Alternative 3, le livre (1978)

Section 10a

Dr. Hugo Danningham lectures regularly on parapsychology at three British universities and is a committee member of the European Institute for Brain Research. He was interviewed on our behalf by Colin Benson in Brussels on September 23, 1977. That interview, which Benson taped, provided an insight into the possible meaning of the phrase "telepathic sleep-job".

In the early 19602, he explained, significant advances were made in the study of parapsychology at the University of Kharkov and at the University of Leningrad - advances which many experts feared were to be adapted for use in any future conflict between East and West.

They involved telepathy and, more specifically, the long-distance invasion and manipulation of minds. The potential military advantages were patently obvious. Enemies could be attacked and suborned literally from within. If the telepathic power were strong enough, they could be compelled to ignore the orders of their commanders in preference to those being beamed directly into their minds. They would, I fact, respond like remote-controlled puppets.

Military authorities in the West, fearful of the advantages this could yield to the Russians, initiated intensive research into this new style of weapon. And, as a result, it had been perfected by both super-powers.

"Experiments have proved that children, like birds and beasts and people in primitive tribes, are usually more receptive to telepathic messages and instructions than most adults in a civilized society," said Dr. Danningham. "This is because once intelligence has been fully developed, and once a tremendous amount of education has been absorbed,information received on a major scale directly from other minds could easily result in mental confusion.

"As a result, the mind of civilized man has developed a protective barrier against telepathy. This barrier can be penetrated most easily when the defenses are down - such as when a person is extremely fatigued or is going through a period of great emotional stress. And the defenses of the mind, of course, are never more relaxed than during sleep. That is when a person is most vulnerable to telepathic invasion - particularly if such an invasion was being controlled by experienced professionals.

"That, I suspect, is the explanation behind that "sleep-job" expression."

Benson frowned, shook his head in perplexity. I'm sorry...I don't quite follow..."

"A sleeping man can be given instructions and, if the circumstances are propitious, he will obey those instructions - even if they are that he should kill himself..."

"Good God!" said Benson. "You're suggesting, then, a sort of somnambulistic suicide! But this is quite fantastic! These circumstances you mention...what exactly would they be?"

For any action as dramatic as self-destruction there could almost certainly have to be a synchronization of many factors,: said Dr. Danningham. "For example, it would be easier if the intended victim were at precisely the right period of his biorhythmic psi sensitivity cycle and..."

"But surely the instinct for self-preservation would countermand any instructions calculated to result in suicide...unless the sleeper wanted to kill himself anyway..."

"Not if the telepathic instructions were cleverly presented,: said Danningham. "Let me give you an illustration:

"Imagine you want to kill a man who, let's say, lives high up in a skyscraper block. Now you're not going to tell that man to kill himself by jumping out of his bedroom window because - as you so rightly say - his instinct for survival would very likely intervene and reject the order.

"So what you do is feed him false information. You tell him telepathically that there is some wild beast rampaging around his room or that the building has caught fire. You tell him there is a safety net spread under the window and that, to save himself, he must jump. So, in a desperate bid to stay alive, he jumps - and breaks his neck.

"It is possible, of course, to play all sorts of permutations on this tack. You might persuade your sleeping victim, for instance, into believing there is some venomous spider attached to his chest, that he must stab it and kill it before it kills him. And so, in his sleep, he stabs himself."

"The variations, my dear Mr. Benson, are almost limitless. If the telepathic messages convinced your sleeper that he had accidentally drunk some corrosive poison and that the only antidote was in a bottle marked cyanide...well, I'm sure you see what I mean.:

"And you're saying that this sort of thing actually happens?"

Danningham shook his head. "No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm merely telling you what is possible. Men in my field have the knowledge required to make those things happen but I cannot visualize anyone actually using that knowledge..."
Maybe Dr. Danningham was right. Maybe, at that time, the men behind Alternative 3 had not used somnambulistic suicide as a method of murder. How-ever, we spent weeks researching newspaper archives in America and Britain and we discovered three cases which, to say the least, appear to merit a question mark.

