadada… you know,
so anyways I’ve got this camera and it is exactly the right Ben and Howell
exactly the same model that would have been used then and in them days what
happened that they made them in, they were in camouflage green. And they were
disposable, the idea of these cameras was that you went out into a war zone you
filmed what you wanted took the reel out and threw the camera away.
So there aren’t
many left.
SPYROS
Right. So these
cameras were disposable they weren’t made for you know and they were forever
jamming cos the mechanism was cheap so what happened
was in the original film, what you got was… the camera would go to flashes of
white and…
Oh I know…
yeah.
SPYROS
And what would
happen is the sprockets would actually be torn out because it jammed. The
sprocket reel was turning around and cutting into the film rather than moving
it along. So when you come to develop it, it runs through a machine. So it goes
through the chemical and it comes out the other end developed. Ok, but when it
goes through and it gets to a point where the sprockets are dead it starts to
spin, wheel spin. And the film in the chemical is overexposed and it’s ruined.
So when you’ve got that problem, these particular rolls, some of them had been
done by hand. So you had to literally put it into a hand developing system
where you reeled it by hand when it stopped turning you start to turn it by
hand. If you go to rank they got a big mechanized thing and you can’t get near
it. It’s all inside the machine. So this is the reason why the original Camera
Man got to keep film back…
Oh I see…
SPYROS
…because they
couldn’t process it the conventional way he had to process it by hand. So he
took it home.
That’s
interesting…
SPYROS
Now a lot of
people didn’t realise that. Cos we asked the question
how was he allowed to take this film?
Yeah course. He
stole it though, because he could.
SPYROS
Yeah. And what
happened was he had nobody to answer to. The army air force became the army and
the air force. And the people he was responsible to had disbanded. So it was a need to know basis if you don’t
mention it I can’t mention it. So he had the stuff he couldn’t mention it to anybody
and nobody asked. So that’s why it was left with him.
Oh that is
interesting.
SPYROS
So knowing
this, I knew the, you know, short comings of these cameras as it happened we
didn’t get any jamming. Maybe the modern film stock is better quality…
Yeah stronger
or something…
SPYROS
Yeah, but
anyway… I shot the promo, took it home, looked at the camera played with it a
little bit. And then I had to buy film that was compatible for it. So the first
thing I did was I took the camera, I went down to
Can you do
that?
SPYROS
I can do that
yeah. But eh…
Wouldn’t an
expert have been able to tell?
SPYROS
Maybe. And I
don’t know how I would know so I thought they wouldn’t know but somebody maybe
could. So I didn’t want to risk it. In
the end I found 30 rolls of film that was dated 1980 and it was no longer
available and it was in perfect condition and I bought the whole lot. We used
up from the 30 reels we used up 15. And luckily I didn’t use the rest because
the first time we filmed it, it didn’t work. So we had to film it again.
You mean it
didn’t work?
SPYROS
We didn’t make
a good film. So the first time we made a film it wasn’t good and Ray says, “You
see I told you.” And I said, “Ray we’re gonna make
another creature. Right we’re gonna leave it…”
Oh I see the
first creature didn’t look good enough. I see
SPYROS
Wasn’t good
enough. Wasn’t good enough. And the thing was…
So what was
wrong with it?
SPYROS
The creature
looked alright, what was wrong with it was that John (the sculpture) was
playing the part of the surgeon.
And he…
He didn’t look
like a surgeon.
SPYROS
He didn’t look
right and Michelle was saying the procedures are wrong. You wouldn’t do that in
an autopsy, look just get the books out, that isn’t what you would do. You’ve
made a mistake here, this will be found out. So we said, Right John take the
book home, keep in touch with Michelle and learn the procedure. We’ve got to do
this right. We’re going to come back with it tomorrow we’re going to clear up
and we’re going to make a new creature and…
You must have
been gutted.
SPYROS
…go through it
all again. So what we did was we left the creature on the autopsy table, there
is blood and guts everywhere, right? Now you forget because you’re making a
film, you forget how gory this looks, you know, and so that night I look round
the corner before I put the light off, I looked at it, and I just remember
thinking my god it looks disgusting, you know. Turned the light off, locked up
and we left.
This is your
house or your…?
SPYROS
No was
Michelle’s house right… she had a house which was being renovated and it was
on… in the middle floor in this house in one of the big rooms. So we made the
set within this room. That night there was a burglary.
No!
SPYROS
Right, no word
of a lie, somebody had broken in they’d gone through the building. Alright? Imagine
this, nothing to see you know. They’ve opened the door and they’ve looked in
there and they must have shit themselves right. They’ve seen, what looks like,
a dead body cut to pieces right? And they’re just gone, right? Now it was never
reported to the police they was no nothing… Somebody somewhere out there is
telling the story right where they’ve gone in and seen this situation and we
were complete… we said, “That’s it games up. Games up now.” If the police are
called in, we’re going to have to say we are making a film they are gonna see the foo…, that’s it,
it’s over, right? Nothing. So we waited. I said, “There’s no point in doing it
now let’s just wait and see what happens.” I said to John, “You carry on making
the next alien. Right?”
