Area 51: The Alien Interview video is color video footage claimed to have been obtained by a man who identifies himself only as "Victor," who purports it to be of an extraterrestrial being interrogated at a government facility.

Victor maintains the footage was copied from a top-secret video originally recorded at Area 51. For fear of having his identity pinpointed, he never specifies whether he was an employee at the facility, but vaguely states that he "had reason to be present at Area 51... more than once."

Though the Alien Interview documentary states the copy was smuggled out of Area 51, Victor once again strays from details by never specifically saying where the copying took place. He merely insists that an instance of "data leaking" occurred during a massive transfer of video documentation from video analog to digital disc storage in a "(lower) security system." Victor took advantage of the circumstances to copy the footage.

On July 26, 1996, after several unsuccessful attempts to get network television companies to view and subsequently air his video, Victor contacted Rocket Pictures, an independent home video distribution company based in Los Angeles. Company president Tom Coleman, though reluctant at first, agreed to produce a documentary based on the video after his telephone conversation with Victor. Coleman sought the opinion of outside experts before going forth with making the documentary, and invited ufologist Sean David Morton to view the video.

On March 13, 1997, Morton, being interviewed by Art Bell on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, made mention of the video and described it in great detail, thus marking it the first time the general public became aware of the video's existence. Victor himself would be interviewed by Bell just two months later. Calling from a phone and using a device to alter his voice, Victor also went into detail over the contents of the video.

The alleged alien in an interrogation room. The video is approximately two minutes and 55 seconds in length. It contains the bold white characters "DNI/27" imposed in the bottom left corner while a clock that runs upwards from "04:00:18:15" to "04:03:12:25" during the duration of the video appears in the bottom center.

A diminutive being that fits the description of that of the Greys is seated at a rectangular table. The subject, which Victor says was brought to Area 51 after its craft was shot down in 1989, is situated behind the end of the table farthest from where the video is being shot and is behind a large piece of glass which Victor describes as part of a "bio-containment area" meant to protect the alleged alien from microbes and viruses. Reflected in the glass is what appears to be two television monitors. The alien's head appears to be covered in bruises and what Morton suggests is a heart monitor can be seen on the table in front of the being.

A person who Victor claims is a military officer attempting to communicate with the alien telepathically can be seen in the left foreground, while a more casually-dressed human figure can alternately be seen entering/leaving the video in the right foreground. The room where the interview is taking place is very dimly lit, so darkness obscures the two and reveals them as nothing more than two unrecognizable shadowy figures. For the same reason, only the creature's head is continuously visible, while brief glimpses of its torso are also shown.

About halfway through the video, the alien becomes visibly distressed and appears to begin suffering from violent spasms and bouts of choking/gagging. The military officer signals for two medics, wearing scrubs and masks, to come to the aid of the convulsing alien. The medics shine a flashlight into its facial orifices, and one begins to wipe foam away from its mouth. At this point the video ends. It contains no audio, which Victor says he deliberately removed so that he could protect the anonymity of those who appear in the video.

The footage has the characters DNI/27 burnt into the bottom line of the frame, along with what appears to be the time code numbers for date, minutes and seconds. The letters DNI could be an acronym for the Department of Naval Intelligence, the group responsible for the Area 51 base, a fact not many people know about. The DNI connection to Area 51 has been widely investigated. George Knapp, the TV journalist who encouraged Bob Lazar to go public with his knowledge has shown that Lazar's pay cheques from the time he claimed to be working at Area 51 had DNI stamped on them.