Lundi 2 Février 1976. James Riggerford, 42 ans, mari heureux avec 3 enfants, marchait sur la plage près de chez lui au Sud-Ouest de Houston (Texas), peu après 3 h du matin - 2 jours après avoir quitté son poste d'Administrateur des Opérations à la NASA. Son corps, trouvé étalé en pyjama, fut plus tard retrouvé dans le Golfe du Mexique.

Mardi 7 Septembre 1976. Roger Marshall-Smith, un physicien de 31 ans de retour récent d'une affectation temporaire à la NASA en Amérique, vivait avec ses parents à Winchester (Hampshire). Ils le trouvèrent juste après 1 h du matin - 2 heures après qu'ils soient tous partis se coucher - en flammes au pied des escaliers. Il avait apparemment, bien que toujours endormi, imbibé ses vêtements de térébenthine puis y mit le feu. La douleur de ses brûlures le réveillèrent mais il était alors trop tard pour sauver sa vie.

Samedi 15 Janvier 1977. James Arthur Carmichael, 35 ans, technicien en aérospatiale, se tue inexplicablement à 4 h 35 du matin en tombant par la fenêtre d'une chambre d'un hôtel de 16 étages à Washington. Des amis dirent qu'il semblait joyeux et d'humeur normale la soirée précédente et était parti se coucher vers minuit. Lui aussi, portait un pyjama.

Ces hommes furent-ils victimes de "telepathic sleep-jobs" ? Nous ne prétendons pas le savoir mais nous pensons raisonnable de suggérer que cette possibilité ne puisse maintenant être écartée. And what of the "regional officer" mentioned in the transcript ? The answer to that question was to come, eventually, in the most unexpected way.

Benson returned to the production office and Simon Butler joined Clements in the little room behind Studio B. "How were things with Fergus?" he asked.

"Not good," said Clements miserably. "He wants to junk Colin's interview with Grodin. Quite frankly, Simon, the whole

thing looks like it's getting screwed up...unless, maybe, you can squeeze more out of Gerstein."
"You mean Alternative 3?"

Clements nodded. "That's what it all seems to hinge on," he said. "Gerstein obviously knows about it. Or, at least, he knows the theory..."

"There's a big difference between knowing and talking." Butler was remembering how he's been given a sherry when what he's really wanted was an answer. "When I say him in March he was quite definite. He simply didn't want to know..."

"Try him again," urged Clements. "Tell him everything you know ... what we've got from Grodin and Broadbent ... tell him the lot ... and then see if you can't persuade him."

"Well," said Butler. "I'm prepared to try..."

Two days later he was back in that book-lined study in Cambridge. And, to his surprise, Gerstein eventually agreed to talk about Alternative 3. At first Gerstein was very much on his guard, very reluctant to be drawn,but he listened courteously to all Butler had to say.

"You people have done your homework pretty thoroughly," he acknowledged. He re-lit his dead pipe and stared thoughtfully at the desk. "There doesn't seem any point now in me not telling you what I know..."

Here is a transcript of the interview which followed -- as it was presented on television:

GERSTEIN: Vous connaissez déjà les Alternatives 1 et 2 - et pourquoi elle ont été rejetées. Eh bien... l'Alternative 3 offre une option plus limitée -- une tentative d'assurer la survie d'au moins une petite proportion de la race humaine. Nous étions des théoriciens, souvenez-vous, pas des techniciens... mais nous réalisâmes que nous parlions d'un type de voyage spatial qui - vingt ans auparavant - ressemblait tout simplement à de la science-fiction.
BUTLER: Vous voulez dire... aller sur une autre planète ?
GERSTEIN: Je veux dire quitter l'enfer de celle-ci - tant qu'il est encore temps ! Je n'avais aucune idée si cela serait, ou pourrait être fait. Et je n'en ai toujours pas.
BUTLER: Avez-vous une idée de qui pourrait y partir ?
GERSTEIN: Je me souviens que nous avions discuté du type de cross-section we'd like to see get away... un équilibre entre sciences et arts, bien sûr, et, en fait, tous les aspects, tant que possible, de la culture humaine... La liste ne serait jamais complète - mais ce serait mieux que rien.
BUTLER: Et ces personnes... où fut-il envisagé qu'elles puissent aller ?
GERSTEIN: Ah, ça c'est la grande question. Il y a environ 100000 millions d'étoiles dans la Voie Lactée - environ autant que de personnes qui aient marché un jour sur la terre - et jusqu'en 1950 Fred Hoyle estimait que plus d'un million de ces étoiles avaient des planètes qui pourraient convenir à la vie humaine...
BUTLER: Donc c'était vraiment aussi vague et théorique que çà ?
GERSTEIN: En 1957... à l'époque de la Conférence de Huntsville... oui. Mais la situation avait considérablement changé depuis. Maintenant la possibilité la plus nette semble être Mars...
BUTLER: Mars !
GERSTEIN: Oui, je peux imaginer vos télespectateurs haussant leurs sourcils parce que la plupart des gens pense à Mars en terme de petits hommes verts avec des aerials sticking out of their heads... mais, scientifiquement, notre attitude envers Mars a dû être révisée plus d'une fois.

