CNN - Larry King Live, Vendredi 30 Mai 2008
KING: We have an extraordinary story out of Denver. Let's meet our panelists.
Stan Romanek is the man who claims to have shot footage of an extraterrestrial.
Jeff Peckman is pushing for a ballot initiative to establish an extraterrestrial affairs commission on the Denver City Council.
James Meadow is a reporter with the "Rocky Mountain News". He attended today's showing of a video that purports to show a space alien.
And Jerry Hoffman is an instructor at the Colorado Film School, a veteran film editor who has analyzed the footage shot by Stan Romanek. Stan, when did take this? What did you see?
STAN ROMANEK, SHOT VIDEO OF "SPACE ALIEN": It was July 17th, 2003. I actually thought we had a peeping Tom. I was living in Nebraska at the time. I had twin teenage -- young teenage twin daughters. Every time I -- every once in a while at night I'd get up, let's say to go to the kitchen from watching TV. And the windows were open and I'd see a head, it looked like, out of the corner of my eye, some movement in the window. And every time I ran outside to try to catch who I thought was looking in our window, there was nobody there.
I talked to some of the researchers and scientists involved in my case and they suggested well, you know, next time this happens, get your video camera out, put it on a tripod, put it on night shot and pretend you're going to bed.
So I did exactly that. I actually got my camera ready, put it on a tripod, pointed it toward the window and instead of going to bed, I actually went to the next room and got a magazine and watched to see if I could maybe see it for myself, catch it. And that's how it all happened.
KING: And this was five years ago?
ROMANEK: Yes.
KING: Why is it just coming to light now?
ROMANEK: Well, there's a lot of things involved with my case, a lot of evidence. The reason it's coming out now -- we wanted -- well, there's a lot of scientists and researchers involved my case and we wanted to make sure that...
KING: Your case being what? A case meaning what?
ROMANEK: Well, there's a lot of encounters involved with my case -- a lot of UFO encounters involved with my case. And there's a lot of physical evidence. And we wanted to make sure that all the evidence has been looked at by serious scientists. And...
KING: All right.
ROMANEK: ...I have -- the reason it's taken so long, if it were up to me, I would have just given this all out a long time ago. But the researchers and scientists say, you know, we want -- if you want this documented correctly, if you want us to make sure that, you know, everything's what it looks like it is then, you know, let us do that before you give it out to the public.
KING: OK. OK. James Meadow, you watched it right, correct? You've seen the video?
JAMES MEADOW, REPORTER, "ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS": I have been at the video. That's right, Larry.
KING: Tell us what you think of it.
MEADOW: Well, it's a little bit odd. I mean it's spooky, on the one hand, to think that this might be an alien. But to tell you the truth, it's -- I mean there's not much there -- at least what we saw. We only saw like about a minute, two minutes.
It's grainy. It's dark. There's a kind of a skull shaped head that floats up. Dark spaces for the eyes. And it looked a little bit like one of the glow in the dark heads I got when I was in Roswell, New Mexico on a trip. And I mean no disrespect, but that's kind of what it looked like. You're being told that this is an actual alien or an extraterrestrial, but, in fact, I don't know. I mean and -- you know, you're a journalist. We're skeptical by nature. We major in cynicism.
KING: Well, why won't they show it -- why couldn't we show it tonight?
ROMANEK: Because I have an agreement with the scientists not to do that until they have had a chance to actually do their analyzation of it and to...
KING: But it's been five years. You've shown it to the "Rocky Mountain News".
ROMANEK: Yes. But they don't want to have it released to the public yet. They want to make sure that it's been scrutinized correctly. Obviously, if it were up to me, I'd let everybody have it. But, you know, that's not (INAUDIBLE).
KING: Jeff Peckman, what do you make of it?
