Alternative 3 - Best Hoax Since War of the Worlds

[schmawy]

Just watched this extremely interesting hoaxumentary produced in 1977 about a secret space program. It was intended to air on April 1st and despite the obvious fictional nature of the production such as the listing of characters and actors in the credits, it still caused a frisson of excitement amongst the public. It's full of great early space program footage, and enough good science to make it a really entertaining hour long film. Not to mention loads of straight up vinty seventies goodness.

As a period piece, it also provides an interesting cultural core-sample of alternate history, goverrnment conspiracy, cold war anxiety, global warming and climactic apocalypse. If you are entertained by things like Serpo, Apollo 20, and wished Hoagland could spin a better tale, you'll like this. I think this piece might be central to a lot of contemporary mythology.

It's a google video, so there's no knowing how long it will be around. Here's the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3

And the Video link:

Alternative 3

Enjoy!

 

[mike]

I saw this back in 1977 and it created quite the stir, many people didnt bother to read the credits at the end and thought it was the real deal.
It made newspaper headlines in the following days

 

[schmawy]

Ah. I don't know why I even bother trying to search before posting. It's not until you submit that you've seen that it's been posted before in the "Related Threads" box.

Alternative 3 and the Secret Space Program

 

[mike]

Some of you may recognise Dr Carl Gerstein, played by Richard Marner as
Col Kurt Von Strohm from the comedy series Allo Allo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Kurt_Von_Strohm

 

[trainedobserver]

Modern examples of this sort of thing are Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County and the more recent The Forth Kind.

Believe or not, one of the principle players at Project Camelot saw The Forth Kind and thought it was a true story and that the actual footage claim was true even though common sense would dictate that it was not. She posted this on the Project Camelot blog. It wasn't until someone (who shall remain nameless) emailed her and told her that it was a Blair Witch Project like hoax that she apparently realized it was fiction. Not only was I shocked that she would post something about the film being a true story without doing the 5 minutes of research that would have revealed the hoax to her, but that a single virtually anonymous piece of email would turn her opinion about it around so quickly. I was already clued into the clueless nature of Project Camelot but it was still a shock of sorts but I think it indicates the true level of gullibility and lack of critical thinking of many with an interest in these types of things.