Alternative 3
Anglia House in the historic center of Norwich, Norfolk, UK—the former central broadcast headquarters of Anglia Television. It was from this building in the summer of 1977 that the network aired "Alternative 3," one of the most elaborate television mockumentaries in British broadcast history, which inadvertently laid the groundwork for modern conspiracy lore regarding secret space programs and elite off-world colonies.
The legend
Danger Level: Yellow (A television mockumentary that spawned enduring conspiracy theories, but caused no direct physical harm) On June 20, 1977, the ITV network broadcast what claimed to be the final episode of the documentary series "Science Report." Respected news anchor Tim Brinton presented a grave investigative report detailing a covert pact between the US and the Soviet Union: facing catastrophic runaway global warming, world leaders had secretly implemented "Alternative 3," an emergency blueprint to colonize the Moon and Mars for the global elite. The broadcast alleged that prominent scientists were being abducted and surgically stripped of free will to serve as a slave labor force off-world. The climax featured purported leaked footage of a joint US-Soviet crew landing on Mars in May 1962, showing an alien organism burrowing beneath the Martian dirt. Terrified viewers across Britain believed the end of civilization was imminent and world leaders had already abandoned humanity.
What actually happened?
The programme was entirely a scripted satirical drama created by screenwriter David Ambrose and director Christopher Miles. Originally commissioned as an April Fools' Day special for April 1, 1977, broadcast technician strikes and scheduling conflicts pushed the air date to late June. Stripped of its April Fools' context, the deadpan mockumentary delivery caught audiences completely off guard. The missing researchers, whistleblowers, and astronauts were played by seasoned British character actors, and the alien Martian terrain was filmed inside a local gravel quarry in Hertfordshire. Full cast and crew credits were displayed at the end of the broadcast, yet thousands of panicked viewers inundated ITV switchboards, emergency services, and newsrooms. Fringe theorists subsequently claimed the show was a deliberate government leak dressed up as fiction to gauge public reaction.
History
The wave of public alarm forced national newspapers to run explanatory debunks the following morning. In 1978, author Leslie Watkins authored an expanded paperback novelization that became an international sensation. Rather than fading away, "Alternative 3" permanently entered the canon of modern conspiracy lore: core narrative elements—such as covert interplanetary bases, coordinated Cold War deception, and missing aerospace engineers—were later adapted as absolute fact by fringe figures like Milton William Cooper in "Behold a Pale Horse," shaping modern Secret Space Program mythology for decades to come.
Where is it?
Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom; historic Anglia House located on Agricultural Hall Plain.
Can you visit?
Yes, Anglia House is situated in the fully accessible city center of Norwich. The historic Victorian Agricultural Hall complex, which served as the regional broadcast studio for Anglia Television and ITV from 1959 through 2020, can be easily viewed from the public streets and plazas outside.
William Roy Sells His Method to a Newspaper
William Roy, in fact William George Holloway, was the highest-earning British medium of the forties and fifties: he named sitters' dead relatives with an accuracy that was taken as unanswerable. In 1958 he sold the Sunday Pictorial a series describing his whole business for £30,000. A microphone was hidden in the cloakroom where the sitters left their coats; an assistant listened to their conversation and fed it to Roy's earpiece down a wire run through the leg of his chair. Beyond that, Roy kept years of card files built from newspaper obituaries and parish records. He wrote that he regretted nothing except being caught, and a few years later went back into practice under another name.
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