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ALTERNATIVE 3
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LESLIE WATKINS
FROM THE ANGLIA TELEVISION FILM
ALTERNATIVE 3
DEVISED BY DAVID AMBROSE AND
CHRISTOPHER MILES
WRITTEN BY DAVID AMBROSE
DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER MILES
SPHERE BOOKS LIMITED
First published by
Sphere Books Ltd. 1978
27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ
Original television script copyright by
David Ambrose & Christopher Miles 1977
Book version copyright Leslie Watkins 1978
Reprinted 1979, 1980 (twice), 1987
This book is dedicated to Ann Clark, Robert Patterson and
Brian Pendlebury - wherever they may be
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Filmset in Photon Times
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Collins, Glasgow
2
STRANDS IN THE WEB...
The frighteningly erratic behaviour of the climate over the
past few years...Unidentified Flying Object activity at an
all-time peak...the continuing pollution and despoliation of
planet Earth by overpopulation and industry...the mounting
incidence of unexplained dissapearances of people in
mysterious circumstances...horrendous new killing techniques
including spontaneous combustion - used by government
assassins against those who pose a threat to the security of
an ultra-secret organization...terrifying advances in mind-
control by agencies like the CIA and their use in creating a
class of mindless human-robot slaves...astounding revelations
of clandestine collaboration in space between the USA and the
USSR over a period of decades...bizzare features observed on
the Moon and Mars - but for some reason barely mentioned in
the media...
These and many other sinister features unearthed and examined
by those investigating the horrific enigma of ALTERNATIVE 3
are the strands in a web of conspiracy which could only exist
in our age of terminal technology. Top journalist Leslie
Watkins, making use of the research for the original TV
expose - much of which was not incorporated into the
programme itself for various reasons - and of material that
has come to light subsequently, has written a book with the
grip, pace and compulsion of a thriller. And with the grim
bite of terrible truth - a truth which is sure to be denied
by those who are themselves terrified that the most explosive
secret in human history is about to blow up in their faces...
3
SECTION ONE
No newspaper has yet secured the truth behind the operation
known as ALTERNATIVE 3. Investigations by journalists have
been blocked - by governments on both sides of the Iron
Curtain. America and Russia are ruthlessly obsessed with
guarding their shared secret and this obsession, as we can
now prove, has made them partners in murder.
However, despite this intensive security, fragments of
information have been made public. Often they are released
inadvertently - by experts who do not appreciate their
sinister significance - and these fragments, in isolation,
mean little. But when jigsawed together they form a definite
pattern - a pattern which appears to emphasise the enormity
of this conspiracy of silence.
On May 3, 1977, the Daily Mirror published this story:
President Jimmy Carter has joined the ranks of UFO
spotters. He sent in two written reports stating he had seen
a flying saucer when he was the Governor of Georgia.
The President has shrugged off the incident since then,
perhaps fearing that electors might be wary of a flying
saucer freak.
But he was reported as saying after the "sighting":
"I don't laugh at people any more when they say they've seen
UFOs because I've seen one myself."
Carter described his UFO like this: "Luminous, not
solid, at first bluish, then reddish...it seemed to move
towards us from a distance, stopped, then moved partially
away."
Carter filed two reports on the sighting in 1973, one to
the International UFO Bureau and the other to the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.
Heydon Hewes, who directs the International UFO Bureau
from his home in Oklahoma City, is making speeches praising
the President's "open-mindedness."
But during his presidential campaign last year Carter
was cautious. He admitted he had seen a light in the sky but
declined to call it a UFO.
He joked: "I think it was a light beckoning me to run in
the California primary election."
Why this change in Carter's attitude? Because, by then,
he had been briefed on Alternative 3?
A 1966 Gallup Poll showed that five million Americans -
including several highly experienced airline pilots - claimed
to have seen Flying Saucers. Fighter pilot thomas Mantell
4
had already died while chasing one over Kentucky - his F.51
aircraft having disintegrated in the violent wash of his
quarry's engines. The U.S. Air Force, reluctantly bowing to
mounting pressure, asked Dr. Edward Uhler Condon, a
professor of astrophysics, to head an investigation team at
Colorado University.
Condon's budget was $500,000. Shortly before his report
appeared in 1968, this story appeared in the London Evening
Standard:
The Condon study is making headlines - but for all the
wrong reasons. It is losing some of its outstanding members,
under circumstances which are mysterious to say the least.
Sinister rumors are circulating...at least four key people
have vanished from the Condon team without offering a
satisfactory reason for their departure.
The complete story behind the strange events in Colorado
is hard to decipher. But a clue, at least, may be found in
the recent statements of Dr. James McDonald, the senior
physicist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the
University of Arizona and widely respected in his field.
In a wary, but ominous, telephone conversation this week, Dr.
McDonald told me that he is "most distressed."
Condon's 1,485 - page report denied the existence of
Flying Saucers and a panel of the American National Academy
of Sciences endorsed the conclusion that "further extensive
study probably cannot be justified."
But, curiously, Condon's joint principal investigator,
Dr. David Saunders, had not contributed a word to that
report. And on January 11, 1969, the Daily Telegraph quoted
Dr. Saunders as saying of the report: "It is inconceivable
that it can be anything but a cold stew. No matter how long
it is, what it includes, how it is said, or what it
recommends, it will lack the essential element of
credibility."
Already there were wide-spread suspicions that the
Condon investigation had been part of an official coverup,
that the government knew the truth but was determined to keep
it from the public. We now know that those suspicions were
accurate. And that the secrecy was all because of
Alternative 3.
Only a few months after Dr. Saunders made his "cold
stew" statement a journalist with the Columbus (Ohio)
Dispatch embarrassed the National Aeronautics and Space
Agency by photographing a strange craft - loooking exactly
like a Flying Saucer - at the White Sands missle range in New
Mexico.
5
At first no one at NASA would talk about this mysterious
circular craft, 15 feet in diameter, which had been left in
the "missile graveyard" - a section of the range where most
experimental vehicles were eventually dumped.
But the Martin Marietta company of Denver, where it was
built, acknowledged designing several models, some with ten
and twelve engines.
And a NASA official, faced with this information, said:
"Actually the engineers used to call it "The Flying Saucer."