So you were
just going to use the same technique as you made on the first one?
SPYROS
Exactly the
same thing.
And how did you
make it?
SPYROS
What happened
was John first of all brought in his son who was I think seven at the time. But
they are they are twins a boy and a girl. They’re just massive. The gene pool
from the mother’s side, everyone is seven foot tall. So these kids at seven or
eight years old were like twelve year olds. Anyway so his son come in, and he’d
just be lying there and John first of all moulded Michael. And then what he did
was he made a cast of Michael’s body. And then he sculpted clay over the top of
it to create the new features and created the alien features…
Brilliant.
…And to say
brilliant the man is the most talented person you’ve ever met in your life. He
is the most underrated…
Oh no…
SPYROS
… Right because
nobody… I don’t think anyone’s really appreciated. I think people appreciated
him because he worked on
Doing what?
SPYROS
Sculpting,
sculpting special effects… Right so he’s worked for the best, major feature
films. People know what he is worth but he’s never got recognition for it. He
did Max Headroom, which was a person in the eighties, and it won a BAFTA and
because people thought it was a computer-generated animation the person that
did the lines behind Max Headroom won the BAFTA. John for a whole decade, for
that whole decade in the eighties got nothing in recognition right. And in the
second decade, nineties, alien autopsy John got no recognition. Two decades,
two images that rocked the world right? And this man’s behind them and that’s
just not fair.
Has he made
money?
SPYROS
John is an
artist I think by default and I think it’s in the union rules you’re not
allowed to make money if you’re an artist. He makes a living, he’s made money
in the past, he’s never made what he’s worth.
He’s made the
alien.
SPYROS
Yeah. I’m
hoping he’ll make some money now. But, as I say, I’ve worked in the film
industry to TV, 25 years I’ve never met anyone with his talent. And as I say a
key part of John, John helped me build the set. I helped him build the alien
between us we created 30 people jobs on our own with Michelle. I mean what a
team and to bring those people together to create this illusion…
And was Ray
involved in this bit of it?
SPYROS
Ray, Ray kept a
keen eye over the whole proceedings he popped in…
He was funding
it I presume?
SPYROS
Sorry?
He was funding
it?
SPYROS
Yeah he
actually got money from somewhere, em and it wasn’t
anywhere near what it would have cost. I mean… we got paid…
OK…
SPYROS
The second time
I said to everybody we’re not going to
get paid, we’ve done it once, it’s our fault it’s not right. We’re going to do
it again and this time we’re going to do it right and we’re going to do it
because we want to do it. Are we all in? Yep we’re all in. And that’s what we
did.
Because there
must be a buzz?
SPYROS
You’ve got no
idea. We were working till the small hours of the morning in total secrecy
nobody could know what we were doing. Not anyone. And I kept it secret from my
family for 11 years.
Really?
SPYROS
My dad’s gone
to his grave thinking it was real.
Really?
SPYROS
You know, which
is one of my big regrets because I had no secrets from my Dad, you know.
Why do you
think people… Why was it revealed in the end?
SPYROS
What happened
was? I think Ray was under a lot of pressure with regards to producing the
cameraman. Telling us who he is, showing us the film, show us the film, show us
the this, show us the that, he was being badgered. After eleven years, a lot of
stuff that Ray created, for instance the cameraman, he knew he could never
produce a cameraman. He made him a promise. Again we were sitting around at
lunch one time and we were sitting there and Ray would say, “I don’t know what
to do everyone wants to meet the cameraman. I’ve got to break my word to him
and reveal him. Or I’ve got to stick to my word and take the flak and I can’t
handle it anymore.” And it was really getting him down.
Yes because
they were making television programs about him.
SPYROS
Oh… it was a
nightmare. And people would be visiting his doorstep; magazines, newspapers…
wouldn’t leave him alone, relentless. Bare in mind this image has gone around
the world, you know. So it was a big story, still is. And I was at lunch and I
said to him, “Ray lets re-create it.” He said, “What you talking about?” I
said, “Look you want a cameraman, I’ll get you a camera man and let’s just do
it.” And he said, “Oh we’ll never get away with it, who we gonna
do… bare in mind whoever you get you’ve got to tell them you’ve got another
person in the loop, right?” So I said, “No you don’t have to tell them.” I
said, “Do you want me to do it, we’ll do it?” So he said, “Oh god, you make me
nervous when you say that.” He said, “What we gonna
do now?” I said to him, “We’ll go out to the states, we’ll find ourselves
someone who hasn’t got a television, who is not going to see the image.” I
said, “But besides that, what I’m going to do is I’m going to get John to make
some prosthetic make-up, different cheek bones different chin, you know, and
we’ll make up whoever we pick who is going to be helping us with a pilot for a
movie. They won’t know what they are doing.” I said, “We’ll film it, I’ll
change the voice, even that person won’t recognise themselves. And that’s what
we’ll do. And I’ll give you the footage, he filmed it himself, there’s the
cameraman leave us alone.” So he asked a few of the key players if they want to
ask questions to the cameraman and they are going to get the cameraman to
respond to the question. The research we did was phenomenal right down to the
point where we found out nicknames of people that were there in the army. So
when he would say the nickname of the sergeant and then somebody will say, “Oh
yeah that was General Ramey”. So we did it to the letter.
