The Alien Autopsy Phone Page

Alien Autopsy Phone

(Last updated 2/10/96)

This Web Page presents images of the telephone seen in the Alien Autopsy Video, as well as photographs of telephones from around the 1947 time period taken from various sources.

The most obvious features of the Autopsy Phone are that it is a wallphone, and it has a curly cord (also known as a spring cord or coiled cord).

Wallphones can be seen in photographs of the period. The following is taken from Pacific Telephone Magazine of Autumn 1947.

(A 238K Gif file)

Curly cords also are evident in many photographs. For example, Life Magazine of July 28, 1947 on page 53 shows then foreign policy expert George Kennan speaking into a telephone handset with a curly cord. Here is a picture of a train telephone with a curly cord, taken from Bell Laboratories Record magazine of January 1948.

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Other Distinctive Features Of The Autopsy Phone.

More Pictures Of Alien Autopsy Phone

1. The fingerwheel (dial) of the autopsy phone appears to be set in a cavity or hollow in the phone base. This is particularly evident in the right-hand picture of the autopsy phone, where there seems to be a cutaway of the central region. This feature seems to rule out the "Fox Phone" (32K gif) as being the actual phone in the Autopsy scene. (During the Fox presentation, the narrator says the phone in the Autopsy footage is "a standard Bell model from 1937" and then shows a color closeup of an old phone.)

2. There are no openings visible at the side of the phone (except possibly the faintest impression of one in the picture second from the right.)

3. The fingerwheel appears remarkably light in coloration.

4. The curly cord appears somewhat stretched, as if the phone has been in use for some time.

5. The handset is very like the F1 handset used in all the Western Electric 300 series, with its characteristic bulge in the middle. Here is a good picture of the F1 handset (taken from the "Old Time Telephones" book listed at the end of this page).

It has been claimed (although the claim has since been retracted) that the Autopsy Phone is the Western Electric 554. However, the latter phone used the G1 handset, which is quite different from the F1. In addition, the fingerwheel on the WE 554 is set much closer to the hook, as seen here (also taken from "Old Time Telephones").

It has also been hypothesized that the phone is an earlier Western Electric model, the 354. However, the WE 354 had louvers (slotted openings) at the sides (similar to those seen in the train phone above). No such openings are evident in the Autopsy Phone pictures. It is not clear from the photographs I have seen whether the WE 354 has the cavity in the fingerwheel region.

The following shows a picture of the WE 354 (reduced from a picture sent by CircusMan) placed (on the right) alongside the Autopsy Phone for comparison. Also placed alongside (on the left) is a different view of the 354 (taken from "Old Time Telephones"). There are louvers visible at the side, but they are difficult to see at this resolution.

There is conflicting evidence as to when the WE 354 was first manufactured. Another telephone, which the "100 Years of Bell Telephones" book (listed below) says was available in early 1946, is the Western Electric 352. Unfortunately, I do not have access to any photographs of it. Since they are both in the 300 series, one may assume that the external appearance was much like the 354.

Besides Western Electric, there were other phone manufacturers operating in the U.S. during this period, including American Electric and Kellogg. We cannot discount the possibility that the phone could be one of theirs.

Acknowledgement This web page has been influenced by previous research and postings of CircusMan, Kerry Ferrand, Vaughan Wynne-Jones, and others. (Of course, opinions and errors are entirely my own. ;-)

Other Distinctive Features Of The Autopsy Phone.

Further Reading