That confirmed a statement made by Dr. Garry Henderson, a
leading space research scientist: "All our astronauts have
seen these objects but have been ordered not to discuss their
findings with anyone."
Otto Binder was a member of the NASA space team. He has
stated that NASA "killed" significant segments of
conversation between Mission Control and Apollo 11 - the
space-craft which took Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to the
Moon - and that those segments were deleted from the official
record: "Certain sources with their own VHF receiving
facilities that by-passed NASA broadcast outlets claim there
was a portion of Earth-Moon dialogue that was quickly cut off
by the NASA monitoring staff."
Binder added: "It was presumably when the two moon-
walkers, Aldrin and Armstrong, were making the rounds some
distance from the LEM that Armstrong clutched Aldrin's arm
excitedly and exclaimed - "What was it? What the hell was
it? That's all I want to know."
Then, according to Binder, there was this exchange -
MISSION CONTROL: What's there ? ... malfunction
(garble) ... Mission Control calling Apollo 11...
APOLLO 11: Theses babies were huge, sir...enormous....
...Oh, God you wouldn't believe it!...I'm telling
you there are other space-craft out there...lined
up on the far side of the crater edge...they're on
the Moon watching us...
NASA, understandably, has never confirmed Binder's story
but Buzz Aldrin was soon complaining bitterly about the
Agency having used him as a "traveling salesman." And two
years after his Moon mission, following reported bouts of
heavy drinking, he was admitted to hospital with "emotional
depression."
"Travelling salesman".... that's an odd choice of words,
isn't it? What, in Aldrin's view, were the NASA authorities
trying to sell? And to whom? Could it be that they were
using him, and others like him, to sell their official
version of the truth to ordinary people right across the
world?
6
Was Aldrin's Moon walk one of those great spectaculars,
presented with maximum publicity, to justify the billions
being poured into space research? Was it part of the
American - Russian cover for Alternative 3?
All men who have travelled to the Moon have given
indications of knowing about Alternative 3 - and of the
reasons which precipitated it.
In May, 1972, James Irwin - officially the sixth man to
walk on the Moon - resigned to become a Baptist missionary.
And he said then: "The flight made me a deeper religious
person and more keenly aware of the fragile nature of our
planet."
Edgar Mitchell, who landed on the Moon with the Apollo
14 mission in February, 1971, also resigned in May, 1972 - to
devote himself to parapsychology. Later, at the headquarters
of his Institute for Noetic Sciences near San Francisco, he
described looking at this world from the Moon: "I went into
a very deep pathos, a kind of anguish. That incredibly
beautiful planet that was Earth...a place no bigger than my
thumb was my home...a blue and white jewel against a velvet
black sky...was being killed off.: And on March 23, 1974, he
was quoted in the Daily Express as saying that society had
only three ways in which to go and that the third was "the
most viable but most difficult alternative."
Another of the Apollo Moon - walkers, Bob Grodin, was
equally specific when interviewed by the Sceptre Television
reporter on June 20, 1977: "You think they need all that
crap down in Florida just to put two guys up there on a...on
a bicycle? The hell they do! You know why they need us? So
they've got a P.R. story for all that hardware they've been
firing into space. We're nothing, man! Nothing!"
On July 11, 1977, the Los Angeles Times came near to the
heart of the matter - nearer than any other newspaper - when
it published a remarkable interview with Dr. Gerard O'Neill.
Dr. O'Neill is a Princeton professor who served, during a
1976 sabbatical, as Professor of Aerospace at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who gets nearly
$500,000 each year in research grants from NASA. Here is a
section from that article:
The United Nations, he says, has conservatively
estimated that the world's population, now more than 4
billion people, will grow to about 6.5 billion by the year
2000. Today, he adds, about 30% of the worlds population is
in developed nations. But, because most of the projected
population growth will be in underdeveloped countries, that
will drop to 22% by the end of the century. The world of
2000 will be poorer and hungrier than the world today, he
says.
7
Dr. O'Neill also explained the problems caused by the
earths 4,000 mile atmospheric layer but - presumably because
the article was a comparatively short one - he was not quoted
on the additional threat posed by the notorious "greenhouse"
syndrom.
His solution? He called it Island 3. And he added:
"There's really no debate about the technology involved in
doing it. That's been confirmed by NASA's top people."
But Dr. O'Neill, a family man with tree children who
likes to fly sailplanes in his spare time, did not realise
that he was slightly off-target. He was right, of course,
about the technology. But he knew nothing of the political
ramifications and he would have been astounded to learn that
NASA was feeding his research to the russians.
Even eminent political specialists, as respected in
their sphere as Dr. O'Neill is in his own, have been puzzled
by an undercurrent they have detected in East -West
relationships. Professor G. Gordin Broadbent, director of
the independently - financed Institute of Political Studies
in London and author of a major study of U.S. - Soviet
diplocy since the 1950s, emphasised that fact on June 20,
1977, when he was interviewed on Sceptre Television: "On the
broader issue of Soviet - U.S. relations, I must admit there
is an element of mystery which troubles many people in my
field." He Added: "What we're suggesting is that, at the
very highest levels of East - West diplomacy, there has been
operating a factor of which we know nothing. Now it could
just be - and I stress the word "could" - that this unknown
factor is some kind of massive but covert operation in space.
But as for the reasons behind it...we are not in the business
of speculation."
Washington's acute discomfort over O'Neill's revelations
through the Los Angeles Times can be assessed by the urgency
with which a "suppression" Bill was rushed to the Statute
Book. On July 27,1977 - only sixteen days after the
publication of the O'Neill interview - columnist Jerry
Campbell reported in the London Evening Standard that the
Bill would become law that September. He wrote:
It prohibits the publishing of an official report
without permission, arguing that this obstructs the
Government's control of its own information. That was
precisely the charge brought against Daniel Ellsberg for
giving the Pentagon papers to the New York Times.
Most ominous of all, the Bill would make it a crime for
any present or former civil servant to tell the Press of
Government wrong - doing or pass on any news based on
information "submitted to the Government in private."
8
Campbell pointed out that this final clause "has given
serious pain to guardians of American Press freedom because
it creates a brand new crime." Particularly as there was
provision in the Bill for offending journalists to be sent to
prison for up to six years.