How long did it
take?
SPYROS
…to find the
guy? An hour and a half, driving around looking for this guy… It had to be
right. Because if it was somebody that looked like maybe they’ve got access to…
you know, it had to be somebody really out of the… The age had to be right, you
know. So we found a guy and we went up and in hindsight it’s a funny question
because it’s like… what you got in mind? You know, would you like $500 and you
can spend the night in the hotel room free? It’s like what you got in mind? He
said, “What have I got to do?” So I said to him, “Look I’m got a little script
I’m doing a little project for a university film.” And I said, “…in England and
it’s nothing important but I just I need an American actor really, you know
somebody who can play American and I thought I’ll just get an American guy
would be fine.” And he said, “Well I used to be an actor.”
No.
SPYROS
And I said to
him, “You were an actor?” I thought oh no this guy’s not going to be any good
because if he was an actor…
Yeah maybe…
SPYROS
…people would
maybe recognise him. I didn’t recognise him, so I said, “What you been in?” He
goes, “Ah nothing much.” He said, “Many years ago now.” “So you sleeping
rough?” “Yeah.” So anyway we took him to this hotel, we got a motel, we took
him to this motel room. “I want my money now.” So I said, “OK.” Gave him the
money. I said to him, “Now what I’m gonna do.” I said
to him, “I’m going to shave you. I’m going to put on some make-up because I
need you to look like a certain way… And I said to him, “You learn the lines
whilst I’m doing that it’s going to take me a little while to do the make-up.”
So I sat him down and I put cheekbones on him to change the cheeks, I changed
the chin. He had a very recognisable nose and it was too big for me to put the
prosthetic I had, so I thought I’d leave it. I put glasses on him, a baseball
cap, and I lit it from behind so he was in silhouette and mission accomplished.
Now his voice is very distinguishable and since then I’ve found out who he is.
Right? I’ve got his name, I’ll send you the name and stuff. And I’ve got a film
that he’s in, as well. But I’ve found a film that he was in, which is fantastic
cos I think… it’s a programme… it’s a film called,
‘Can I do it till I need glasses?’ Right? And it was like sketches, funny
sketches. And he’s in the thing. And eh… if you don’t know that that is that,
that person is that person, you would never put him to him but if I said to
you, “That’s the same guy.” “Oh yes I can see it.” You know it’s that blatant.
So in actual fact I’m the only person in the whole team that knows who this guy
is because I took the time out to do it. So anyway he learnt his lines in the
hour it took me to do make-up.
Amazing.
SPYROS
And he sat
there and I said to him, “This is the situation OK, you are pretending to be
this guy who’s being filmed who doesn’t want to be filmed, you’re son is the
guy filming you. So I’m going to play the role of your son. And you’re going to
tell the camera that your son’s filming it and you don’t want to say who you
are and it’s all secret and these are the questions. OK And I’m going to ask
you the questions and you’re going to just give me the answer. “Yeah, no
problem.”
So you wrote
the script?
SPYROS
So we wrote
the… Ray gave me all the questions and Gary and I wrote the script. And so
basically we started, you know he said, he started off, I don’t know if you saw
the film. He says, “I’m the cameraman who shot the film.” He said, “Who I am is
not important what is important is me… and I take full responsibility.” And he
said, “I love the
Sure.
SPYROS
So although
there was a clock it was… there we didn’t know what this was, we don’t know
what the make was, we don’t know nothing, you know. So I had to be very careful
that I wasn’t putting a make of a clock that might turn up later in another
film with… you know. So anyway I went to Buffalo New York with a group called
‘The Flying Karamazov Brothers’ now they are a vaudeville type act, juggling
and music and that sort of thing, fantastic group of people. And I was married
at the time I met these guys and my wife said to me at the time, she looked at
the eh… we saw them at… What’s the theatre in Piccadilly, opposite the Eros?
Palladium?
SPYROS
No, no.
Criterion.
SPYROS
The Criterion.
