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<title>Section 8</title>
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<h2>Section 8a</h2>
<p>Leonard Harman était loin d'être ravi de la lettre qui lui fut envoyée le 12 Août 1977, par notre avocat
  Edwin Greer.</p>
<p>Lettre datée du 15 Août 1977, de Harman à l'avocat Greer :</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>Je suis surpris du contenu de votre lettre et je dois insist on receiving undertaking from Messrs.
    Ambrose and Watkins to the effect that I will not be mentioned in their projected book. I note that your clients are
    aware that Sceptre Television has admitted that the Alternative 3 program was an unfortunate hoax and I am puzzled
    by the apparent evasiveness of your second paragraph.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p><q> You state that your clients are 'mindful of the background to that statement.</q> What, if anything,
  does that mean?</p>
<p> I repeat that it would be extremely wrong to perpetuate in book form what has already become a public
  misconception. There is absolutely no truth in the suggestion of any East-West covert action such as that described in
  the program and your clients apparently intend to compound what has already been admitted as a serious error of
  judgement.</p>
<p> If your clients persist in their attitude, particularly in respect to my privacy, I will have to seek
  legal advice and/or redress.</p>
<p> Letter dated August 13 from Edwin Greer to Leonard Harman:</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>There was no evasiveness in my letter of the 12th inst.</q></p>
  <p><q> I merely pointed out that my clients have conducted their own investigations in Britain and
    America into the subject of their projected book. Indeed, that investigation is still continuing. Any decisions
    taken by Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Watkins, in consultation with their publishers, will depend on their eventual findings
    and I am instructed to inform you that it is not possible for them to give you any undertaking.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> Six days later Greer received a letter from a well known Member of Parliament who had been lobbied for
  support by Harman. We included the name of the MP - and of one others who tried to suppress this book - in our
  original manuscript but, because of Britain's restrictive libel laws, we have been advised to delete those names from
  the published version.<br> This particular MP was taking the same line as Harman. His letter said:</p>
<p> In common with a number of my colleagues in the House of Commons, I have already deplored the misguided
  motives which resulted in the television program about the so-called Alternative 3.</p>
<p> Letters from many of my constituents demonstrate the alarm which was engendered and which, despite the
  subsequent statement by the television company, still lingers.</p>
<p> The fact that your clients should apparently be determined to capitalize on that alarm is, to my mind,
  quite scandalous. I intend to seek an injunction to prevent the publication of this book...</p>
<p> He did try for that injunction. The fact that you are reading this book at this moment is the proof
  that it was refused to him - and to one of his colleagues in the House of Commons. As we will explain later, however,
  these MPs did force us into a reluctant compromise.</p>
<p> However, they did not succeed in preventing us from using more of the memoranda which circulated inside
  Sceptre Television.</p>
<p> Memo dated April 92, 1977, from Chris Clements to Fergus Godwin, Controller of Programs - c.c. to
  Leonard Harman, Colin Benson, Terry Dickson:</p>
<blockquote>
  <p> Through contacts in America we have now traced former astronaut Bob Grodin to a new address. He is
    living with a girl and is not aware he has been located. I have instructed the American freelance to make no direct
    approach for, in view of the way Grodin went into hiding after the break-down of that Boston interview, he would
    almost certainly try to dodge us again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p> I want to send Benson to America to quiz Grodin in greater depth for, particularly considering his
  reference to Ballantine, I am certain he holds the key to an immensely important story.</p>
<p> It would be essential, of course, for Benson to arrive without prior warning. May I have your
  authorization to make the necessary arrangements?