Section 10b

Au début de l'astronomie, Mars était considérée comme ayant des canaux de construction artificielle - ce qui avait été pris comme la preuve d'une vie intelligente sur la planète. Plus tard cette théorie fut discreditée. A sa place nous avons l'image d'une planète barren, inhospitalière, inamicale à la survie de toute forme de vie.

Puis, plus récemment, une idée intéressante fut mise en avant : Supposez que la vie ait existé à une époque sur Mars...

Le climat et les conditions empirant, toute vie survivante aurait pu évolué en un état d'hibernation, attendant le retour de conditions plus favorables. Il a même été suggéré que l'atmosphère qui avait permit cette vie aurait pu être enfermée dans le sol de la surface de la planète.

There was an occurrence several years ago which made this theory very persuasive. Mars has always had a covering of cloud, varying in density at different times, until the time of which I speak, when the cloud thickened to a degree never previously observed. This happened, and was scientifically recorded, in 1961.

It was obvious that storms of colossal proportions were taking place on Mars. Now... this is the really interesting bit... when the clouds eventually cleared, some remarkable changes were seen. The polar ice caps had substantially decreased in size, and around the equatorial regions a broad band of darker coloring had appeared. This, it has been suggested, was vegetation.

BUTLER: Est-ce que quelqu'un a pu expliquer cet événement ?
GERSTEIN: At a conference shortly before it happened,I put forward a theoretical suggestion. I said that if the atmosphere of Mars was in fact locked into the surface soil, then a controlled nuclear explosion might be able to release it - and, of course, revive whatever life was in hibernation... the only problem was about how to deliver the explosion well in advance of arriving there ourselves. That same year the Russians had a great space disaster. Yes, that was in 1959. Only the barest facts are recorded, the rest was kept secret. A rocket blew up at its launching. Numbers of people were killed and the area was devastated... what were they trying to launch? And did they finally succeed?
Was that rocket carrying a nuclear device which accounted for the devastation it caused? A nuclear device which, on a second attempt, could have reached the surface of Mars to cause the dynamic changes recorded in 1961 ? The sudden outbreaks of storms on Mars, the
dwindling of the ice caps, the growth of what appears to be vegetation in the tropical zone... all that is recorded scientific fact.

The interview, as transmitted, ended at that point. The original version, before being edited, contained this additional exchange:

BUTLER: But I don't understand... the pictures relayed from Viking 2 on Mars... they showed little more than a plateau of red rock... the sort of terrain that seemed to offer little prospect of survival...
GERSTEIN: I don't pretend to understand that either. But, as you've already told me, there does seem to be some sort of cover-up going on. Maybe you should take that up with someone more up-to-date in these matters... someone who is abreast of modern developments in aerospace...
BUTLER: Yes... maybe Charles Welbourne can help us there. But there's one other aspect I'd like to discuss with you, Dr. Gerstein, and that's to do with animals, birds, insects and so on. It's all very well talking about transporting man off to a new life on a different planet but how much of his environment could he, or should he, take with him ?
GERSTEIN: That's one you ought to put to a biologist.Stephen Manderson... Professor Stephen Manderson... was also at Huntsville and he's a singularly pleasant man...very approachable.