JEFF PECKMAN, SAYS "E-T AFFAIRS COMMISSION" NEEDED: Well, it was convincing to me. But I had also seen that at the end of a two or three hour presentation by Stan on two occasions. And it's really just one sliver of a hundred different experiences that he's had, unique experiences. And so it's kind of a visual -- a final visual confirmation that what I was starting to believe, based on all this other evidence and witness testimony from top secret employees in the government and other stories -- other aspects of his story, it just seemed kind of natural and fit everything else. So it was very believable to me.
KING: OK. By the way, we are showing one frame from it. It's hard to see it too clearly, but we are showing one frame.
Jerry Hoffman, an instructor in the Colorado Film School and a veteran film editor, what's your analysis of the footage?
JERRY HOFFMAN, INSTRUCTOR, COLORADO FILM SCHOOL: Well, it's -- the footage was definitely shot with a consumer camera. It was shot -- it's the last shot that's on the end of a bunch of home movies that he had shot earlier of them going to the zoo. And the time code on the tape is consistent throughout the entire previous footage to the shot of the creature. And there's time of day code, which is also consistent throughout this entire tape. So it was a one shot thing, done in camera.
I don't believe that, if you look at the -- if you look at the image, you can see the reflection of the back wall in the glass. And so the creature -- the head comes up and that and that reflection is over his face. So he's definitely on the other side of the glass. And to key that or to create that key in DV footage, which is what this is -- and it is a camera master that I analyzed -- is extremely difficult with that particular format so...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: James -- all right. James will be leaving us and another gentleman will replace him when this -- James, would you say further exploration needed?
MEADOW: Oh, further probing is probably need, Larry, I would say.
KING: OK. We'll probe it ourselves.
James Meadow, a reporter with the "Rocky Mountain News."
Stan, during the break, we'd like you to draw it what you saw.
ROMANEK: Sure.
KING: Draw it and show it to us when we come back.
ROMANEK: I'll try to.
KING: Well, try.
ROMANEK: I'll try to.
KING: Matthew Baxter is an investigator for the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Society. His society claims to have experience in fraud detection. We'll get to Matthew in a moment. Stan, did you do a drawing?
ROMANEK: Yes, I sure did.
KING: Can you put it up towards the camera?
ROMANEK: Sorry it is not that good but --
KING: That looks like -- that's E.T.
ROMANEK: Well, kind of. What they don't tell you -- I'm not sure if the quality of the video they showed at the press conference was that good or not -- but if you look at the video ,you can see it move its mouth, blinks the eyes. You can see the reflection of the infrared light on the night shot of the camera reflecting off its retinas.
KING: Matthew, what do you make of it?
MATTHEW BAXTER, ROCKY MOUNTAIN PARANORMAL SOCIETY: I don't believe it. Don't believe it.
KING: You don't -- you believe there was nothing there?
BAXTER: No. I believe that there was a basically an alien model there. There was a prop.
KING: A prop?
BAXTER: Yes.
KING: So this is a hoax?
BAXTER: Yes.
KING: Stan?
ROMANEK: Well, what's interesting and I don't know -- you can go out on YouTube now, but there's a really, really bad rendition of a video supposedly; it says the official Stan Romanek E.T. video and they got an alien probably from Wal-Mart and stuck it up and tried to shoot a video. It's amazing what the debunkers will kind of --
KING: Matthew, have you seen his photo, pictures?
BAXTER: I have seen the video.
KING: You have seen the video?
BAXTER: Yes.
KING: You don't buy it?
BAXTER: No. In fact, the video he is talking about on YouTube I made.
ROMANEK: Oh, sorry.
BAXTER: No. It's OK. It's OK. I think yours sucks so --
KING: Hey, Jeff. Based on this kind of flimsy approach, you're going for a ballot initiative to establish a whole commission on this?
PECKMAN: Right. Because these debunkers and skeptics can ask legitimate questions, but if they want to try to disprove all of the witness testimony from 400 or 500 people with top secret security clearance and witnessed the same things for themselves, and categorized 57 species of extra-terrestrials already, that's fine.
In this instance, this was the best available evidence, visual evidence that we could present. And I was doing that just to satisfy the curiosity and interest of the people who interviewed me before.