We subsequently discovered that a man called Harman
-Leonard Harman - read that item in the newspaper and that
later, in a certzin television executives' dining-room , he
expressed regret that a similar Law had not been passed uears
earlier by the British government. He was eating treacle
tart with custard at the time and he reflected wistfully that
he could then have insisted on such a Law being obeyed.
That, when it came to Alternative 3, would have saved him
from a great deal of trouble...
He had chosen treacle tart, not because he particularly
liked it, but because it was 2p cheaper than the chocolate
sponge. That was typical of Harman.
He was one of the people, as you may have learned
already through the Press, who tried to interfere with the
publication of this book. We will later be presenting some
of the letters received by us from him and his lawyers -
together with the replies from our legal advisers. We
decided to print these letters in order to give you a
thorough insight into our investigation for it is important
to stress that we, like Professor Broadbent, are not in the
"business of speculation."
We are interested only in the facts. And it is
intriguing to note the pattern of facts relating to
astronaust who have been on Moon missions - and who have
therefore been exposed to some of the surprises presented by
Alternative 3. A number, undermined by the strain of being
party to such a horrendous secret, suffered nervous or mental
collapses. A high percentage sought sanctuary in excessive
drinking or in extra marital affairs which destroyed what had
been secure and successful marriages. Yet these were men
originally picked from many thousands precisely because of
their stability. Their training and experience, intelligence
and physical fitness - all these, of course, were prime
considerations in their selection. But the supremely
important quality was their balanced temperament.
It would need something stupendous, something almost
unimaginable to most people, to flip such men into dramatic
personality changes. That something, we have now estalished,
was Alternative 3 and, perhaps more particularly, the
nightmarish obscenities involved in the development and
perfection of Alternative 3.
We are not suggesting that the President of the United
States has had personal knowledge of the terror and clinical
cruelties which have been an integral part of the Operation,
for that would make him directly responsible for murders and
barbarous mutilations.
9
We are convinced , in fact, that this is not the case.
The President and the Russian leader, together with their
immediate subordinates, have been concerned only with the
broad sweep of policy. They have acted in unison to ensure
what they consider to be the best possible future for
mankind. And the day - to - day details have been delegated
to high-level professionals.
These professionals, we have now established, have been
classifying people selected for the Alternative 3 operation
into two categories: those who are picked as individuals and
those who merely form part of a "batch consignment." There
have been several "batch consignments" and it is the
treatment meted out to most of these men and women which
provides the greatest cause for outrage.
No matter how desperate the circumstances may be - and
we reluctantly recognise that they are extremely desperate -
no humane society could tolerate what has been done to the
innocent and the gullible. That view, fortunately, was taken
by one man who was recruited into the Alternative 3 team
three years ago. He was, at first, highly enthusiastic and
completely dedicated to the Operation. However, he became
revolted by some of the atrocities involved. He did not
consider that, even in the prevailing circumstances, they
could be justified.
Three days after the transmission of that sensational
television documentary, his conscience finally goaded him
into action. He knew the appalling risk he was taking, for
he was aware of what had happened to others who had betrayed
the secrets of Alternative 3, but he made telephone contact
with television reporter Colin Benson - and offered to
provide Benson with evidence of the most astounding nature.
He was calling, he said, from abroad but he was prepared
to travel to London. They met two days later. And he
explained to Benson that copies of most orders and memoranda,
together with transcripts prepared from tapes of Policy
Committee meetings, were filed in triplicate -in Washington,
Moscow and Geneva where Alternative 3 had its operational
headquarters. The system had been instituted to ensure there
was no misunderstanding between the principal partners. He
occasionally had access to some of that material - although
it was often weeks or even months old before he saw it - and
he was willing to supply what he could to Benson. He wanted
no money. He merely wanted to alert the public, to help stop
the mass atrocities.
Benson's immediate reaction, after he had assessed the
value of this offer, was that Scepter should mount a follow -
up program - one which would expose the horrors of
Alternative 3 in far greater depth. He argued bitterly with
his superiors at Sceptre but they were adamant. The company
was already in serious trouble with the government and there
was some doubt about whether its license would be renewed.
10
They refused to consider the possibility of doing another
programme. They had officially disclaimed the Alternative 3
documentary as a hoax and that was where the matter had to
rest. Anyway, they pointed out, this character who'd come
forward was probably a nut...
If you saw the documentary, you will probably realise
that Benson is a stubborn man. His friends say he is pig-
obstinate. They also say he is a first-class investigative
journalist.
He was angry about this attempt to suppress the truth
and that is why he agreed to co-operate in the preparation of
this book. That co-operation has been invaluable.
Through Benson we met the telephone caller who we now
refer to as Trojan. And that meeting resulted in our
acquiring documents, which we will be presenting, including
transcripts of tapes made at the most secret rendezvous in
the world - thirty five fathoms beneath the ice cap of the
Arctic.
For obvious reasons, we cannot reveal the identity of
Trojan. Nor can we give any hint about his function or
status in the operation. We are completely satisfied,
however, that his credentials are authentic and that, in
breaking his oath of silence, he is prompted by the most
honourable of motives. He stands in relation to the
Alternative 3 conspiracy in much the same position as the
anonymous informant "deep Throat" occupied in the Watergate
affair.
Most of the "batch consignments' have been taken from
the area known as the Bermuda Triangle but numerous other
locations have also been used. On October 6, 1975, the Daily
Telegraph gave prominence to this story:
The disappearance in bizarre circumstances in
the past two weeks of 20 people from small coastal
communities in Oregon was being intensively
investigated at the weekend amid reports of an
imaginative fraud scheme involving a "flying
saucer" and hints mass murder.
Sheriff's officers at Newport, Oregon, said
that the 20 individuals had vanished without trace
after being told to give away all their
possessions, including their children, so that they
could be transported in a flying saucer "by UFO to
a better life".
Deputies under Mr. Ron Sutton, chief criminal
investigator in surrounding Lincoln County, have traced the
story back to a meeting on September 14 in a resort hotel,
the Bayshore Inn at Waldport, Oregon.
11
Local police have received conflicting reports as to
what occurred (at the meeting). But while it is clear that
the speaker did not pretend to be from outer space, he told
the audience how their souls could be "saved through a UFO".
The hall had been reserved for a fee of $5 by a man and
a woman who gave false names. Mr. Sutton said witnesses had
described them as "fortyish, well groomed, straight types".
