Alternative 3 Overview Response Books Hoax Influence

Alternative 3 began as a fictional hoax, a heir to Orson Welles' radio production of The War of the Worlds. The original programme was supposed to be broadcast on April Fools Day, 1977, but was delayed to June by industrial action (notably, the credits explicitly copyright the film on April 1st). Alternative 3 provided credits for the actors and interviewed a non-existent astronaut. However, some conspiracy theory supporters have argued Alternative 3 is at least partly true.

1 Overview

In the late 1970s the UK's Anglia Television ran a weekly science series, Science Report . The final episode, Alternative 3, retained the series' format and presenter, and was written by Leslie Watkins, Chris Miles and David Ambrose. Music was by Brian Eno, a portion of his score being released on the 1978Events January January 1 The Copyright Act of 1976 takes effect, making sweeping changes to United States copyright law. January 1 Air India's Boeing 747 explodes near Bombay 213 dead. January 4 Referendum in Chile supports policies of Augusto Pinochet. album Music for Films .

The episode began by detailing the so-called "brain drain": a number of supposedly mysterious disappearances and deaths of physicistA physicist is a scientist trained in physics. Physicists are employed by universities as professors, lecturers, researchers, and by laboratories in industry. Employment as a professional physicist generally requires a doctoral degree. However, many peopls, engineers, astronomers and others in related fields. Among the strange deaths reported was that of one "Professor Bannatyne" of Jodrell BankThe Jodrell Bank Observatory is located near Macclesfield, Cheshire in the north west of England. The observatory is part of the University of Manchester and has played an important role in the research of quasars and pulsars. In 1979, scientists of Jodre. Before his death, Bannatyne delivers a videotape to an academic friend, but when viewed on an ordinary videotape machine the only result is radio static.

According to the research presented in the episode, it was hypothesized that the missing scientists were involved in a secret American/Soviet plan in outer spaceFor other meanings of the term space see space. Outer space (also called just space , as a name for a region, refers to the relatively empty parts of the Universe, outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. The term outer space is used to distinguish it, and further suggested that space travel had been possible for much longer than was commonly accepted. The episode featured an ApolloFor other meanings, see Apollo (disambiguation). Project Apollo was a series of human spaceflight missions undertaken by the United States of America using the Apollo spacecraft, conducted during the years 1961- 1972. It was devoted to the goal of landing astronaut - the fictional "Bob Grodin" - who claims to have stumbled on a mysterious lunar base during his moonwalk.

It was claimed that scientists had determined that the EarthEarth also known as the Earth or Terra is the planet on which we live, the third planet outward from the Sun. It is the largest of the solar system's terrestrial planets, and the only planetary body that modern science confirms as harbouring life. The pla's surface would be unable to support life for much longer, due to pollutionLachine Canal, in Montreal, is badly polluted Pollution is the release of harmful environmental contaminants, or the substances so released. Generally the process needs to result from human activity to be regarded as pollution. Even relatively benign prod leading to catastrophic climatic change. It was proposed that there were three alternatives to this problem: the first involved the detonation of nuclear bombs in the stratosphere in order to allow the pollution to escape. The second alternative was the construction of an elaborate underground city, a solution reminiscent of the finale of Dr Strangelove. The third alternative, the so-called "Alternative 3", was to populate Mars via a waystation on the Moon.

The programme ends with some detective work; acting on information from Grodin, the reporters determine that Bannatyne's videotape requires a special decoding device. After locating such a device, the resulting video turns out to depict a landing on the Martian surface - in 1962! As Russian and American voices excitedly celebrate their achievement, something stirs beneath the Martian soil...

(Some expanded accounts, essentially fanon, state that one of the rejected alternatives was the "elimination" of vast segments of the populace, presumably by some form of biowarfare - in the minds of some conspiracists, this equates to AIDS or some other unknown plague.)

It was further claimed that Mars had abundant water "locked up in its soil" and that this water could be utilized. Critics of Alternative 3's actuality note that Mars' atmospheric pressure is so low that liquid water at Mars' surface would boil away within minutes. Supporters arge that the water being "locked up in the soil" might protect posited water from such effects.