Butler telephoned Clements from Cambridge and Clements instructed Terry Dickson to make the necessary arrangements with Manderson. Kate White interviewed him the following day at his home in Reigate, Surrey. The interview went well but, as you may remember, it was not included in the transmitted program. Clements has explained that he was forced to omit it because, despite his pleas, his screen time was severely limited. ITN's News at Ten, scheduled to follow that edition of Science Report, could not be delayed. And, Harman had told him, he could not continue after the news because the rest of the evening had been allocated to programs from other companies.

We consider that, in this instance, an exception should have been made to the rigid pattern of ITV's program- planning. Manderson's views were fascinating. They were also extremely pertinent.

"The Bible concept of taking two of every type of creature into the ark ... that, in this context, would be impossible and quite irrational," he said. "Man, basically, is a selfish creature. There's nothing much wrong in that because a certain degree of selfishness is necessary for survival.

"We wear other creatures and make cloths and cosmetics out of them and, in fact, we use them in all sorts of ways. So in this Alternative 3 operation - if, indeed, there is such an operation - it would surely be logical to select only those we wanted to take with us.

"Would we want to take rats and mosquitoes, for instance? Of course not! We'd be given the opportunity to create the ideal environment for ourselves and, for the very first time, we'd be able to choose which creatures should share that environment. It would be a most marvelous opportunity.

"But think of the species we could happily do without. Starlings ... rooks ... pea-moths ... eelworms which do such damage to crops like potatoes and sugar-beet ... what possible use are any of them to us?

"Do you realize that three million species of insects have already been taxonomically classified and that, because of the present rate of insect evolution, the total classification will never be completed!

"And consider the damage they do! In India alone insects consume more food every year that nine million human beings - and that's in a country where there's widespread starvation.

"No ... leave them here and let them perish. Man doesn't need them ..."

Kate White interrupted: "But surely some of the most humble creatures are useful to man. Earthworms, for instance, aerate the soil and ..:

"Earthworms, like every other species, would have to be properly assessed for usefulness," said Manderson briskly. "Gophers, for example, might prove to be more efficient. In the Canadian plains they perform exactly the same function as earthworms. Vast tracts there have no worms and it's the gopher which turns vegetable mold into rich loam ... no, as I said, each case would have to be scientifically assessed."

"But what about the sort of creatures we now keep in zoos? Creatures like lions and giraffes and elephants?"

Manderson seemed surprised by her naivety. "Well, what about them? It wouldn't be good economics to shuttle them off to another planet - even if sufficient transport were available. They'd have to die and, quite frankly, it wouldn't make one iota of difference.

I beg you, Miss White, not to get bogged down in sentimentality. It's fashionable but it really is quite pointless.
"The dinosaurs lasted on this earth for a hundred million years - fifty times as long as man has been around -- but the world goes on very well without them. And it's been the same with so many other creatures. How many people, would you say, have ever been in mourning for the dinomys?"

"Dinomys? I'm sorry...I don't quite follow..."

"Precisely! You're an educated young lady but you've never even heard of them, have you? Dinomys ... rat-like creatures which grew as big as calves ... used to flourish in South America. Polar bears and ostriches ... they'll be the same one day ... people will look blank, just as you did a moment ago, when their names are mentioned."

He smiled, and ruffled his finger through his hair. "I could give you example after example - just to show how narrow the conventional view-point really is..."

"But creatures like bears ... they seem so, well, so permanent..."

"So did the onactornis."

"Onactornis?"

"Carnivorous bird...eight feet tall...couldn't fly but terrorized smaller creatures for millions of years." Kate White was anxious to divert the interview into more positive channels. Clements, she knew, would hardly thank her for wasting so much film footage on a philosophical discussion about prehistoric monsters. That, in her experience, was one of the troubles with experts. They often got carried away with their own cleverness. They liked, in fact, to show off. "But if on assumes that the basic premise is correct, that men are colonizing Mars, wouldn't they have to start from scratch with stocking an entire new world? And wouldn't that be a almost inseparable task?"

"Not when you understand the facts or life," said Manderson. "You've heard, of course, about the experiments which have resulted in the creation of test-tube babies..."

"Yes, but..."