The Telegraph said that "selected people would be
prepared at a special camp in Colorado for life on another
planet" and quoted Investigator Sutton as adding:
"They were told they would have to give away
everything, even their children. I'm checking a report
of one family who supposedly gave away a 150-acre farm
and three children.
"We don't know if it's a fraud or whether these
people migt be killed. There are all sorts of rumours,
including some about human sacrifice and that this is
sponsored by the (Charles) Manson family."
Most of the missing 20 were described as being "hippy
types" although there were some older people among them.
People of this calibre, we have now discovered, have been
what is known as "scientifically adjusted" to fit them for a
new role as a slave species.
There have been equally strange reports of animals -
particularly farm animals - disappearing in large numbers.
And occasionally it appears that aspects of the Alternative 3
operation have been bungled, that attempts to lift "batch
consignments" of humans or of animals have failed.
On July 15, 1977, the Daily Mail - under a "Flying
Saucer" headline - carried this story:
Men in face masks, using metal detectors and a
geiger counter, yesterday scoured a remote Dartmoor
valley in a bid to solve a macabre mystery.
All appeared to have died at about the same time,
and many of the bones have been inexplicably shattered.
To add to the riddle, their bodies decomposed to virtual
skeletons within only 48 hours.
Animal experts confess they are baffled by the
deaths at Cherry Brook Valley near Postbridge.
Yesterday's search was carried out by members of
the Devon Unidentified Flying Objects center at Torquay
who are trying to prove a link with outer space.
They believe that flying saucers may have flown low
over the area and created a vortex which hurled the
ponies to their death.
12
Mr. John wyse, head of the four-man team, said: "If
a spacecraft has been in the vicinity, there may still
be detectable evidence. We wanted to see if there was
any sign that the ponies had been shot but we have found
nothing. This incident bears an uncanny resemblance to
similar events reported in America."
The Mail report concluded with a statement from an
official representing The Dartmoor Livestock Protection
Society and the Animal Defence Society: "Whatever happened
was violent. We are keeping an open mind. I am fascinated
by the UFO theory. There is no reason to reject that
possibility since there is no other rational explanation."
These, then, were typical of the threads which inspired
the original television investigation. It needed one person,
however, to show how they could be embroidered into a clear
picture.
Without the specialist guidance of that person the
Sceptre television documentary could never have been produced
- and Trojan would never have contacted Colin Benson. And it
would have been years, possibly seven years or even longer,
before ordinary peaple started to suspect the devastating
truth about this planet on which we live.
That person, of course, is the old man....
13
SECTION TWO
They realise now that they should have killed the old
man. That would have been the logical course - to protect
the secrecy of Alternative 3.
It is curious, really, that they did not agree his death
on that Thursday in February for, as we have stated, they do
use murder. Of course, it is not called murder - not when it
is done jointly by the governments of America and Russia. It
is an Act of Expediency.
Many Acts of Expediency are believed to have been
ordered by the sixteen men, official representatives of the
Pentagon and the Kremlin, who comprise the Policy Committee.
Grotesque and apparently inexplicable slayings in various
parts of the world - in Germany and Japan, Britain and
Australis - are alleged to have been sanctioned by them.
We have not been able to substantiate these suspicions
and allegations so we merely record that an unknown number of
people - including distinguished radio astronomer Sir William
Ballantine - have been executed because of this astonishing
agreement between the super-powers.
Prominent politicians, including two in Britain, were
among those who tried to prevent the publication of this
book. They insisted that it is not necessary for you, and
others like you, to be told the unpalatable facts. They
argue that the events of the future are now inevitable, that
there is nothing to be gained by prematurely unleashing fear.
We concede that they are sincere in their views but we
maintain that you ought to know. You have a right to know.
Attempts were also made to neuter the television
programme which first focused public attention on Alternative
3. Those attempts were partially successful. And, of
course, after the programme was transmitted - when there was
that spontaneous explosion of anxiety - Sceptre Television
was forced to issue a formal denial. It had all been a hoax.
That's what they were told to say. That's what they did say.
Most people were then only too glad to be reassured.
They wanted to be convinced that the programme had been
devised as a joke, that it was merely an elaborate piece of
escapist entertainment. It was more comfortable that way.
In fact, the television researchers did uncover far more
disturbing material than they were allowed to transmit. The
censored information is now in our possession. And, as we
have indicated, there was a great deal that Benson and the
rest of the television team did not discover - not until it
been screened.And they did not know, for example, that Sir
William Ballantine's freakish death - not far from his base
at
14
Jodrell Bank - was mirrored by that of an aerospace professor
called Peterson near Stanford University at Palo Alt,
California. Nor did they know of the monthly conferences
beneath the ice of the Arctic.
Alternative 3 appears a preposterous conception -until
one analyses the history of the so-called space-race. Right
from the start the public have been allowed to know only what
is considered appropriate for them to know. Many futuristic
research developments - and the extent of information pooled
between East and Weat -have been kept strictly classified.
There was a small but typical example in 1951 when
living creatures were hurtled into the stratosphere for the
very first time. Or, at least, the public were eventually
told it was for the first time. Four monkeys - code-named
Albert 1,2,3 and 4 - were launched in a V2 rocket from White
Sands, New Mexico.
Remember White Sands? That's where the Columbus
Dispatch man photographed that strange craft - the one which
a NASA official grudgingly admitted was known as "The Flying
Saucer".
The monkeys were successfully brought back to earth.
Three survived. One died, shortly afterwards, of heat
prostration.
Much later, when news did leak out, it was explained
that Operation Albert had been kept secret for only one
reason - to avert any possibility of animal-lovers staging a
protest demonstration.
Most people accepted the official story - that the four
Alberts really had been this world's first travellers in
space. But was that the truth?
By 1951 the V2 rocket, a relic of World War II, had been
superseded by far more sophisticated missiles. So would it
be logical, or indeed practical, to use an obsolete vehicle
for the first launch of living creatures?
Is it not more feasible to argue that Operation Albert
was no more that a subsidiary experiment which happened to
slip through the security net? That the authorities were not
too perturbed about having to confirm it - because it helped
conceal the real and gigantic truth?
There is abundant evidence that by 1951 the super powers
were far more advanced in space technology than they have
ever admitted. Much of that evidence has been supplied by
experienced pilots. By men like Captain Laurence W.