Now they was in the Criterion and these guys were fantastic, right and my wife
said, “You know, you look like you belong with them.” And I said, “What do you
mean?” She goes, “You look like you belong with them.” She said, “Look at
them.” And yeah the beards and the ponytails and the… one of them had a big
moustache like this. They looked like me. It looked like I should be up there
with them. And I said, “ You know you’re right, I feel like I already know
them” and she said, “Maybe you should go and say hello.” So after the show, I
went back stage and I flashed my card and the guys let me through. And I said,
“Look I’m not a groupie I just wanted to come say what a wonderful show.” And I
said, “I’d love to work with you.” And I said, “My wife just said, I look like
I belong with you guys.” And they looked at me and they said, “Yeah you do.” Right,
and I said, “So there must be something we can do together I don’t know what
but there must be something.” And they said, “Yeah well here’s our phone
numbers, give us a call.” So I came up with an idea to do a song with them,
right, and do a pop promo and whole thing and have them perform this song.
Contacted them, “Are you interested?”
“Yep we’d love to do that.” “OK I’ll fly out. Lets organise it.” So I went out,
we did the song, we recorded it in a studio out there and then we had to film
the pop promo. And they said, “Well look, we’re doing a number of theatres why
don’t you come with us and film us while we’re doing the stuff?” So cut a long
story short, in buffalo I met a young lady who was their roadie and I think she
was a girlfriend of one of the guys. I’m not sure. But we got chatting, “So
what you do?” “Well I’m only doing this for now but I’m studying film and what
I want to do is I want to do set designing and dadada…
I said, “You know what I often buy props for stuff and I often need stuff.” I
said, “Would you be happy if I sent you requirements of stuff I need to send it
over… find it for me and send it. She said, “Yeah no problem at all.” I said,
“I’ve got a Fed-express account and I’ll just send a guy to pick it up and you
know, send you the money.” “Yep no problem.” So a little while later, of course
I got involved in the autopsy and I had her number. And I thought OK she won’t
have any idea what’s going on. So I phoned her up and said, “I’m looking for a
clock, it can’t be later than 47’ ideally 46’ I don’t mind if it’s 44’ 45’
whatever.” She goes, she said, “OK. Does it have to work?” I said, “Yeah has to
work and it needs to be really nice condition in fact it needs to be new.”
Right so she says to me, “Well it can’t be new…” I said, “No, no, it needs to
be such good condition it could be new.” Because if it’s new then it needs to
look new, you know. So she went off and bless her she phoned me back nearly the
next day, pretty soon, bearing in mind no internet then, no e-mail. She phoned
me back and she said, “I’ve got a clock.” She said, “I’ve found a clock, it’s
in… it was actually in a market stall in the town I live in.” And she said,
“And the guys got it and he’s not got a shop or anything. You know he’s just
like em...” Oh perfect, you know. And I said to her,
“How much does he want for it?” And she said, “He wants a lot of a money for
it, he wants $700.” And I said, “Have you negotiated with him at all?” She
says, “ Well I didn’t know how much you wanted to go, you know.” And I said,
“If it works and it’s brand new…” I said, “Offer him $300 and see what
happens.” She offered him 3 we ended up at 450 or something. So I said, “OK,
I’ll send you the money over, buy it and the courier will pick it up.” Sure
enough, that’s what happened. I then phoned up another friend in the states and
I said, “I want you to go to an electrical wholesalers and find me the type of
outlet, Bakelite outlet that was in
1947
SPYROS
No, no see I
always went earlier. Right because 47 ties it to the project. So if I said, 47,
47, 47 somebody will say, “Oh he…” You know, but 44’, 45’ is it conceivable
that this room was there before they did it. So sure enough I got again 1945.
They said, “How many do you need? I said to him…
Sorry what’s
this?
SPRIOS
Electrical
outlets.
Oh you mean…?
SPYROS
Sockets.
Points. Got it.
SPYROS
So he phoned me
up and he said, “Look I can only get three.” He says, “What do you want them
for?” And I said, “I’ve got a friend that collects them.” And I said to him,
“If you even… I don’t know if he needs three. I think he’ll only want one for a
collection won’t he, but how much are they?” And he said, “Oh they’re not much,
they’re only a couple of bucks each.” I said, “OK. I tell you what send me them
all, right.” So he said, “Where would you want to send them?“ I said, “Don’t
send them to me send them to my friend it’s for him.” Right so they got send to
an address… see I used to have another property at the time as well so what
happened was I had addresses and stuff. I got address and send to another
address and picked it up. So the record of stuff coming to me wasn’t there.
Then what happened was Lance was with Marcy at the time of course and I was using
his camera to do the whole thing and whilst Lance was out there I couldn’t
afford to ask Lance to get me anything. Cause Lance would put one and one
together in ten seconds I mean he’s in the business he’d see the footage and
think hold on a minute.
Yeah exactly
yeah…
SPYROS
So I couldn’t
go to people I knew, I had to find diverse roots of how I’m going to get stuff.
