Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc1/misc017.txt

Internet Message Format | 1995-10-20 | 10KB

From: [e-mail] (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Alternative 3, hoax?
Date: 11 Feb 94 00:57:53 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (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 - [e-mail]

 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.)