Vinther...
At 8:30 p.m. on January 20, 1951, Captain Vinther -then
with Mid-Continent Airlines - was ordered by the controller
at Sious City Airport to investigate a "very bright light"
above the field.
He and his co-pilot, James F. Bachmeier, took off in a
DC3 and headed for the source of the light.
15
Suddenly the light dived towards them at great speed and
passed about 200 feet above them. Then they discovered that
it had reversed direction, apparently in a split second, and
was flying parallel to the airliner. It was a clear moonlit
night and both men could clearly see that the light was
emanating from a cigar-shaped object bigger than a B-29.
Eventually the strange craft lost altitude, passed under the
DC3 and disappeared.
Two months later, on March 15, thousands of people in
New Delhi were startled by a strange object, high in the sky,
which appeared to be circling the city. One witness was
George Franklin Floate, chief engineer with the Delhi Flying
Club, who described "a bullet-nosed, cigar-shaped object
about 100 feet long with a ring of flames at the end". Two
Indian Air Force jets were sent up to intercept. But the
object suddenly surged upwards at a "phenomenal speeds' and
vanished into the hieghts.
So, despite all official denials, sufficient advances
had been made by 1951 to provide the basis for planning
Alternative 3.
By the mid-Seventies there were so many rumours about
covert information-swapping between East and West - with men
like Professor Broadbent becoming progressively more curious
- that the American-Russian "rivals" staged a masterpiece of
camouflage. They would show the world, quite openly, how
they were prepared to co-operate in space! The result was
seen in July, 1975: the first admitted International Space
Transfer. Television cameras showed the docking of a Soyuz
spacecraft with and Apollo - and the crews jubilantly
exchanging food and symbolic halves of medals.
Leonid Brezhnev sent this message to the united
spacemen: "Your successful docking confirms the correctness
of technical solutions that were worked out and realised in
co-operation by Soviet and American scientists, designers and
cosmonauts. One can say that Soyuz-Apollo is a prototype of
future international orbiltal stations."
Gerald Ford expressed the hope that this "tremendous
demonstration of co-operation" would set the pattern for
"what we have to do in the future to make it a better world".
And at his home near Boston, Massachusetts, former Apollo man
Bob Grodin switched off his television set in disgust.
Grodin's comment was more succinct than that of either
leader. He said: "How they've got the bloody neck!" Then
he poured himself another tumbler of bourbon.
Grodin had cause to be bitter that day. Bitter and also
cynically amused. There'd been no television coverage, no
glory of any sort, when he'd done the identical maneuver -140
miles above the clouds - on April 20, 1969. He's shaken
hands up there with the Russians and laughed at their bad
jokes - exactly like Tom Stafford had just been doing - but
there'd been none of this celebrity crap about that
operation.
16
It was crazy...the way they were kidding people by making it
all seem such a big deal! Christ! It hadn't been a big deal
even when he'd done it. There'd been all the others before
him...
We now know,in fact, that this American-Russian docking
technique was successfully pioneered in the late Fifties -
with specially-designed submarines in the black depths of the
North Atlantic. It was pioneered specifically because of
Alternative 3. Because of the need for the ultimate in
security. The system made it possible for men who were
officially enemies, who played the charade of distrusting
each other in public, to travel separately and discreetly to
meetings far below the waves.
Thursday, February 3, 1977. A landmark. A Policy
Committee meeting infiltrated, via the transcript, for the
first time by Trojan. Information about earlier meetings,
held in a variety of locations, still not available.
Complete transcript obviously filed in separately-secured
sections. Sensible precaution. And frustrating. Trojan
obtained only small section. Enough to confirm murder
conspiracy. Major break-through.
The venue: the wardroom of a modified Permit nuclear
submarine. Thirty-five fathoms beneath ice of Arctic.
Permit subs "seek out and destroy enemy". So American tax-
payers are told. Cold War concepts are readily accepted.
They distract from real truth...
No names on transcript. No names, apparently, ever
used. Only nationalities and numbers. Eight Russians -
listed as R ONE through to R EIGHT - and eight Americans.
Procedure shown by subsequent transcripts - A EIGHT and
R EIGHT alternate monthly as chairmen.
February 3. Chairman: A EIGHT. Transcript section
starts:
A FIVE: You're kill-crazy...you know that?...
absolutely kill-crazy...
A TWO: No...the guys right...that old man is
dangerous...
R SIX: I am reminding you that it was agreed...right
from the start it was agreed...that expediencies would
be kept to a minimum...
A TWO: And the old man, friend, is right there inside
that minimum...the way he talks...he'll blow the whole
goddam thing...
R ONE: Who do you suppose ever listens to him? Eh?...
nobody...that's who listens. Come...he knows
nothing...not after all these years.
Theories...that's all he's got...theories and
memories...
17
A FIVE: That just says it, dosen't it? Here we are
wasting time and wetting ourselves because of
theories that are twenty years old...Jeez!...if we
start spreading expediencies so low because...
R FOUR: The theories have not changed so much in twenty
years and in my considered opinion...
A FIVE: ...so low because of a semi-senile and
garrulous old man...
A EIGHT: He's not semi-senile...he's not even that old
...I heard him lecture last year at Cambridge and,
you take my word, he's certainly not semi-senile...
What,precisely, has he been saying?
A TWO: About getting air out of the soil..about how
the ice is melting...people at that university...
they're beginning to listen to him...
A FIVE: That's no more, for Chrissakes, than he was
saying in Alabama back in 1957...hell, I was right
there at Huntsville when he said it...
R FOUR: The Huntsville Conference was like this
meeting...the discussions there were not for
outsiders and...
A FIVE: Yes...but not many people took him seriously
even then...and now that he"s over the hill...
R FOUR: It is still a serious breach of security...
it is dangerous and it could start a panic among
the masses...
A FIVE: So all right!...Kill him! He's a harmless
and doddering old has-been but if it makes you
feel better...go ahead and kill him...
A EIGHT: Expediencies aren"t to make us feel better...
and our friend here was right...we have agreed to
restrict them to the minimum...anything else against
this man?
A TWO: Yeah...the real bad news...I hear he"s been
dropping hints...nothing specific but oblique hints
about the big bang...about the earth-air thing
being cracked
R SIX: But it is not possible for him to be knowing
that...
