Alternative 3 is a novelisation of the spoof Science Report documentary.
Script Writer
David Ambrose
Television DetailsDavid Ambrose
Science Report
60 Minutes / ITV / Colour
20/06/77 Alternative 3
Archive Details / DVD Releases
Contrary to a number of popular conspiracy theories, Alternative 3 is still held in the Anglia Television archives. It was finally issued on Region 2 DVD in the UK in 2007 (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / HMV.com).
Alternative 3THE MOST ASTOUNDING AND FRIGHTENING CONSPIRACY EVER
Research for what was intended as a straightforward TV documentary on the scientific 'Brain Drain' from Britain revealed some extremely disturbing things:
- Many people joining the Brain Drain are vanishing off the face of the earth — literally
- Earth will soon be unable to support life: our climate's recent strange behaviour is only a warm-up for the cataclysms to come
- The super-powers have been working secretly together in space for decades
- Government agencies are kidnapping ordinary people and turning them into mindless slaves by advanced brainwashing methods
- Astronauts' reports of strange things they saw on the Moon have been suppressed
- Ultra-secret joint US/USSR conferences are held each month in a submarine under the Arctic ice-cap
And this was just the tip of the iceberg. Behind these and many more sinister features lurks the top secret operation known as ALTERNATIVE 3 — an international government conspiracy so monstrous that the human mind can scarcely grasp its true enormity. This courageous book goes beyond even the ground-breaking TV exposé to reveal the awesome horror of ALTERNATIVE 3...
Publisher Sphere Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1978 ISBN 0-7221-1126-6 Original Price £1.50 Country UK
Alternative 3Fact: The Earth's atmosphere is becoming super-heated and unbreathable. If this trend is not reversed, life on Earth is doomed.
Alternative 1: Blast "chimneys" in the stratosphere with nuclear weapons releasing heat and pollution. Project status-abandoned.
Alternative 2: Relocate Earth's population in massive underground caverns...status-abandoned.
Alternative 3: A bold venture into space built on revolutionary technology, officially-sanctioned murder, and a secret international conspiracy. Project status-unknown."
Publisher Avon Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1978 ISBN 0380446774 Original Price UNKNOWN Country USA
Alternativa 3
Publisher Fontana Fantástica Format Paperback Publication Date 1980 ISBN 84-270-0616-0 Translator Horacio Gonzáles Trejo Country Spain
Összeesküdt Ellenségek
Publisher Pannon Format Paperback Publication Date 1993 ISBN 963-7866-54-X Translator Seres Iván Country Hungary
Alternative 3
Publisher Warner Books Format Paperback Publication Date 1994 ISBN 0751510092 Original Price UNKNOWN Country USA
Alternative 3: Der Geheimbericht
Publisher Pandora Format Paperback Publication Date 1993 ISBN 389539288X Translator UNKNOWN Country Germany
In the Press
Fortean Times
Issue 121 — Article
A fascinating article by Nick Austin, the Editorial Director of Sphere Books at the time Alternative 3 was originally published, appeared in Issue 121 (April 1999) of Fortean Times and is available to read on their website.
General Notes
- Alternative 3 was a spoof documentary, produced for the Science Report series on ITV, about a plan to send people to the moon because the Earth is becoming uninhabitable. Like the infamous edition of Panorama in 1957 that investigated the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland, Alternative 3 was intended to be broadcast on April Fool's Day. Rather unfortunately, the transmission date slipped. Even more unfortunately, some rather ill-judged nudging and winking by the authors in the years following the broadcast has led to a rather large number of people believing that it is all true.
Inevitably, this has led to a number of "facts" about the programme cropping up on websites where TV dramas (the X-Files excepted) would rarely be mentioned. Amongst the more amusing are that the original programme was destroyed or had "gone missing" from the Anglia Television archives, and that the disappearance of Robert Maxwell, soon after Alternative 3 was reprinted for the final time by his publishing company, may be connected with the said reprint. People believing either "fact" are advised to either a) buy the DVD of the supposedly destroyed programme, or b) watch out for the men in white coats rather than the men in black... - The governmental cover-up aspect of Alternative 3 has made it popular with conspiracy-theorists all over the world. In fact, it's become so popular that a book discussing the issues in the programme has been published in the United States.
Casebook on Alternative 3 (IllumiNet Press, ISBN: 0-962653-49-7), by Jim Keith, was first released in 1994, with an updated version released in 1999 (ISBN: 1-881532-17-) under the title Mind Control and UFO's: Casebook on Alternative 3. The revised version was re-released in 2005 by Adventures Unlimited Press (ISBN: 1931882444).
Anyone wishing to delve further into the murky world of paranoia and secret government schemes in UK sci-fi tv programmes may like to pick up the novelisations of 1990, the books based on The Prisoner, the Quatermass II script book, and the novelisation of ITV's 1997 alien invasion series The Uninvited.
