Subject: Re: Alternative 3, hoax?

Date: 11 Feb 94 00:57:53 GMT

Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1994Jan20.170052.16671@syma.sussex.ac.uk> ccff0@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Simon Clout) writes:

>

>A few years ago I bought a book (of which the name I have forgotten)

>about 26 scientists who had either died or disappered all of whom were

>connected with the defence industry over here in the UK. A very good

>read but it wasn't until I had bought a copy of Alternative 3 a couple

>of years after that, that things seemed to get more mysterious. I will

>try and find the title and post it at a later date,

"BOOK, HYPE, AND SNOOKERED"

by Robert Sheaffer

(Book Review reprinted from the Nov.Dec., 1979 issue of

the now-defunct magazine, "Second Look")

ALTERNATIVE 3

by Leslie Watkins, David Ambrose and Christopher Miles.

New York: Avon Books, 1979.

Can a book be banned from sale in the United States? Well-

known UFOlogist Gray Barker [died 1984] claims in his regular

column in UFO Review (June, 1979) that this one was. The book's

thesis that the end of life on earth is coming, and that only the

elite of the world can be rescued, is purportedly too shocking

for the government to permit the book's release. "I'm not going

to risk trouble by trying to get a copy," Barker shudders

(although after I effortlessly obtained a copy of the original

British edition, no "Men In Black" came pounding on my door).

An American edition of "Alternative 3" is available now. It

is not difficult to see why the government might want to suppress

the book, *if* what it says is true*. East/West tensions are a

deliberate fraud, it says, a smokescreen thrown up to divert

attention from the real danger now reportedly facing the world.

The eco-alarmists are right, the authors contend: the world is

now facing certain extinction due to an accelerating runaway

greenhouse effect resulting from the buildup of carbon dioxide in

the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels. Alternative 1

was supposedly discussed by an elite panel of end-of-the-world

brainstormers, and rejected as being impractical and hazardous:

using a series of nuclear explosions to "punch holes" in the

supposed envelope of carbon dioxide. Alternative 2 - moving the

elite of mankind to live in underground cities - was also

rejected as impractical and undesirable.

That leaves us with Alternative 3: transporting the world's

intellectual and governmental elite off the earth completely,

using the moon as a way-station in the colonization, and eventual

terraforming, of Mars. The technology to accomplish this is

alleged to already be in existence: the space program as we know

it is said to be just a diversion from the *real* space effort, a

joint US/USSR venture, which is far more advanced than everyone

has been led to believe. A lunar colony is claimed to already

exist, managed by the elite "designated movers," where a corps of

de-sexed, lobotomized slaves, tactlessly called "batch

consignments," performs all of the manual labor.

It is difficult for the casual reader to know what to make

of Alternative 3. The book purports to be non-fictional (the

British edition carries the categorization "World Affairs/

Speculation"), an adaptation of a supposedly earth-shaking TV

documentary produced by Anglia TV. It is filled with references

to real persons and real events. Otto Binder *did* make wild

claims about weird objects that the astronauts supposedly sighted

in space. Gerard O'Neill [died 1992] *did* make headlines with

his advocacy of space colonies (the US/USSR conspirators are said

to have debated whether Professor O'Neill should be done away

with, since he knows so much: "not necessary," they decided. I

wonder if he realizes how close to death he came!) We find

references to Senator Edward Kennedy, astronauts Mitchell, Aldrin

and Armstrong (as well as a fictitious moon-walker named

"Grodin"), UFOlogist Dr. David Saunders and many others. We find

many apparently authentic quotes from newspapers and magazines.

Yet the book is obviously a novel. The dialogue is too

contrived, and the protagonists' slam-bang uncovering of layer

after layer or treachery and conspiracy is typical of low-grade

spy novels. Can anyone truly convince himself that top American

and Soviet officials meet regularly in docking submarines beneath

the arctic ice cap to review conspiracy developments, and that

the transcript of their ultra-secret deliberations would read

like this?

American 2: I told you we should have killed that guy

Gerstein . . . way back in February . . . I said that he was

dangerous . . .

Russian 4: My friend is right . . . he did say that. And I

pointed out that Gerstein's talk could start a panic among

the masses . . .

A 8: . . . and I propose an expediency.

A 2: Seconded.

R 8: Those in favour? . . . then that is unanimous. The

method?

A 3: How about a telepathic sleep job . . . maybe with a

gun.

R 8: that seems sensible . . . it's too soon after

Ballantine for another hot job.

Gray Barker devoted a full column to the book because of

information received from an unnamed Major so-and-so. (The hints

Barker drops appear to be chosen to make us immediately conclude

"The Major" to be former NICAP director Major Keyhoe. But it is

not. It is a different retired Major [Wayne Aho], living on the

West coast, not nearly as well-known as Keyhoe, who has long been

associated with Adamski-style contactees.) The Major attempted to

buy one hundred copies of "Alternative 3" from the Canadian

publishing firm or Thomas Nelson & Sons. Jim Gifford, the manager

of the paperback division, informed the Major that the order

could not be filled because, in his ill-chosen phrase, "the above

title has been banned from sale in the United States."

The Major apparently sent a copy of this letter to Barker,

who picked up the football and ran a hundred yards, charging that

this book was suppressed in the U.S. because it was embarrassing

to the authorities, and that the "space program is a hoax" movie,

"Capricorn One", was canned prematurely, supposedly for the same

reason.

Since, however, the full letterhead of Thomas Nelson & Sons

is reproduced in the Barker piece, I wrote to Gifford asking if

"Alternative 3" really was banned in the United States. He

replied that it is unfortunate that Barker did not contact him

before rushing off to print, as it would have saved considerable

embarrassment on both their behalfs! The reason the book was

supposedly "banned" in the U.S. , he explained, was that Avon

Books had purchased the U.S. paperback rights. Had the Canadian

firm filled the Major's order, it faced the risk of a whopping

lawsuit from Avon Books.

But are the startling claims of "Alternative 3" true? How do

we explain the interviews with whistle-blowers, the tie-in with

missing persons, the clues to allegedly mysterious deaths of

prominent persons? Our British readers already know the answer:

April Fool! As reported in "The Times" of London on June 21,

1977, the day after the TV version was presented, "Independent

television companies last night received hundreds of protest

calls after an Anglia programme, "Alternative 3", giving alarming

"facts" about changes in the earth's atmosphere. It was a hoax,

originally intended for April 1." Reporter Alan Coren observed

that "the year's worst kept secret was that Alternative 3 was a

spoof . . . if you know that 'a hoax is a hoax, how can you

possibly attack it for lacking authenticity?" He suggested that

had he not been in on the "secret" in advance, while the total

preposterousness of the story itself might not have deterred

belief, the acting was so unconvincing as to remove all doubt.

It seems that we Americans, who almost never read the

British press and whose own media have said virtually nothing

about this matter, are having our credulity tested by the

promoters of "Alternative 3". Some of us have already risen to

the occasion, mustering credulity above and beyond the call of

duty: Major A., Gray Barker (the first to write a book about the

supposedly mysterious "Men In Black," whose existence has now

been swallowed by Hynek, Vallee, Keel, Clark and many others), as

well as Timothy Green Beckley, editor of "UFO Review". Don't be

the next to bite the hook. The marketing of "Alternative 3"

represents a real-world test of the old adage that a fool and his

money are soon parted.

--

Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com

Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

"Envy is the cause of political division."

- Democritus, 460-370 BC.

(Fr. 295, ed. Diels, II, 195.)