</p>
<p>Memo dated April 12, 1977, from Leonard Harman to Mr.Fergus Godwin, Controller of Programs:</p>
<p> CONFIDENTIAL. The note from Clements, bearing today's date and relating to his interest in America, is
  clear confirmation of what I have already indicated to you and the Managing Director.</p>
<p> Clements has become unprofessionally obsessed with this ridiculous investigation with which he is
  persisting and I recommend that he be replaced immediately as producer of Science Report. I have studied his contract
  and we would be within our rights to transfer him to some area of our output where he would not be such an expensive
  liability - possibly the gardening series or the God Spot.</p>
<p> I have on several occasions had to warn him about squandering company time, money and resources --
  remember those abortive film unit journeys to Norwich and Scotland? - but he has defiantly persisted in doing so.</p>
<p> I was told nothing of the inquiries which have apparently been commissioned on our behalf in America
  although, as I mentioned again at the Senior Executives' Meeting on Friday, it is company policy for matters of that
  nature to be channeled through me. It would be utterly wrong to sanction Benson's going to America. Nothing can
  possibly be gained by talking to this man Grodin - even allowing for what Clements admits is the unlikely chance of
  him agreeing to talk. I have formed the impression from newspaper accounts that Grodin is unstable and probably
  unbalanced and it is no part of our function as a reputable television company to hound such a man - particularly for
  such a ridiculous reason.</p>
<p> We should, I suggest, instruct Clements to abandon this fool-hardy exercise and we should also give
  priority consideration to replacing him.</p>
<p> Memo dated April 13, 1977, from Fergus Godwin to Leonard Harman:</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>CONFIDENTIAL. Let us not forget that Science Report is a Network success purely because of
    Clements. However, I note your objections and I must confess that I have also been concerned about the amount of
    money which has gone into this particular project. I have arranged for Clements to see me today and, naturally, I
    will keep you informed.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> The meeting between Clements and Godwin - on Tuesday, April 13 - did not go well. Godwin had seen the
  unedited version of the interview filmed at Cambridge with Gerstein and he had not been impressed. The way the old man
  had veered away from any discussion of Alternative 3 had made him suspect that there was no Alternative 3 - that the
  dangers and the solutions were probably all theoretical. Science Report was already well over budget and Godwin knew
  how that would incense certain men on the Board. One of the Board members was an accountant, with the creative
  imagination of a retarded Polar Bear, and he was an apoplectic little man. Godwin didn't fancy another row with him -
  not on an issue where his own ground was so uncertain.</p>
<p> "Let me think it over," he said to Clements. "I'll let you know."</p>
<p> Memo dated April 14, 1977, from Fergus Godwin to Chris Clements - c.c. to Leonard Harman:</p>
<p> Further to our talk yesterday, I feel we would not be justified in sending Benson to America. If the
  situation should change as a result of any further information you may g-t, I will be prepared to discuss the matter
  with you again. For the moment, however, it's not on.</p>
<p> Clements read the note, pushed it across his desk to Dickson. "That bloody Harman!" he said. "This is
  his doing."</p>
<p><q>Et maintenant ?</q> demanda Dickson.</p>
<p> "We are going to do it. Terry. We are definitely going to do it. What we need now is some further
  information."</p>
<p> "Like what?"</p>
<p> "I don't know, love...you're the researcher...the sort of information that'll swing it with Fergus." He
  frowned, got up, started pacing the room. "What was it Gerstein said about co-operation between the super-powers?"</p>
<p> "He seemed to have the idea that they were working together on the Alternative 3 thing..."</p>
<p> "That could be it!" said Clements excitedly. <q>Do we know anyone who might develop that thought for
  us? It's have to be somebody with real prestige...</q></p>
<p><q> Broadbent.</q></p>
<p><q>Qui est Broadbent ?</q></p>
<p><q>Un grand expert en diplomacie Est-Ouest... il dirige l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques Internationales à
  St. James...</q></p>
<p><q> Hm...well there's no harm in trying. Is Colin around?</q></p>
<p> Dickson shook his head. "His day off."</p>
<p> "It's always his day off when I need him," said Clements unfairly. "Ask Kate to pop in and see me, will
  you? She can start sounding out Broadbent..."</p>
<p> At 5:15 p.m. that day reporter Katherine White started her interview with Professor G. Gordon Broadbent
  - parts of which, as you may recall, were eventually used in the transmitted program.</p>
<p> It took her some time to get Broadbent really talking. He was cautious, suspicious of her motives,
  anxious not to become involved in any sensationalism.</p>
<h2>Section 8b</h2>
<blockquote>
  <p>That was understandable for, after all, he is a man who is internationally respected. After a while, however, he
    was more forthcoming and we now print the significant part of that interview - verbatim from the transcript - as it
    was presented in the televised documentary :</p>
  <p><q>BROADBENT: On the broader issue of Soviet-US relations I must admit there is an element of mystery which