A TWO: Mabey he doesn"t know...not know for sure...
but he's sure done some figuring
A ONE: You're saying he"s guessed...right? That's what
you"re saying
R ONE: So it is as I said...theories and memories and
now guesses! We sentence an old man to death because
of his guesses? That is how you Americans wish us to
work?
A EIGHT: Let's cut the East-West stuff...we're a team
here, remember, and we've got a hell of an agenda to
get through and we've spent quite long enough on this
Englishman. So let's vote...Those for expediency?
18
Uh,huh...And against?...Well, that's it...he goes
on living. For a while, at least. But I suggest we
keep tabs...agreed?...Right then...Now Ballantine
and this character Harry Carmell...looks to me like
there's no room for question about either of them.
R SEVEN: This Harry Carmell...we are certain that he
has stolen that circuit from NASA?
A EIGHT: Positive certain. And heads, I can promise you
have rolled at Huston. We also know that he's
somewhere in England...probably London...so if he
should link up again with Ballantine...
R SEVEN: I think we are all aware of what could happen
if he should link up again with Ballantine...
A TWO: Especially with Ballantine's contacts in Fleet
Street...
R SEVEN: How was it possible for a man like Carmell to
get out of America...?
A EIGHT: Don't tell me...I can say it for you...he'd
never have got out of Russia that easily...but there
it is...our people goofed and now it's down to us...
R SEVEN: As you say then, there is no room for
question...both of them have got to be expediencies.
A EIGHT: All agreed?...Good...I suggest a couple of hot
jobs...coroners always play them quiet...
R SEVEN: But first, presumably, we'll have to find
Carmell...
A EIGHT: We'll find him...Londons not that big a town
and he'll soon be needing his shots.
A THREE: How hooked is he?
A EIGHT: Hooked enough...Now what about Peterson? Same
deal?
R FOUR: We've all seen the earlier report on Peterson..
what is the latest assessment?
A EIGHT: He's getting more and more paranoiac about
the batch consignments...
R FOUR: You mean the scientific adjustments?
A EIGHT: Yeah...the scientific adjustments...he's
running off at the mouth about ethics...that sort of
crap...
A TWO: Ethics! What the hell do some of these guys
think we're all at? Jesus! We're smack in the middle
of the most vital exercise ever mounted...with the
survival of the whole human race swinging on it...
and they bleat about ethics...
A EIGHT: That surgery bit...it really got to him...
A FIVE: They should never have told him...he didn't
need to know that...look, we owe Peterson...he's
done good work...couldn't we just get him committed?
A TWO: No way...much too risky...he'd squeal his
bloody head off.
19
A EIGHT: I endorse that. I'm sorry because I like the
guy...but there's no choice. Anyone against an
expediency for Peterson?...okay...that's carried...
now for God's sake let's get down to the big
problem...this stepping-up of the supplies-shuttle.
Any word from Geneva?
That was where the transcript section ended. Three
murders, quite clearly, had been agreed. No matter what they
chose to call them, they were still talking about murder.
But scientific adjustments? A great deal had already been
published in the Western Press about strange experiments
being conducted on inmates - chiefly dissidents and political
prisoners - at the Dnepropetrovsk Mental Hospital in the
Ukraine. They were barbaric, these experiments, but they had
been known about and talked about for years. To push this
Peterson to such agony of mind - to push him into risking and
forfeiting his life - that surely had to be something new.
Trojan, by that time, had supplied us with information
about that "something new" - for it was precisely that
something which had decided him to make his dangerous break
and talk to Benson. But he had nothing in writing. Nothing
to document or substantiate his claims. We decided they were
worth investigating but that it would be irresponsible merely
to assume their accuracy.
We sought help from contacts in Washington. Contacts
with influence in Senate and Congressional committees. And
we were surprised by the speed with which those contacts
achieved results. They didn't manage to bring the full story
into the open, not at that stage, but they did make it
possible for the public to see a glimmering of the truth.
On August 3, 1977, The London Evening News carried this
story:
Human "guinea pigs" have been used by the CIA in
experiments to control behaviour and sexual activity.
The American intelligence agency also considered
hiring a magician for another secret program on
mind control.
The experiments over the past 20 years are revealed
in documents which were thought to have been destroyed,
but which have now been released after pressure from
United States senate and congressional committees.
The attempts to change sex patterns and other behaviour
involved using drugs on schizophrenic as well as
normal people. Hallucinatory drugs like LSD were used
on students.
Another heavily censored document shows that a top
magician was considered for work on mind control.
20
The give-away word was "prestidigitation" - sleight of
hand - which appeared in a 1953 memo written by Sidney
Gottlier, then chief of the CIA's chemical division.
That story, we are convinced, would never have appeared
if it had not been for the information supplied by
Trojan. The "guinea-pig" facts would have remained as secret
as the rest of the Alternative 3 operation.
The following day - August 4 - other newspapers
developed the story. Ann Morrow, filing from Washington,
wrote in the Daily Telegraph:
Some of the more chilling details of the way the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tried to control
individual behavior by using drugs on willing and
unwilling human "guinea pigs" were disclosed
yesterday by its director, Mr. Stansfield Turner.
In a large wood-pannelled room, Mr. Turner, who
likes to be known by his rank of Admiral, told the
Senate's Intelligence Committee and Human Resources
Sub-committee on Health that such tests were abhorrent
to him.
He admitted that the tests were carried out in
"safe houses" in San Francisco and New York where
unwitting sexual psychopaths were subjected to
experiments and attempts were made to change sexual
conduct and other forms of human behavior.
At least 185 private scientists and 80 research
institutions, including universities, were involved.
Mr. Turner went on to say that one man had killed
himself - by leaping from an hotel window in New York City -
after he had "unknowingly " been used in a "CIA - sponsored
experiment:. The report continued:
Senator Edward Kennedy asked some incisive
questions, but like other members of the Senate
Committee found it difficult to keep a straight face
when asking about the CIA's operations "Midnight" and
"Climax".
Questioning two former CIA employees about the
experiments which began in the 1950s and ended in
1973, Senator Kennedy read out a bizarre list of
accessories for the "safe houses" in San Francisco and
New York where prostitutes organized.