Section 10c

"But do you realize that enough female eggs to produce the entire next generation of the human race could be packed into the shell of a single chicken's egg?"

"Goodness! I' no idea."

"And the same convenient compactness, Miss White, applies to other creatures. A mother cod, for example,can lay up to six million eggs at a single spawning.Fortunately most of those eggs are destroyed before they develop into fish...or else there's be no room for people to paddle off our beaches. If they all survived the seas of our world would be solid masses of cod by now - and they could all survive if nurtured in the right conditions.

"There was a ling caught, not so long ago, which was carrying more that 28 million eggs! So you can see right away how easy it would be to stock any seas there may be on Mars..."

"That's assuming there's nothing already in those seas."

"Granted - and there may well be for all we know." "But what if tiny things in the Martian seas - or on the Martian land for that matter - were harmful to man or were a nuisance to man?"

"Then we'd have to use our initiative to balance the ecology in our favor. It's been done often enough before, y'know. Sparrows, for instance, were first imported into New York in the middle of the nineteenth century - simply to attack tree-worms..."

"But wouldn't that automatically bring other problems? What about the creatures that live on the creatures you'd have to introduce to strike this ecological balance?" She paused, trying to grasp for a good example. Manderson, she'd decided by this time, was a cold and unlikeable man. He seemed to lack soul and she couldn't resist the temptation to bait him just a little. "Like hedgehogs?" she said triumphantly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Hedgehogs," she repeated. "I heard somewhere that they get withdrawal symptoms and become quite neurotic if they are deprived of their fleas..."

Manderson smiled indulgently. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't pretend to be an authority on neurotic hedgehogs and I do feel we're starting to get in rather deep. Can I help you in any other way?"

"Just on last question. In this new world - as you see it, Professor Manderson - is there any room for creatures that people simply enjoy ... creatures like squirrels and nightingales?"

"Not unless their productivity value were proved," said Manderson. "No room at all."

"You know something," said Kate. "I find that very, very sad."

Charles Welbourne, interviewed on screen by Colin Benson, agreed that there was an obvious conflict between the description of Mars offered by Gerstein and the pictures which had been released by NASA.

"Many people have also wondered why NASA should apparently have been so stingy on its photographic budget," he said. "Particularly when you consider how important the pictures are supposed to be."

"Why should people wonder in that way?" prompted Benson.

Welbourne pointed to a blow-up photograph of "familiar" Martian terrain which was mounted on a board in the studio. "That picture there almost says it for me," he said. "We're told that they spent all that money putting that probe on Mars and then what do they do? They equip it, if you please, with a camera which can focus only up to one hundred meters. And that, as somebody observed, is about the size of a large film studio.

"It doesn't start to add up. If they'd really wanted good pictures of Mars they would have fitted a vastly superior camera system Better cameras are available - make no mistake about that - but the one they used ... well, it was almost as if they'd deliberately fitted blinkers to the whole mission."

"You mean they were determined that we should see only what they wanted us to see?"

"That could well be. You've got to remember that all these pictures we get come in through NASA - they're simply passed on to the rest of us. So if they tell us it's Mars ... well, we have to believe them.

"It's exactly the same soundwise, of course. I mean, we don't hear everything that's said between Mission Control and the spacecraft. There's a second channel. They call it the biological channel ... "

"We did learn a little about that from Otto Binder," said Benson.

"Sure, Binder the former NASA man ... I remember he did blow the gaff on that after Apollo 13 ... well, this biological channel is officially just for reporting on medical details. In fact, though, they switch to it whenever they have something to say they don't want the whole world listening in on ..."

Welbourne paused, looked thoughtfully at the Martian picture. "I've just had a crazy thought," he said. "How about if that picture wasn't taken on Mars? Look at it closely ... don't you agree that could have been shot in some studio in Burbank?"

We should stress that Welbourne had been told nothing of the other pictures which we know were "dummied-up" in a studio - the ones of people like Brian Pendlebury which were an integral part of The Smoother Plan.

He had no idea then how near the mark he was with his "crazy thought".

The proof came unexpectedly. It came from Harry Carmell's girlfriend Wendy - the one who had ordered Benson and his crew out of that derelict house in Lambeth.

And Wendy was very frightened.