    troubles many people in my field. To put it at its simplest, none of us can understand how it is thatthe peace has
    been kept over these past twenty-five years.<br> WHITE: You mean the experts are baffled?<br> BROADBENT: (with a
    smile): But also, for once, in agreement. The popular myth that it's been proof of the balance of nuclear power
    frankly doesn't entirely stand up. And the more you look at it,the less sense it makes. There are too many
    imbalances - especially when you put it in the<br> perspective of history.<br> WHITE: So what is your
    explanation?<br> BROADBENT: Essentially 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.</q>
  </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clements went barging into the Controller's office without waiting for any response to his token tap. "You read the
  Broadbent transcript?" he asked.</p>
<p> Godwin, busy at his desk, sat back and smiled resignedly. "Yes - and your covering note."</p>
<p> "Well?"</p>
<p> "Well, what?"</p>
<p> Clements groaned, exasperated. "Surely that clinches it."</p>
<p> Godwin slowly shook his head. "No, Chris, not as far as I'm concerned. It's just more theory...that's all it
  is."</p>
<p> "But Fergus, it all fits! Gerstein and Broadbent -- each a top man in his own field - both suggesting some sort of
  secret co-operation in space between the super-powers."</p>
<p> "That man Harry, the American who claimed to know why scientists keep disappearing, and the links he seemed to have
  with Ballantine and with NASA. Then there was Grodin who, without any shadow of doubt, saw something really incredible
  up there on the moon...we can't just leave the whole damned thing now and forget it!"</p>
<p> "Stop bouncing around, Chris, and sit down." Godwin gestured to a chair. "Go on...sit down." He waited until
  Clements had done so. "Now, for the last time, let's get this clear. I realize that something odd may be going on but
  I don't consider it's any of our concern..."</p>
<p> Clements started to jerk angrily out of the chair,bursting to interrupt, but Godwin stopped him: "You've done a
  tremendous job with Science Report, Chris. Everybody thinks so and the rating have proved it. So I want you to get
  back just to doing what you do so well..."</p>
<p> "That means you're still saying "no" to America?"</p>
<p> "That's exactly what it does mean."</p>
<p> "If it's on grounds of cost, can I point out how much profit this company made last year..."</p>
<p> Godwin has since told us ruefully that he dislikes only one aspect of his job - that of being the chief buffer
  between his editors and the money men above him. One lot inevitably think he's mean and the others suspect him of
  being a spendthrift. Being wedged in the middle...it's not much fun. That's why his reply to Clements was
  uncharacteristically sharp:</p>
<p> "It's hardly your place to point that out but, as you've done so, let me tell you something. The company does make
  profits and it makes good ones but it does not do so by sending teams gallivanting around the world on fool's
  errands...so, please, let it rest..."</p>
<p> "Clements got up, prepared to leave. "How about if I fixed a facility trip?"</p>
<p> "Airlines aren't throwing many free flights around these days - not across the Atlantic."</p>
<p> "Benson could do a piece for the holiday series while he's over there. I've spoken to Simon Shaw who's taken over
  the holiday programs and he's quite keen...and I know an airline who'll play ball."</p>
<p> "God...you don't give up, do you!" Godwin grinned. "All right...tell Benson to go to America."</p>
<p> "Why did you disappear that night?" asked Benson. "That night of the interview...why did you run out like that?"</p>
<p><q>Have another beer,</q> said Grodin. <q>He pushed a fresh can across the low table and poured another for
  himself.</q> The bastard was trying to screw me. Did I see more than I've been allowed to admit publicly! Jesus...what
  sort of fool question was that?"</p>
<p> Benson forced a grin, tried to relieve the tension. He felt like an angler playing a difficult fish.</p>
<p> Gently...gently...that was the only way. He took a long drink, sighing with satisfaction, as he put down the empty
  glass. "I needed that beer," he said. "Had myself a real thirst."</p>
<p> 'You planning on doing the same?" Grodin was glowering suspiciously. "You aiming to screw me as well?"</p>
<p> He was frightened. That was quite obvious. And he was trying to hide his fears under aggressiveness. Benson felt a
  twinge of pity. The man seemed so pathetically vulnerable and Benson was reminded of what Harman had said in that
  memo:</p>
<p> "Grodin is unstable and probably unbalanced and it is no part of our function as a reputable television company to
  hound such a man."</p>
<p> Maybe, after all, there's been something in what Harman had said. Grodin clearly wasn't normal. It was all very well
  to be ruthlessly professional but would anything really be gained by pushing Grodin any further? Wouldn't it be fairer
  to drop the whole thing, to get back into the car and forget about Grodin? Benson hesitated. It would be so easy to
  tell Clements that Grodin had simply refused to talk, that there was no way for him to be persuaded. Clements wouldn't
  like it - in fact, he'd be bloody furious - but he'd have to accept it, particularly after the fiasco of that
  chopped-off interview.</p>
<p> Then he remembered the man called Harry. He remembered him at Lambeth - naked and terrified in that crumbling house.