So the telephone and every time I got something I’d get them to fax me over a
copy of what it looked like and then I’d get Michelle to make sure it fits. Is
there something wrong with this? For instance there could be a situation where
a clock was made and only sold to a certain place it wasn’t throughout the
states. Right, so would this have been sent to
Amazing.
SPYROS
Anyway,
eventually he phoned me up he said, “I’ve got a phone.” He said, “It’s a
1945/46 we can’t really date it.” And he said, “And it’s quite nice it’s a wall
hanging thing and dadadada…” It sounded like the
right one. I said, “Could you take a picture of it and fax it over for me
please before I buy it?” He sent me the fax over, I gave it to Michelle, she
comes back a couple of days later she says, “No good.” I said, “Why not?” She
says, “They didn’t have curly wires on the telephone at the time we’re
talking.” She said, “It’s dated by the fact that it’s got a curly wire. It’s
after we want it.” I said, “Well maybe we can change the wire.”
Yes exactly.
SPYROS
I said, “I’ll
take the curly wire put a straight wire on. How long was the wire?” Because
that’s another thing, hanging on the wall, how long is this… you know. Because
an expert will measure it…
Yes, yes
SPYROS
… on the film,
anything to find out what’s wrong. Anyway so I said to her, “Look, if we can
find out, I’ll buy it anyway.” Again it was a lot of money it wasn’t a cheap
thing. Send it over and I was prepared to take the wire off and change the wire
a little bit. And then Michelle comes back and she goes, “Fantastic news!” “What?”
She says, “Look at this!” The telephone company offered an upgrade in 1947,
which cost something it was like $70. And in the upgrade you’ve got a chrome turly wurly bit and you got a
curly wire, right, on the handset. And it was available. And it was just
fantastic all the experts will say not real because…
Yeah.
SPYROS
And then we can
go yes it is cause.
And did that
happen?
SPYROS
It did. Yeah.
It did. They came back and they said, “Ah, we’ve found out it’s a fake it’s the
curly wire, that wasn’t dadadada…” Right?
And you were
ready to trump them?
SPYROS
And we then fed
it round the back door and said, “Oh yes it was. It was available in the…” And
they then went back and they went, “Oh yeah, general electric did a upgrade
kit.” And so it kept it, kept it… yeah, yeah. So we plant the seed…
So where there
any details that you were taken up on that?
SPRIOS
Everything was
so meticulously organised.
So nothing was
exposed?
SPYROS
Nothing.
… as far as
you’re concerned.
SPYROS
Nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
So it’s never
been proved to be a fake this film?
SPYROS
No, it’s
maintained its integrity to date. And the only time that somebody has popped up
and said, “Oh it’s a fake, I can recreate it.” “Yeah of course you can, but you
couldn’t recreate it and have it maintain its integrity because it will be
scrutinised and found to be a fake.” Now the situation with regards to all the
bits and pieces were all down to Michelle and how good she was as a researcher.
Now she wasn’t a researcher, her job, I mean she’s worked at a government
level. She’s an ultra intelligent woman. Multitasking…
Do you still
know her?
SPYROS
I lost touch
with her ten years ago, haven’t been in touch since. She was my girlfriend at
the time.
Oh right.
SPYROS
And we split up
since and you know… and it’s a case of you know… We didn’t fall out or
anything, we were on good terms and everything. But eh she was super
intelligent and she was…
Is she a
potential… risky?
SPYROS
No not at all.
Not at all. Not at all. Nope we gave our word, you see this is the thing,
people don’t understand this thing, they don’t understand it. We gave our word
and we never spoke. And eh… you know we were offered money, we heard about
people offering rewards and all sorts.
But in fact
somebody… but then you decided to kind of go public with it?
SPYROS
Well I never
did. Em… Ray and Gary decided to do it. Em… they asked me if I wanted to do it, I said, “No I
didn’t” at the time. I said, “It was no mileage in it at all.” They said, “Well
we’re going to tell the story, we’re going to make this film and you know…” And
at the time I didn’t really understand the enormity of how much they’re going
to tell, you know. As far as the story’s concerned the footage existed. There
is no two ways about it. The beauty part about this particular recreation is
that when Kodak says, “Show me film so I can date it.” We could.
How?
SPYROS
It existed.
Oh really, so
you send them the…
SPYROS
Why would you
show them the making… you would show the original stuff. So they’d take that
they’d check it, they’d look at the make-up. And it’s real, right? But the
whole thing we presented was on the back of the fact that they checked. So you
could re-create it but you could never get that amount of satisfaction from it.
No, no course
not.
SPYROS
So when em… when Michelle did her stuff. It was everything from the
point… She went to the royal institute of surgeons. She sat… she actually got
into because she was working at the time for the conservatives, she was a
member of the think tank Adam Smith Institute and she was actually… one of the
people that sat around the table and chewed the fat on world problems, you
know?
Yeah,
absolutely.