KING: Do you think they'll approve such a thing?
PECKMAN: I'm sorry.
KING: Do you think the council will approve it?
PECKMAN: Well, it is not up to the council. It is up to the voters.
KING: Oh, OK. It will go on a ballot?
PECKMAN: Yes.
KING: All right. Jerry, we either have -- Stan is either a perpetrator of a fraud or Matthew looking that the wrong way.
Where do you go with this, Jerry?
HOFFMAN: Well, you know, I don't have a -- any proof that Stan Romanek shot an alien. However, I have a hard time believing that a cheep prop was used for this. I'm quite convinced that it was shot in camera. And that it -- it is consistent with a consumer camera. It's consistent -- and the movement of the puppet is so elaborate that I think it would be an expensive puppet to make.
KING: You call it a puppet?
HOFFMAN: No. I don't have no idea whether it's a puppet or not a puppet. I'm saying it was not done in a computer system. It wasn't done as a special -- some sort of --
KING: I got you. What would Stan's point be?
BAXTER: What are you asking, what would his point where b?
KING: Putting up a puppet he got in some store, put in the window, take pictures and go through all this?
BAXTER: Well, I'm actually willing to believe that somebody could be perpetrating this on Stan. I mean, I've met Stan several times. He's a very nice guy. I like him. But I don't like his evidence is all.
KING: So you mean a friend may have put it in the window and said, Stan go take a picture?
BAXTER: You know, there's a lot of money to be made with Stan right now.
KING: Stan Romanek, what happens next? When will the world see this video?
ROMANEK: Hopefully soon. It is up to the scientists. I also -- you know, I want to point out that I too watched this thing when I got out of the room. I saw this thing duck down. And actually it was a full moon out, and I looked outside and this thing was running to the backyard. And when it looked at -- when it looked back at me, I realized that this thing was not normal and it literally scared the heck out of me.
KING: Did you believe in aliens, UFOs before this?
ROMANEK: No. Before my experience started, no, not at all. In fact, I was probably more a skeptic than the gentleman sitting there. I was really pretty aggressive about making fun of people, too.
KING: Matthew, are you saying he didn't see what he says he saw?
BAXTER: I can say that my experience is reverse of his. I used to believe and now I'm running the other way. It's -- it's kind of one of those crazy things. It's so hard to say what he saw, what he didn't. But I can say from what we're being shown it's not evidence. If you consider what aliens that would come to this Earth would be capable of, why would they be caught being a peeping Tom?
KING: I know. Jeff, isn't that a good point?
PECKMAN: Well, I think it's pure speculation to try to second guess alien motivations. So where do you start with that? You can say anything.
KING: If you can travel in outer space, why are you peeking in a window of a guy in Denver? Why don't you come to Washington and talk to Bush?
PECKMAN: Well, maybe they find him a very interesting specimen.
KING: OK. Jerry, what do you make of all of this? Are you open to it or not?
HOFFMAN: I'm open to it. It's an awfully large universe out there and if there's six billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and there's billions of galaxies, I think we are rather arrogant to think we are the only life in the universe. Certainly the NASA guys, didn't they just -- aren't we on Mars probing for the possibility of life? There's some pretty serious people that have also come forward, Governor Simington and others that have come forward that have seen some phenomenon.
And Stan's case is full of -- this one shot is hardly -- is just a tip of the iceberg of this man's case. So, you know, I couldn't say we should be -- until all of the story is told about Stan that you could make a -- some kind of judgment about that.
KING: Stan, did it make any sounds?
ROMANEK: No. Actually, what happened were there were actually two flashes of light. Very, very bright flashes of light that caught my attention and that's what made me come out.
KING: But no sound?
ROMANEK: But no sound. And, you know, I can't tell you. I can't tell you -- I can tell you what I saw.
KING: And you've done that very effectively. Hopefully we'll learn more. Stan Romanek, Jeff Peckman, Jerry Hoffman and Matthew Baxter, and some day maybe if it ever happens we'll find out right here.