In his flat Bostonian accent he reeled off,
straight - faced: "Rather elaborate dressing table,
black velveteen skirt, one French Can - Can dancer's
picture, three Toulouse Lautrec etchings, two - way
21
mirrors and recording equipment." Then he admitted
that this was the lighter side of the operation.
Mr. John Gittinger, who was with the CIA for 26
years, trembled and put a handkerchief to his eyes.
He just nodded in agreement.
The Times, as you can check for yourself in any good
reference library, carried a similar story from Washington
that day. It described documents taken from CIA files and
added:
Batches of the documents have been made
available to reporters in Washington under the
Freedom of Information Act, which guarantees the
public access to Government papers. They are
nearly all heavily censored.
That's the give - away - there in that last line.
Nearly all heavily censored. Alternative 3, right from its
conception in the Fifties, has always been considered exempt
from the Freedom of Information Act. And it is no
coincidence that these controversial experiments also started
- as is now openly admitted - in the Fifties.
The editors of these newspapers had no way of knowing
that their stories, disturbing as they were, had a direct
connection with Alternative 3. Nor that they had secured
only a fraction of the truth about those CIA experiments.
Information obtained from the complete experiments was
pooled with that gained at the Dnepropetrovsk Mental
Hospital. It was pooled so that factory - production methods
could be developed to manufacture a slave species.
Remember that curious statement made by criminal
investigator Ron Sutton in October, 1975 - after the
disappearance of the "batch consignment" from Oregon?
"They were told they would have to give away everything,
even their children. I'm checking a report of one family
who supposedly gave away a 150 - acre farm and three
children." That's what he said. And now those words fit
into perspective.
In the days before the American Civil War slaves had no
right to a family, no right to keep their own children, and
they had no property. They WERE property. That horrifying
philosophy, we can now prove, has been adopted by the space
slave - masters of the Seventies.
Alternative 3 needs regular consignments of slaves. It
needs them to labour for the key people. For people like Dr.
Ann Clark.
22
Three people unwittingly inspired that television
documentary and, although they would be dismayed to realize
it, they helped alert the world to the horrors of Alternative
3.
Dr. Ann Clark is a research scientist specializing in
solar energy. Brian Pendlebury, a former RAF man, is an
electronics expert. Robert Patterson is a senior lecturer in
mathematics - or, rather, he was until the time of his
disappearance. Today, almost certainly, Patterson no longer
teaches mathematics but is working full - time for
Alternative 3.
So these people, then, were the catalyst for the entire
investigation. That is why, although we have never met them,
we have dedicated this book to them.
Ann Clark, a raven - haired and attractive woman who was
just nudging thirty, made her big decision towards the end of
1975. She would never have made it - although her pride
stopped her admitting as much on television - if her fiance'
had not unexpectedly broken their engagement.
Her future had seemed all set. She'd intended to
soldier on despite all the frustrations, at the research
laboratory in Norwich until they got married. And then,
probably, until their first child was born. Conditions at
the laboratory were, as she'd often said, "pretty grotty" but
she was prepared to tolerate them. After all, it wasn't
going to be for too long...
Then Malcolm had shattered her with his news. He'd been
astonishingly casual about it. Quite unlike the Malcolm
she'd thought she'd known. He'd just told her, brutally,
that their engagement was a mistake, that he didn't "want to
get tied down." And then, only four weeks later, she's heard
he was talking about marrying some girl called Maureen...
Suddenly the laboratory, and everything about it, had
seemed intolerably depressing. Squalid and almost sordid.
All the authorities admitted that their research was
important. Particularly with the energy shortage and the
climbing cost of oil. But apparently it wasn't important
enough to have money poured into it.
Experimental projects often took three times as long as
they should because of equipment which was makeshift and, in
some cases, almost obsolete. Certain projects could not even
be started. "Maybe in the next financial year but, at the
moment, there's no budget available." That was a stock
answer from the administrators. And Ann Clark became
progressively more frustrated.
She wanted, now, to throw herself harder than ever into
her research, to immerse herself in it completely, but she
was increasingly aware that - like the others - she was not
being allowed to make full use of her training. She's never
have felt so strongly if it hadn't been for Malcolm and his
plan for marrying this Maureen...that's what really decided
her to start a new life.
23
Plenty of others were doing the same that year. They
were getting out of Britain, heading for the big - money jobs
in Europe and in the Middle East. And in America. They were
doubling their salaries and picking up bonus perks like
company cars and lavish homes. They were also being offered
far better conditions in which to work.
The Brain Drain. That's what it's called. And it is an
accurate label. In the twelve years up to December, 1975 -
the month Ann Clark reached her decision - nearly 4 million
people had evacuated from the United Kingdom. More than a
third of them were from the professional and managerial
levels of British society.
One of the department heads at Norwich had left for
a top post in America at the beginning of that year and, as
his occasional letters had shown, he had not regretted the
move. His only regret, in fact, was that he'd not made it
years earlier. Ann Clark decided to write to him.
To her amazement, he telephoned her from California as
soon as he got the letter. There'd be no problem at all, he
told her. Not with her ability and experience. She was
exactly the type they needed and, if she wanted, he could
certainly get her fixed with the right job.
If she wanted! She'd never imagined it could possibly
be that easy. Excitement surged through her as she listened.
Apparently there was a man in London who was recruiting
scientists for the company in California and if she cared to
contact this man...
She jotted down the name and address of the man in
London, together with his telephone number. "I'll get in
touch with him today," she said. I can't tell you how
grateful...
"Let me call him first," he interrupted. "I'll put him
in the picture about you."
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much indeed."
She met the man in London the following day and it was
all settled within an hour. She drafted her resignation on
the train back to Norwich.
That was the week, as we will explain later, that she
was first contacted by Sceptre Television. And, at first,
she was more than happy to talk to them about her plans. She
didn't mention Malcolm, of course, because the viewers didn't
need to know about him. However, it was important, she felt,
for people to be told exactly why scientists were flocking
away from Britain. She was flattered, in fact, to be given
the opportunity and she told herself that, by speaking out,
she might help get conditions improved for those she was
leaving...
Now we reach a mystery which we still have not
completely resolved. The information we have fitted together
has come from Ann Clark's friends and colleagues in Norwich.
It almost provides an answer...but it also leaves questions.