  And he wondered how many more there were like him. And how many there would be in the future if the truth were not
  revealed.</p>
<p> "Camera, tape machines, witnesses - that's the kind of protection I need." That's what Harry had said. And they had
  failed him. They had arrived too late.</p>
<p> Protection from what? That was still a mystery. But it tied in somehow with the disappearance of Ann Clark. And with
  those of at least twenty other people including Brian Pendlebury and Robert Patterson.</p>
<p> Grodin had the key to at least part of the answer and Benson knew there was no choice. He had to get answers.
  Somehow he had to squeeze every bit of information out of this man. " Well?" persisted Grodin. "You aiming to screw me
  as well?"</p>
<p> Benson shook his head, opened his next can of beer. "I'm just hoping for a few answers," he said.</p>
<p> They were in canvas chairs, just the two of them, on the green-slabbed patio behind the ranch-style bungalow which
  Grodin was renting in a lonely corner of New England. It was peaceful there. No neighbors. No town or community of any
  sort for fifteen miles. Far in the distance, beyond the vast spread of scrub, they could see the tow-like sprawl of
  the smoke-blue mountains. And the top of those mountains seemed to dissolve into the sky. Tranquillity. Only them and
  the drowsy-soft sound of insects.</p>
<p> There were no noises from the bungalow behind them but Benson knew that the girl called Annie was probably busy in
  the kitchen. Grodin had said they'd soon be having a nice meal so that's where Annie had to be. Benson had been
  introduced to her, very briefly, when he'd arrived and then she'd scuttled shyly out of sight. Annie, he felt, wasn't
  at all happy about this intrusion. She looked young, far too young for Grodin, with straight hair, no make-up and
  gold-rimmed granny-glasses. The soft of earnest girl who should be reading psychology somewhere. It wasn't hard to
  guess her main function. Benson hoped she was also a good cook.</p>
<p> On the far side of the bungalow, at the top of the winding drive, Benson's technician-partner, Jack Dale, was still
  in the car checking and preparing his equipment. He had a small sound-camera but he knew better than to produce it
  until he got the nod. It had to be kept out of sight until Benson got Grodin into the right mood...</p>
<p> Grodin drained his glass. "Owned a place lie this myself once," he said. "Not just rented it like this one but
  really owned it. Thought I was putting down roots, y'know? Used to go up there in the summer with the family. Ah, it
  was all different then. We had a few horses and..." He stopped, pulled a face, smiled ironically. "Guess you can say
  I'm not much into planning for the future any more."</p>
<h2>Section 8c</h2>
<p>He studied his glass as if trying to puzzle why it was suddenly empty. He held the can upside-down over
  it and one small glob of beer fell out. "I swear they only half-fill the cans these days," he said bitterly. "That's
  how they make their money - y'know that? - by half-filling the cans." He threw the can away disgustedly and it
  clattered to the edge of the patio.</p>
<p> "That's how it is these days. Everybody screwing everybody else for all they can get. No ethics left,
  not nowhere." His speech was slightly slurred and Benson wondered how much drinking he'd done before their
  arrival.</p>
<p> "Cheap-jack booze-peddlers!" shouted Grodin. "Short changing bastards!" He turned in his chair, called
  over his shoulder. "Annie! We've right out of beer! Bring a couple more, will you..." </p>
<p>He glanced at Benson. "Or you want a real drink?"</p>
<p> "Beer's fine," said Benson.</p>
<p> Grodin grunted and shrugged. "Annie!" he shouted again.</p>
<p> "There are two men out here dying of thirst..."</p>
<p> She came out with two more cans of beer and shook her head smilingly, her expression implying that she
  say him as an adorably mischievous small boy. As someone who needed mothering. Grodin squeezed her hand. "Thanks
  baby." He seemed to feel some explanation was necessary. "They don't fill them like they used to..."</p>
<p> She smiled again. "They never did," she returned to the bungalow. "And she ain't my daughter! Right? I
  want that on record!"</p>
<p> "How about getting something else on record?" suggested Benson quietly.</p>
<p><q>Like what ?</q></p>
<p><q>Like what you know about Ballantine...</q></p>
<p> The guarded expression was back on Grodin's face. <q>I never knew the guy.</q></p>
<p><q>That time he went to NASA HQ...didn't you meet him then?</q></p>
<p><q>Drop it, kid, will you! I told you, for Christsake. I never knew him... I never met him...</q></p>
<p><q> But you know what happened to him - and why.</q> Grodin stood up. "Time to eat," he said. "Let's
  give your pal a shout."</p>
<p> Towards the end of the meal Grodin switched to drinking bourbon on the rocks. He tried to persuade the
  others to join him but Benson and Jack Dale stuck with beer. So did Annie. And later, while she was sorting out the
  dirty dishes, Grodin agreed to be interviewed. By that time he was a little bleary but he was still thinking
  coherently. That interview, filmed by Dale, was presented in the famous Science Report program on June 20, 1977. We
  now quote direct<br> from the transcript :</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>GRODIN: All I know about Ballantine is that he showed up at NASA with some tape he'd made, and got pretty damn
    excited when he played it back on their juke box.<br> BENSON: Juke box?<br> GRODIN: De-coder. You can pick up a
    signal if you have the right equipment, but you can't unscramble it...<br> BENSON: without NASA's equipment?<br>
    GRODIN: Right. Some young guy helped him do it. Say,now he should've known better.<br> BENSON: This man?Benson then
    showed Grodin a postcard-sized photograph of Harry Carmell - blown-up from a frame of the film taken in the street.
