A documentary maker says film taken inside the Pike River Mine shows the fully intact body of a miner.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 2010 disaster in which 29 workers lost their lives considered evidence which did not become public and is subject to an embargo preventing its release.
It's believed the footage may be from this.
Tony Sutorius says the video was shot inside the mine four months after the last fire and explosion.
He wants to include the footage in a documentary he's making about the life of union leader Helen Kelly who fought for the Pike families.
He says the body is lying on the ground.
"He has his knees slightly raised. You can see the tread on his boots."
Russell Smith was one of only two men to survive the Pike River mine explosion. (Source: Other)
He said police said at the same time the image was shot all there was in the mine was a pile of ashes.
"If you look at these images down the mine, there's wooden pallets, there's plastic buckets, there's rubber hoses. It wasn't an inferno down here."
Two men in the mine drift managed to escape.
The 29 men deeper in the mine are believed to have died immediately, or shortly afterwards.
There were three more explosions within the mine before it was sealed nine days later. The remains of the men who lost their lives have not been recovered.
The Labour government has created the Pike River Recovery Agency to work with the Pike River families and others to plan for decisions on the manned re-entry of the Pike River mine drift.
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