SPYROS
So she had
access and she went to the Royal Institute of Surgeons and she told them who
she was, they let her into their library she had access to everything. She took
out procedures for autopsies and she wanted to see what were the procedures for
an autopsy in 1947 in
No, no.
SPYROS
But while she’s
doing this she meets a surgeon, right, who says, “Forgive me for…” (And she’s a
pretty girl you know) “Forgive me for interrupting but I can see you’re not a
surgeon or pathologist and I’m intrigued what it is you’re researching.” And
she said, “Well what it is I’m comparing procedures in
Yes exactly.
SPYROS
So he said,
“Well there’s a lot a lot of differences, I bet I can help you with quite a lot
of it. For instance the Americans had solid stainless steel equipment where we
were using wooden handled equipment for quite a while, during the same time.”
And she said, “Is there anywhere I can get hold of some sets, I need to film
for my book, I need to take some pictures for my book. I just need to get some
comparisons was around from the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s… And he said, “Well my
father used to collect autopsy instruments and surgical instruments. He’s got Alzheimer’s,
and is not very well at the moment but you’re welcome to see if you want to
borrow anything…
You’re kidding.
SPYROS
So she said,
“Well what has he got? You know, would he mind, you know?” So anyway she
befriended this guy and she went down into the basement of this guy’s father’s
house and there was everything to can imagine there, it’s Aladdin’s gate. And
she finds a brand new kit, of autopsy tools from 1946
Go for it.
SPYROS
Go for it,
everything’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right. And
John took away the… he moulded the alien at the house and
What you saw?
SPYROS
“A human,
living alien being, it’s like humanoid living alien… this is a dead body I’m
looking at, it’s phenomenal.” And he said, “It’ll be better when the eyes are
done and stuff and when everything’s done.” Because they had a lens on the eye and
although the lens wasn’t apparent in the film, we did see these things floating
around in a receptacle. And for the life of us we couldn’t… And John said, “You
know what that is? That’s lenses.” Right and he said, “That black eyes there’re
eyes underneath.” Now we couldn’t actually see eyes on the film. Which I said,
“I’m going to put eyes in, and then what we’ll do is find a way of making a
lens to put on it and then what we’ll have it… we’ll remove it on the thing.
Wow!
SPYROS
So I said to
him, “Well what we’ll do is we’ll but some KY jelly inside, fix it in it so
when it peels it away it’ll gunky, it’ll come out gunky, it’ll be fantastic, you know.” And we had a little
bit of artistic license you know, and when we finally did it, it was just
spectacular. It was just… these little details and it all fitted because other
people have seen the film…
Yes
SPYROS
Said, “That’s
what it was like.” And we just filled the blanks up… in you know.
Extraordinary.
SPYROS
So I’m jumping
backwards and forwards.
Yeah it’s ok.
SPYROS
Once we got the
autopsy kit we found what kind of receptacles would be in the room.
What do you
mean sort of petri dishes?
SPYROS
Yeah, all that
sort of stuff, Bunsen burners and anything else that might have been in the
room, we had to source and we had to source in
You’re joking!
SPYROS
I swear. We
then plugged it in and the clock went backwards, right? And it was all wired
correctly and I had to literally go… actually reverse the wires and it worked
correctly but it was wrong and we couldn’t for the life of us work out except
positive, negative, neutral.
How odd?
SPYROS
And it had it
all on… And we did it, you know. And I know a bit about this stuff and I said,
“Well it’s going the wrong way I’ll just reverse the polarity and it’ll work.”
And it did. So the clock was working on 110v, I mean the detail was just…
phenomenal you know.
Yes of course.
SPYROS
Whatever,
whatever… you know. So the clock was correct, all that stuff was correct. We
had furniture in the room, which I made.
What were the
aliens resting on? I can’t remember.
SPYROS
On an autopsy
table. Couldn’t get one for the life of us. In
Sure.
SPYROS
Underneath the
thing, you had to build the whole thing so it worked. So when this thing bleeds
it goes in and does the job, so I had to build a real table. And the most
beautiful part for me was… we were interviewing a guy called Bob Keen who is a
special effects expert in Pinewood. Because he said he could recreate the film.
So we went along with as a film crew to see what he would have done, you know.