    Grodin frowned,trying to remember.<br> GRODIN: Could be. Yeah, that looks like him. Sure you don't want a
    bourbon?<br> BENSON: Beer's fine.<br> GRODIN: Bourbon's better for you.<br> BENSON: No, thanks...are you saying
    Ballantine was killed because of what he discovered on the tape?<br> GRODIN: I'm saying nothing. I just saw the way
    those guys were looking at him. But I knew those looks...I've seen them looking at me that way.<br> BENSON:
    "Them?"<br> GRODIN: Oh, c'mon...! Have a proper drink, for God's sake.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> At that stage there was a break in the interview. Viewers say Grodin empty his glass and shamble across
  the room to refill it at the bar in the corner. They did not see Annie come back from the kitchen. Nor did they hear
  the argument between her and Grodin. She was, as Benson has told us, frightened that Grodin was saying too much, that
  he was being dangerously indiscreet. But by then Grodin had enough drink in him to make him reckless - and to make him
  resent getting orders from a girl. He yelled at her, cruelly and crudely, telling her that she didn't have "no nagging
  rights" because she wasn't his goddamned wife and so would she start minding her own goddamned business. She went on
  arguing, trying to persuade him, and he got still madder. He threw a tumbler of bourbon at the wall and the glass
  exploded all over the place. Then she left in tears and he apologized for her behavior. "Women!" he said. "Think they
  goddamn own you!"</p>
<p> For the next hour he drank. He drank heavily. And Benson was starting to worry that he would soon be
  unable to speak but, surprisingly, Grodin was still making sense. At one time he seemed to hover on the edge of being
  hopelessly drunk, of collapsing across the bar, but then he had another drink and, in some strange way, that seemed to
  pull him through. It was, in Benson's words, as if he was "starting to drink himself sober".</p>
<p> Grodin was having problems forming certain words - "as if his tongue was slipping out of gear" - but
  his mind seemed clear enough. And eventually he agreed to continue with the interview</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>BENSON: Bob...what did happen out there...the moon landing?<br> GRODIN: Well...I don't know how best to put
    this...but we had kind of a big disappointment...the truth is we didn't get there first.<br> BENSON: What d'you
    mean?<br> GRODIN: The later Apollos were a smoke-screen...to cover up what's really going on out there...and the
    bastards didn't even tell us...not a damned thing!<br> Here, as viewers will recall, there was another break. It
    lasted only a split second on the screen but, in fact, filming stopped for more than half-an-hour. When they resumed
    Grodin was sweating heavily. He was sweating because of the alcohol and because of his excitement over what he was
    saying.<br> They'd said he wasn't to talk about it. That's what the bastards had said. Well, he'd show them Bob
    Grodin wasn't of guy to be scared into silence. They didn't own him. He was<br> out of the service now and, anyway,
    maybe it was time for someone to talk. He was holding yet another drink as he waited for Benson's first
    question...<br> BENSON: Bob, you've got to tell me...what did you see?<br> GRODIN: We came down in the wrong
    place...it was crawling...made what we were on look like a milk run...<br> BENSON: Are you talking about men...from
    Earth?<br> GRODIN: 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! We're just there to keep you bums happy...to keep you from
    asking dumb questions about what's really going on!...O.K.,that's it, end of story. Finish. Lots o'luck,kid. </q>
  </p>
</blockquote>
<p> And that was it. End of interview. Grodin finished his drink in one great gulp and then he fell. Tight
  there on the carpet. Annie heard the thump, came running into the room, told the pair of them to get out. They
  suggested helping her get Grodin into bed but she refused the offer. She just wanted them out. So there it was. They
  left.</p>
<p> In November, 1977, we visited that bungalow in the hope of getting Grodin to elaborate. We were certain
  there was far more he could tell. And we felt he might talk more freely without the presence of a film-camera.</p>
<p> The bungalow was empty. It had been empty, as far as we could tell, for weeks or possibly months. We
  have been unable to find the girl Annie. She appears to have completely disappeared. But we did trace Grodin. We
  traced him to a mental hospital on the outskirts of Philadelphia. He was allowed no visitors. At least, that's what we
  were told. We tried to insist on seeing him but they were emphatic. Quite out of the question, they said. His
  condition was too severe. And, anyway, a visit would be quite pointless. Grodin couldn't string together two