2 Response

As with Welles' earlier radio production, and the subsequent BBC drama Ghostwatch, Alternative 3 provoked controversy, with many viewers unprepared for its convincing presentation and deadpan tone.

The programme's environmental catastrophism comprised a mixture of global warming and then-popular warnings of an impending ice age, both of which were high in the public consciousness at the time[1]. The dark conspiracy theory appealed to an increasingly sceptical generation which was starting to take the Apollo moon landing hoax more seriously.

Shortly after Alternative 3 was broadcast, Anglia Television issued a statement that the Alternative 3 episode was a hoax. Conspiracy theorists suggested that the British government forced Anglia Television to issue this statement.

3 Books

In 1978, Leslie Watkins wrote a book, Alternative 3, based on the screenplay for the television episode. Watkins had previously written a few moderately successful " suspense thriller" novels, and his Alternative 3 novelization detailed many of the claims presented in the episode. It was published by Sphere Books Ltd, of Grays's Inn Road, London.

Jim Keith 's Casebook on Alternative 3: Ufo's, Secret Societies and World Control argues that some elements of the 1977 broadcast were in fact true.

4 Hoax?

Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that Alternative 3 was an utter fiction comes from Nick Austin, who was editorial director of Sphere Books when Watkins' adaptation was commissioned and published. Austin writes that the book was the "best chance I’d ever be likely to get to participate in a hoax of truly Guy Grand proportions - the best thing of its kind since Orson Welles’ 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast."

Furthermore, Austin writes that he was both delighted and disturbed by the Alternative 3 controversy, and adds that the reasons "a clever hoax, openly admitted to be such by its creators, should continue to exercise the fascination it so obviously does the best part of a generation after its first appearance is beyond my feeble powers of analysis and explanation." [2]

An article by Loy Lawhon reports that "everyone involved with the Alternative 3 documentary admits that it was fiction(.)" [3]

One unsourced account reports that the producers of Alternative 3 "announced that the entire thing had been a joke." [4]

A more detailed explanation of the hoax is featured in a study of conspiracy theory subculture and literature, Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (2003), wherein Michael Barkun devotes a few pages to Alternative 3.

Barkun writes that "Alternative 3 was clearly a hoax--and not only because it was broadcast on April Fools Day. The interviews with supposed scientists, astronauts, and others were far too dramatically polished to have been spontaneous, and in any case, the episode's closing credits named the actors who took the roles of interviewees and correspondents. Though artfully produced, the show's counterfeit documentary style could scarcely have been expected to fool many. As an Anglia TV spokeseman put it, 'We felt viewers would be fairly sophisticated about it.'"

Bakun notes that television and newspapers were "swamped" with inquiries about Alternative 3 and that Anglia Television's sale of the book rights to Leslie Watkins caused the tale to spread far beyond the United Kingdom.

A letter reportedly written by Watkins, however, states that "So, summing up, the book is FICTION BASED ON FACT. But I now feel that I inadvertently got VERY CLOSE TO A SECRET TRUTH." [5]

5 Influence

Bakun notes that Alternative 3 and the intermittent availability of Watkins' book "lent itself to conspiracist interpretations," and though Alternative 3 did not mention UFOs or extraterrestrials, many of the plans mentioned in Alternative 3 have been featured in later assorted conspiracy theories. Bakun argues that Alternative 3 was important in that its "role in the growth of conspiracy theory lay in a later permutation" related to UFOs and the UFO conspiracy theory. William Milton Cooper, for one, featured similar tales in some of his writings.

(A 1955 episode of Dimension X featured a plot very similar to the later Alternative 3: In the episode "The Man In the Moon", an employee of the fictional United States "Bureau of Missing Persons" overhears a radio broadcast from a man who claims to be held prisoner on the moon. The employee investigates, and uncovers the kidnapping of many persons, including scientists and engeneers, who are then forced to toil on the moon by German overseers, who had colonized the moon in the late 1930s, and who are preparing an invasion and takeover of the earth.)

6 External links

7 Sources

Michael Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America [6]

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