And to make sure he understands he couldn’t right? Because he’s telling people
that he can recreate it and it’s fake right? So we went along, we’re making the
documentary. We said, “Now you say you can re-create the film? Go ahead. Now
how much do you need?” “Do… I need eh…” “We’ll give you a million dollars is
that enough? So you can re-create it for a million dollars. But this is the
deal we’ll give you a million dollars to re-create it but you’ve got to
maintain secrecy. That means everybody works on this, we’re going to offer a reward
right? of a million dollars and all of your people they mustn’t want this
million dollars because they’re going to talk. If they talk; you don’t get
paid. They’re going to get your million dollars, right, are you up?” And he
says, “Well I didn’t know that about that.” I said, “Well obviously the things
secret. If somebody re-created this then someone’s going to blab, right? So
what problems do you think you might encounter?” And he said, “Well it’d be a
bit of a problem getting the props but that’s doable.” And the interviewer
said, “Doable secretly?” He said, “Bare in mind, you sell that clock to
somebody and you see this all over the world, you’re going to say, ‘you know
what I sold a clock like that about the right time frame.’” And he said, “Oh yeah
well maybe… we’ll make the clock, we’ll probably make the clock.” “And the
telephone?” “Well yeah we’d have to do that too“ “Eh what about the autopsy
table?” And he says “No, no that’s a real autopsy table.” He said, “You’d have
to source that.” Right? And I sat there… I sat there, right? And it was
wonderful to hear him say that, you know. And then we went on about, we went on
about, “Ok so now you’re going to re-create the room, you’re going to re-create
this, you’re going to re-create the suits, you’re going to do this… and you’re
going to do all of this secretly Ok?” And at the end of it he said, “Look I
don’t think it can be done.” He said, “It’s not even about money anymore,” he
said… and at the end of it all we said to him, “And once… you’ve agreed you
can’t make it now when you first thought you could but even now when we know
you just said you can’t make it on film. You’ve still got to make it and put it
on 47 film stock.” Right? And he went… He just, he just… Because if you’ve got
people idol chat… “Oh yeah…”
So did you use
this in a documentary you made which was broadcast or what?
SPYROS
No, no we made
a documentary, never released it. We didn’t think it was good enough. There was
a lot of people making stuff so we thought there’s no point in … and we just
left it. But I’ve got all the footage and everything. I’ve no doubt, no doubt
we’ll release it now and if you need any quotes from the footage. I can give
you the foot… lots of quotes, I’ll give you the footage you can actually take
quotes out.
That’ll be
great.
SPYROS
Yeah… because
it just adds to the enormity of stuff because Sergeant Stone saw this footage
in 69’ in a military environment. The
Ray has
presumably seen this documentary?
SPYROS
Oh yeah.
So did you make
any money out of this entire venture? Out of the original deals that Ray did?
SPYROS
No. We made a
little bit of money here and there. No big shakes. My whole thing is, I really
wanted to do it. And I thought you know what I want to do this nobody will ever
know about it because we knew… as far as we were concerned then nobody would
ever hear about it and I got enormous pleasure listening to
Trying to…
SPYROS
So you don’t
begrudge Ray and Gary making money out of it.
SPYROS
Gary and Ray
are good mates over the years they have become good mates.
Well I think
Ray was extraordinarily angry about the way he was portrayed, he was going to
sue them.
SPYROS
Yeah but then,
you know, the whole time it’s eh… ‘Oh it’s only a bit of fun.’ From my point of
view, you know, I have enough fun in my life. And, you know, that is to me
that’s not fun that was excruciating for me to watch that film. And I thought
to myself, you know, they could have made it so much better. They could have
kept to the facts it was funnier. The facts are funnier.
I agree it
wasn’t.
SPYROS
But they didn’t
have the facts, a lot of the stuff that I’m telling you, Gary and Ray don’t
know. You know, John doesn’t know. I mean John played his part, Michelle played
her part, Ray played his part,
No that’s
right.
SPYROS
Now the
hieroglyphics, I made up a language. So what I did was I just went backwards
and I thought Ok… Could be Egyptian but that’s obvious, Greek, it worried me a
little bit because it put me in the frame.
Yes of course.
SPYROS
Right, if one
and one put two… maybe… I thought no but no one knows about me so lets keep the
Greek thing, the ancient Greek thing for the second. And lets mix it with
Egyptian and hieroglyphics put it together I make my own language…
Do you have
Greek?
SPYROS
Yeah.
You know Greek.
SPYROS
Yeah. So I drew
what we were going to built, I said to him right, “We’re going to build this,
this is how we are going to do it, I’m going to get some aluminium new section
we’re going to stick it back to back to make an I-beam, you’re going to sculpt
into the I-beam a bit of clay and then sculpt into it positive of the
hieroglyphics, we are then going to spray it silver and then film it.” So ok
great. So I gave him the hieroglyphics he did the whole thing and he asked me,
interestingly he asked me, “What does this one say?” But he didn’t ask me what
the second one said, no one else in the world has deciphered the second one and
I’m going to tell you today. For the first one we made it so that the hieroglyphics
we put onto this metal looked like it could be this, but it isn’t and it looks
like it could be that but it isn’t so when you put it together with what it
could be it actually says something, right? So somebody that knows languages
would be able to decipher the code but would be able to say it’s like nothing
I’ve ever seen before but it kind of makes sense.
Yes exactly
SPYROS
And an expert,
we did this, we went to the University of
By who?
SPYROS
By the guy from
the
Right so nobody
else had found out?