  consecutive words. His mind was completely gone...</p>
<h2>Section 8d</h2>
<p>Grodin's death was reported in the newspapers in January, 1978. Suicide. That's what the world was told. Grodin had
  knotted pajama trousers around his neck and hanged himself from a hot-water pipe fixed high on the wall of his room.
  We have suspicions that he may have been the victim of an Expediency but, without evidence, they can be no more than
  suspicions.</p>
<p> Another intriguing piece of the jigsaw was supplied by the American freelance hired by Dickson. It was a copy of a
  tape containing dialogue between NASA Mission Control at Houston and the Lunar Command Module Pilot during a 1972 moon
  mission. And Clements puzzled over it when he first played it at the Sceptre studios:
</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>MISSION CONTROL: More detail, please. Can you give more detail of what you are seeing?<br> LUNAR MODULE PILOT:
    It's...something flashing. That's, That's all so far. Just a light going on and off by the edge of the crater.<br>
    MISSION CONTROL: Can you give the co-ordinates?<br> LUNAR MODULE PILOT: There's something down there...Maybe a
    little further down.<br> MISSION CONTROL: It couldn't be a Vostok, could it?<br> LUNAR MODULE PILOT: I can't be
    sure...it's possible. <br> All this fitted logically with the content of the taped conversation between Mission
    Control and Grodin - during Grodin's first moon walk:<br> MISSION CONTROL: Can you see anything? Can you tell us
    what you see?<br> GRODIN: Oh boy, its really...really something super-fantastic here. You couldn't ever imagine
    this...<br> MISSION CONTROL: O.K....could you take a look out over that flat area there? Do you see anything beyond?<br>
    GRODIN: There's a kind of a ridge with a pretty spectacular...oh my God! What is that there?<br> That's all I want
    to know! What the hell is that?<br> It also fitted with the exchange - reported by former NASA man Otto Binder -
    between Mission Control and Apollo 11 during the Aldrin-Armstrong moon walk:<br> MISSION CONTROL: What's
    there?.malfunction.garble)...Mission Control calling Apollo 11...<br> APOLLO 11: These 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...</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> There was, however, one reference in the latest tape which made it startlingly different - the reference to a
  Vostok. Russia's Vostok flights took place in the early Sixties. According to the information made public, they were
  not designed to reach the moon but were merely Earth-orbiting spaceships.</p>
<p> So what could be made of the casual suggestion by Houston Mission Control - and an equally casual acceptance by the
  Lunar Module Pilot - that an obsolete Russian craft might be sitting on a crater on the moon flashing its lights in
  1972?</p>
<p> We now know that, for many years, the super-powers have taken immense trouble to hide the extent of advances made in
  space technology. Remember, for example, how people were encouraged to believe that the first living creature to be
  sent into space was a dog in 1958?</p>
<p> Yet that dog mission was seven years after the four Albert monkeys were hurtled into the stratosphere in a V2
  rocket. And there are sound reasons for doubting, that those monkeys were the first.</p>
<p> So was the official objective of the Vostok flights also a blind? Were they, to paraphrase the words of Bob Grodin,
  also a P.R. job for all the hardware that had been fired into space?</p>
<p> One dominant question develops automatically from all the others: Was the first publicly-announced moon walk in 1969
  no more than a cynical charade - played by agreement between the super-powers - because by then men had really been on
  the moon for the best part of a decade?</p>
<p> If that was the truth, and all the evidence points to it being so, what was the purpose of that charade?And why has
  it been perpetuated?The answer to both those questions is Alternative 3.</p>
<p> The all-embracing threat to this planet, described by Dr. Carl Getstein, is horrifying enough to make America and
  Russia kill their comparatively petty rivalries - and their archaic concepts of pride in national achievement - in a
  desperate bid to snatch some sort of future for mankind.</p>
<p> Simon Butler put the known situation into clear perspective in that Science Report program. He told viewers: "The
  drive to make the first man on the moon an American was launched by President Kennedy - in competitive terms. By the
  late Sixties it appeared that the race had been conclusively won. The Russians, it seemed, had simply dropped out and
  stopped trying. America had won.</p>
<p> "Yet today Cape Canaveral is a desert of reinforced concrete and steel. The most ambitious project in the history of
