Alien Dummy

ONCE upon a time, long ago in Toronto around 1979—in a factory that made plastic and wax models for movies—some creative types got together and created a quasi-elfin, quasi-alien looking manikin. Not a whole manikin, but just the head and hands, which nevertheless managed to look like the whole E.T. when attached to a silvery polyester fake cosmonaut’s suit.

In fact, if you're one of those people who believe that one or more flying saucers really crashed in the New Mexican desert near the town of Roswell on July 2, 1947, and that the diminutive bodies of the alien crew were recovered, and that the whole incident was then covered up by U.S. military types, you might believe that the wax dummy in the silvery suit was a faithful replica of one of the Roswell aliens.

The story I am about to relate concerns this poor innocent dummy created for Canada’s Man and His World, exposition, whose face travelled from Australia to Russia and was proffered as proof - even by a former Soviet cosmonaut - that we are being visited by aliens. It is an Alien Phoax (photo hoax) of the Funniest Kind, involving a case of mistaken abduction, a Montreal auction and a happy reunion of Christian Page, the journalist who inadvertently started the confusion with some souvenir photos he took in 1981, with the alien dummy that caused all the fuss.

Auctioned Alien Dummy

The alien dummy disappeared after it was sold at a city of Montreal auction in November, 1987. But it suddenly reappeared Nov. 18, 1995, on an operating table wheeled onto a stage by a “doctor” in a white surgical mask. The operating theatre was the auditorium of the CEGEP-Maisonneuve, the site of Montreal's first UFO Day organized by SOS OVNI/Quebec, of which Christian Page is president.

The day's program of discussions, films and talks ended with the Canadian debut of the controversial film purportedly made in 1947 of an autopsy of one of the crashed Roswell aliens. For a bit of satiric relief before the gory footage started rolling, dry ice smoked over the stage and the “petite bonhomme en plastique,'“ as Christian Page calls it, made its startling comeback. The autopsy spoof was hilarious - the perfect counterpoint to razz those UFO buffs who believe anything. But the story behind this manikin is even funnier.

Cosmonaut Comedy

I met Page over coffee and he showed me the articles and documentation on the manikin. Its humanoid face filled the cover of the first issue of Enigma, Quebec's paranormal magazine. Editor Page, a rigorous, open-minded skeptic, said the magazine would serve as a watchdog over claims of unexplained phenomena. But the claims - and furor - which transformed the Montrealien into a real alien are something Page cannot explain.

The wax alien was created for Le Monde de l'Insolite, an exhibition at Man and His World. Page gave a copy of the photo he had taken to a British UFO ``researcher'' who had requested it. The next thing Page knew, the photo was being splashed on the cover of UFO magazines and tabloids from Germany to Japan and Australia to Russia.

Page immediately wrote to the publications, alerting them that the ``alien'' was not one of the Roswell flying-saucer crew, but only a Man and His World dummy he had photographed. But magazines accused him of being a UFO-debunker and refused to believe him until he produced the actual dummy. (Clearly a use of habeas corpus.) And so the stories continued: “The pictures show a doll-like Oriental figure with closed eyes and pouting mouth,'' one magazine reported. “UFO experts say it is the most tangible evidence of what they have always claimed - that alien crafts and crews have been visiting us for years,'' wrote another.

The Alien Dummy Search

“You see why I had to find that dummy, “ Page said to me, with a roll of the eyes. “I wrote to the city of Montreal, and the logistics-support director of Man and His the World replied with a letter confirming that the manikin had indeed been part of the 1977 exhibition. The letter gave the telephone number of the auction house that sold it, but the name of the buyer could not be released.''

Page put out the word that he was looking for the manikin owner. No luck. Meanwhile, things were getting worse. A British TV series called UFOs - Miracle of the Unknown claimed that the alien was real. Former Soviet cosmonaut Marina Popovich (wife of Cosmonaut Valerie Popovich) informed Quest International that the photograph was an original print taken from photos of the dead aliens at Roswell. (Perhaps there was a translation problem here?) And the July-August 1995 issue of England's UFO Magazine wrote: “The 4 foot creature sported a silver-gray tight-fitting suit ... and very Earth-like clothing.” (Well yes…)

UFO Magazine also said that the alien (dummy) had not been modeled on aliens found at Roswell after all, but according to the description provided by UFO abductee Linda Corriveau. Page showed me the letter he wrote to the editor of UFO Magazine on Sept. 20, 1995: “This information is quite ridiculous. Mrs. Corriveau has never been abducted by aliens, she was simply the Montreal city employee responsible for the exposition - just a clerk.'“

Like a crazy game of telephone…

And guess what, no one knew the whereabouts of Mme. Corriveau. (If they couldn’t produce her body, would they insist that she was is now a resident of Planet X?). Through a lucky coincidence, Page finally met the new owner of the dummy at a UFO lecture he was giving in Montreal. The man named Rejean Cossette had bought the dummy for $175 and offered to rent it to Page for a night—for $100.

I decided to ring up Monsieur Cossette in Saint-Tite to ask how his alien dummy was keeping. “Do you have it on display, stretched out on your living room coffee table or what?'' I joked. Cossette didn't think that was funny. He spoke in rather covert tones, about its being in a hermetically sealed, earthquake-proof vault somewhere in the province. “I didn't think it was worth that much when I bought it in 1987 but now I know its true value. I got a call from Hollywood. Someone wants to use it for a film.''

Cossette has reason to sound covert, I guess. He's worried about his ET's ears. “They are very fragile, and bits of them have fallen off. They are very prone to melting,'' he said.