ParaNet BBS/alt3
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ParaNet BBS/alt3
| File Name: | alt3.txt |
|---|---|
| Author: | Unknown |
| Date: | Unknown |
| Posting BBS: | Unknown |
| BBS Main Page: | ParaNet Main Page |
| Key Words: | ParaNet, UFO, Ufology |
(8959) Sat 13 Feb 93 2:38p
By: Robert Sheaffer
To: All
Re: Re: Alternative 3 - Mars Nasa Tapes
St: 8474<>8968
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Date: 13 Feb 93 00:43:55 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Message-ID: <1993Feb13.004355.25186@netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
"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!
"Truth is the summit of being: justice is the application of it to affairs. All individual natures stand in a scale, according to the purity of this element in them. The will of the pure runs down from them into other natures, as water runs down from a higher into a lower vessel. This natural force is no more to be withstood, than any other natural force."
- Emerson: Essay, "Character" (1844)
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