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