SPYROS
There was a guy
from LA as well who deciphered it and he was the kid that was from LA… what’s
the eh… the LA university.
Extraordinary,
UCLA or whatever?
SPYROS
Yeah UCLA
that’s right. And yeah so they decided… and of course the satisfaction of
messing with these peoples minds all this time, you know it’s like you know.
Now when we were filming it I remember Ray came in one time and we were about
to… the set was ready to go and everything and I’d just finished covering all
the reflective surfaces with Vaseline. And eh he came in and he said, “I’ve
just thought about something. I said, “What was that?” He said, “This will be
investigated so thoroughly.” He said, and there was big panic, “We’re never
going to get away with it.” He said, “They’re going to find reflective
surfaces. They are going to see us in them.” I said to him, “Ray, Ray, I’ve got
a suit OK, the cameraman is wearing a fallout suit, so the reflection of the
cameraman is going to be in a fallout suit, that’s correct right?” “Yeah that’d
be good.” I said, “I’m shooting with available light, I’ve lit it in such a
way, there are no studio lights, nothing right.“ So I said to him, “I’ve set
the camera, the film we use and everything so it’s available light, there’s no
crew behind us and I’ve covered all the reflective surfaces with Vaseline so
they won’t reflect that cleanly anyway. “Oh have you?” I said, “Yeah.” So he
said, “So they’re not going to see us.” I said, “No, and what they do see is
correct.” Right. So he said, “Right that’s brilliant.” And he’s like you know,
“That’s brilliant.” He’s trying to find how we’re going to get caught you know.
How did he
react when he first saw the film?
SPYROS
He was
flabbergasted.
Was he?
SPYROS
The first one
he said… it was brought to his attention by Michelle that the autopsy
procedures weren’t correct. And he was devastated by that, but it looked good
you know. I said, “Ray we can do it again and it’ll be fine.” And I said,
“We’ve got nothing to lose.”
And did he say
that it looked like the original footage?
SPYROS
It looked
exactly the same. Yeah, yeah
Because he had
seen the original film.
SPYROS
We actually
kept original footage in the film we used.
Did you?
SPYROS
Oh yeah. In the
twenty-two minute film we released there are elements of the film that are
real.
What?
SPYROS
Within there,
oh yeah. It’s beautiful. I mean it matched beautifully. Because the film was
going up and down in degradation it would get dark, light
You could do
that without it being a problem.
SPYROS
It didn’t… it
wasn’t a problem.
No of course,
but then did it… because Ray saw the original footage when it was complete.
Didn’t he?
SPYROS
Yeah, yeah
And he said it
was…
SPYROS
He said it was
a miracle. I mean he was totally blown away.
Cos had he described to you what he had
seen in more detail?
SPYROS
No I’d seen
only the frames and his memory was only that. You know, he didn’t have anymore
to give us. And eh… when we build the set I said to him… he knew there was a
window. And I said to him, “Who’s behind the window? And is there anybody
there.
Wasn’t there
some controversy about who was behind the window?
SPYROS
I got on film,
Sergeant Stone said, “I think you’ll find the gentleman behind the window is
Dr. Vanderbabush.
Right.
SPYROS
And he said,
“He was the only person who had clearance at the time and blah dee blah dee blah and that’s who
is behind that window. I recognise him.” It wasn’t him at all, right, it was
Gareth, right, it was Gareth. Some freak of nature, because he had a mask he
recognised Vanderbabush from that. And I just looked
at everyone and thought it’s fantastic, you know, because we didn’t have any
reference to that person.
No course not.
SPRIOS
And we knew
also they were taking notes.
Who were?
SPYROS
The nurse, who
actually wasn’t… We don’t know the people in the film was a man or a woman, but
we heard that it was a woman. And Michelle was the woman. So talk about
multitasking we were acting…
And she had to
use a pen presumably from the right period as well?
SPYROS
She had to
write… She had to write… We used a pencil. We couldn’t find the right kind of
pen. Pencil we did find and she used a pencil, but I didn’t go there. I didn’t
go too close, kept it a little bit out of focus. The writing, we asked her
mother who came from that era to write all the tags that went onto all the
debris footage. It’s exactly the right type of writing, you know, and no one…
So there is debris
footage in there as well? How strange.
SPYROS
Yeah, the
debris footage is actually tagged
And that’s…
(Knock)
And that’s
presumably…
UNKNOWN
Hi, sorry to
bother you. I need to move your car, can I just borrow your keys for a second
I’ll ask one of the guys to do it, if you trust us?
We were talking
about multitasking and I think we’re kind of there, I think, actually.
SPYROS
The problems
that we had…
Yeah
SPYROS
… Em… whilst making the film obviously it was… anyone that’s
criticized the film from the perspective of why, how it’s been filmed and all
that sort of stuff. Bare in mind I had to make this…