  mankind is apparently over."</p>
<p> "More and more, however, we hear talk of Skylab and a space shuttle. But shuttling what? And to where?"</p>
<p> All of us have seen n television the phenomenal amount of power required simply to pull a space-rocket clear of the
  earth's gravitational field. But suppose that power did not have to be consumed principally in merely getting into
  space. Suppose the rocket could start from space. What kind of travel would that bring within our grasp?</p>
<p> Technical journalist Charles Welbourne, author of three highly-acclaimed books on aerospace, was questioned on the
  tack by Butler. Here is a transcript of the key section of that interview: </p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>WELBOURNE: Obviously we could go further with less power, or send a much larger craft. In fact, the only way
    we're going to see space travel on any scale is by this kind of extra-terrestrial launching - for instance from a
    space platform orbiting the Earth.<br> BUTLER: Or from the moon?<br> WELBOURNE: Sure...if we could get the material
    there to build the craft, it's make real good sense.<br> BUTLER: Could we transport the materials there <br>
    WELBOURNE: It'd take one hell of a shuttle...but,sure, we have the machines now...in theory we could do
    it...especially with some kind of international co-operation.<br> "International co-operation." Welbourne's tone
    suggested that he considered such a likelihood rather remote. Certainly on the scale being discussed. But at the
    time of that interview, it must be remembered, Welbourne knew nothing about the Policy Committee and its submarine
    meetings. Nor did Butler.</q>
  </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Through the summer of 1976, while the Sceptre team continued its investigation, there was dramatic evidence to show
  how this planet was experiencing traumatic changes - sort of changes which later were to be explained to Butler by Dr.
  Gerstein.</p>
<p> The great drought of that year was unequaled in recorded history. And Butler eventually told viewers: "There was no
  panic...only a growing unease that what we were experiencing was unnatural and that the Earth's climate was moving
  towards a radical change.</p>
<p> "The earthquake barrage in China and the Far East has done more damage and killed more people than several nuclear
  attacks. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, it seemed as if the whole Caribbean was about to blow up.</p>
<p> "Also in Italy and Central Europe the Earth's crust was undergoing dramatic changes.</p>
<p> "For the first time scientists are beginning to see glimmerings of the workings of spaceship Earth, a huge but
  delicate machine buffeted by the forces of the interplanetary ocean."</p>
<p> At the height of the drought British government scientists contemplated trying to meddle with the weather. They
  decided not to do so - pointing out that Common Market countries might accuse Britain of stealing their rain. So
  Britain, like the rest of the world, went on suffering.</p>
<p> Roads buckled in the intense heat. Firemen could hardly contain the infernos which raged through forests and across
  moors. And there was an astonishing range of unexpected casualties. Bees starved because there was not enough nectar
  or pollen in the parched flowers...thousands of racing pigeons, unable to sweat like humans, collapsed with heat
  exhaustion.</p>
<p> On September 27, 1976, one of the authors of this book - Leslie Watkins - wrote a major article in the Daily Mail
  which starte: </p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>Houses which have stood solidly for a hundred years or more - together with modern ones and impressive blocks of
    flats - are today unexpectedly splitting and threatening to collapse. Out long summer of drought has brought acute
    anxiety to the insurance companies - and the prospect of financial disaster to many families. Damage estimated at
    early +60 million has been caused by subsidence. Homes in many parts of the country, but particularly in London and
    the South East, have been slowly sinking at crazy angles into the parched and contracting ground.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> Britain has, in effect, been ravaged by a slow-motion earthquake.</p>
<p> However, few people then suspected that the drought was merely the start of a cataclysmic change in the world's
  weather. But soon it became apparent that the pattern was beginning to go berserk - lurching from one disastrous
  extreme to the other - like the frantic flailings of some gigantic, doomed creature.</p>
<p> On June 15, 1977, the main feature article in the Daily Mail - also written by Watkins - said: </p>
<blockquote>
  <p>No man in the world gambles more heavily on dry weather than 54-year-old Peter Chase.</p>