24
Shortly after the Sceptre Television film unit arrived
at the laboratory in January, 1976, for the first of a series
of interviews - Ann Clark was visited there by a strange
American. He'd made no appointment but just turned up and
they assumed he was connected, in some way, with her new job.
The American talked to her, privately, for a long time and
afterwards she seemed upset. She refused to say what he'd
wanted or what they'd discussed but she was obviously
extremely upset.
That American, we have now established, went to her flat
that evening and stayed for three hours` And after that
evening her attitude to those around her, and to the Sceptre
Television people, changed in the most extraordinary manner.
She did her work as conscientiously as ever but she was oddly
withdrawn. She refused to be drawn into any conversations.
It was as if she had brought a shutter down all around
herself.
There was also something else. One of her colleagues,
an elderly man, told us: "I started noticing that she was
sometimes looking at me - and at others - with a funny sort
of expression in her eyes. It was almost as if, for some
reason or other, she felt sorry for us. All a bit odd...
All VERY odd. Dr. Ann Clark left Norwich in a self -
drive hired car on February 22, 1976. She left without
working out her notice because, as she explained, the
Americans were in a hurry to have her. So she became part of
the Brain Drain. But she has still not joined that company
in California.
Brian Pendlebury was thirty - three when he became part
of the Brain Drain in July, 1974. His principal reason for
leaving was that he disliked the climate, particularly the
climate in Manchester. He was very much a sun person.
Since leaving university, with a degree in electronics,
he'd acquired a taste for travel as a special - projects
officer with the RAF.
The Air Force had shown him the world. It had also
shown him that he wasn't' the type to settle down in any hum-
drum routine. Certainly not in Manchester.
Five months after leaving the service he applied for a
job with a major electronics firm in Sydney, Australia. And,
to the acute disappointment of his parents, he got it.
They were, they now admit, disappointed for a selfish
but very understandable reason. He was their only child and
they absolutely adored him - having scrimped to get him
through university and been so proud over his success - and
for years they'd seen so very little of him. They had hoped
that now he would live at home, for a year or so, at least.
His mother also had this cosy vision of Brian marrying some
nice sensible Lancashire girl and of herself becoming a
doting grandmother.
25
"Maybe we can work out some compromise," he'd made up
his mind. He did promise, however, that he'd keep closely in
touch. He'd write regularly and he'd send lots of
photographs. Yes, he knew that he'd said all that
before...but this time he really would.
He kept that promise. He kept it for five months after
leaving Manchester. Every week they got a letter with news
of his life in Australia. The job, it seemed, was going fine
and he was really enjoying himself there. They also got
photographs: Brian surfing...Brian with friends at a
nightclub...Brian in front of Sydney Harbor bridge. That
bridge picture was a particularly good one. They had it
framed and they put it on the mantelpiece.
So everything was fine, absolutely fine, except for some
disconcerting facts.
Brian Pendlebury did not live at the address shown on
his letters. The company for which he claimed to be working
insist they have never heard of him. The truth, as far as we
can establish it, is that Pendlebury never got to Australia.
Britain's system of taxation was a favorite hate subject
with forty-two-year-old Robert Patterson. And, as a
mathematician, he always had the latest facts to justify his
anger.
His friends at the University of St. Andrews, where he
was a senior lecturer, had become accustomed to a regular
bombardment of figures:
"Do you realize that in Germany the most a man has to
pay on the topslice of his taxable earnings is only 56 per
cent! And in America...now that's a country where they
really appreciate the value of incentive...in America it's
only 50 per cent!"
Every one of his sentences, when he was talking tax,
seemed to finish with a fiery exclamation mark.
"But what's it here in Britain? You ask me that and
I'll tell you! Eighty - three per cent...that's what it is
here...83 per cent! And you wonder why people here aren't
interested in working harder!"
This sort of conversation - with Patterson supplying all
the questions and answers - could go on indefinitely without
anyone else saying a word. It was a hangover from his
lecture - room technique and it made him quite intolerably
boring.
Many people at the university were rather relieved when
he eventually announced that he was going to follow his own
advice. He and his wife Eileen were getting out of Britain.
They were taking their two children off to a fresh start in
America.
26
He was unusually reticent about what he was going to do in
America, saying no more than that he'd been "invited on an
interesting project". It seemed obvious, despite his
evasiveness, that he'd accepted some really plum post in
America. And at the university, they weren't surprised, for
he was recognized as one of the most brilliant mathematicians
in Britain. It was a pity that he was also such a bore.
Patterson broke his news at the beginning of February,
1976, and a paragraph appeared in the Guardian.
One of the researchers at Sceptre Television - the one
who'd organized the initial interview with Ann Clark - saw
the paragraph and immediately contacted Patterson. He was
offering Patterson the best platform he'd ever had to air his
views on taxation for the program Science Report was
networked right across the country.
"Thank you for the invitation ," said Patterson.
"Normally I'd love to take it up but I've got a time problem.
We're flying at the end of next week and there's so much I've
got to do...
"We wouldn't need all that much of your time," persisted
the researcher. He'd had trouble enough finding the right
people and he wasn't going to let a prize like Robert
Patterson slip away too easily. "We could send a reporter
and film unit up to Scotland and do it, perhaps, at the
university or at your home." Harman, he knew, would probably
squeal about the cost of sending a unit all that way from
London - just for one interview - but let him bloody squeal.
They couldn't expect to hold a network slot without
spending a few bob. Anyway, he thought, Chris Clements
could fight that out with Harman. That's what producers were
for. His job was to get the right people and he was damned
well doing it. "It wouldn't take long, Mr. Patterson," he
said. "And we could do it almost any time to suit you."
Patterson hesitated. "How about next Tuesday morning?"
he said.
"Fine. What time?"
"Eleven o'clock?"
"Right. And where?"
"It would be more convenient here at my house."
"Then your house it is, Mr. Patterson. We'll be there
at eleven. And thank you."
Colin Benson, now co-operating with us, was the TV
reporter who went to Patterson's home on that Tuesday
morning. He found the house locked and obviously empty. The
Pattersons, according to neighbors, had driven off in a hurry
at lunchtime on the Saturday.
If you watched that particular edition of Science
Report, you will probably recall that the family's car was
later found abandoned in London. But the Pattersons -
Robert, Eileen, sixteen - year - old Julian and fourteen -
year - old Kate - have not been seen since.
27