</blockquote>
<p> That was why, early yesterday, every flash of lightning showed the misery etched on his face.</p>
<p> His wife Phobe was urging him to get back into bed, to ignore the torrential rain and forget about business.</p>
<p> But he stayed at the window, trying to calculate the cost.</p>
<p> Mr. Chase has good cause to be horrified by the violent electric storm which brought such devastation to many party
  of Britain. He is the pluvius under-writer for Eagle Star - the leaders in rain insurance.</p>
<p> This has been a bad year for Mr. Chase. Jubilee celebrations, with street parties and other festivities almost
  drowned by deluges, were particularly disastrous...</p>
<p> We have, in fact, been experiencing the second heaviest spell of sustained wet weather since records were first kept
  in 1727. And the outlook for the rest of the week is "showery"... </p>
<p>Most people have assumed that this sequence of drought followed by heavy rain was, in some mysterious and
  providential way, Nature trying to compensate and restore the balance - that the downpours have nullified the facts
  which have now been outlined by Gerstein.</p>
<p> That assumption, unfortunately, is incorrect. Meteorologist Adrian Lerman explains that the excessive rains were
  produced by the excessive heat, that they are not a pointer to long-term cooler weather.</p>
<p> He says: "There is far more evaporation during periods of intense heat, with water vapor being drawn in great
  quantities from oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers, because warm air absorbs that vapor more efficiently than cold
  air."</p>
<p> "This inevitably results in an eventual increase in precipitation.</p>
<p> "Gerstein is undeniably right in anticipating that the greenhouse syndrome will continue to produce a great increase
  in global temperatures but I consider he has not laid sufficient stress on the most immediate threat to humanity - the
  threat of world - wide flooding."</p>
<p> "I am certain that Gerstein is wrong when he predicts that countries like England and America will become scorched
  wildernesses. They'll be destroyed all right...and they won't support life...but they'll be drowned rather than
  burned."</p>
<p> "Extreme heat, such as that which is now inevitable, will melt land glaciers. That will result in a marked rise in
  sea level and then there'll be the start of the extensive flooding - with London and New York among the first cities
  to be affected."</p>
<p> So Lerman, having studied the situation with scientific precision, expects a replay of the global disaster described
  in the Bible.</p>
<p> "Genesis" 6-17: "And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is
  the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die."</p>
<h2>Section 8e</h2>
<p>So there is a conflict of opinion between those experts who agree with Gerstein and those who agree with Lerman. They
  are, however, in total and terrible agreement on the key issue - that this world, because of man's stupidity, is now
  irrevocably doomed. Flame or flood...one of them, in the comparatively near future, will bring the agonizing end.</p>
<p> And what of the men behind Alternative 3 ?</p>
<p> They, presumably, have also studied the Bible version of the horrendous mass-death. "Genesis" 7-21, 22, 23: "And all
  flesh that moved upon the earth died, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that
  creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land,
  died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the
  creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and
  they that were with him in the ark."</p>
<p> There can now be no doubt that those men, the ones who have supervised the mechanics of Alternative 3, have cast
  themselves jointly in the role of God - taking their cue from other verses in that chapter of Genesis.</p>
<p> The Lord instructed Noah to collect the people and the creatures destined to board the ark, the ones to be lifted
  clear of the global devastation.</p>
<p> Technology has made space-craft the modern equivalent of that ark. Who, then, decides which people shall be
  evacuated in the arks of the twentieth century?</p>
<p> These anonymous men have assumed the right to decide who shall live and who shall die. Their decisions are based, in
  the main, on information supplied by an elaborate international network of computers - an aspect of the operation
  which we hill later examine in more detail.</p>
<p> They have also assumed a prerogative which many will consider far more obscene: that of deciding which people should
  be plucked away from their homes - to be mutilated and molded into slaves. These people, these tragic victims, are
  those who - together with disappearing cattle and horses and other creatures - become part of Batch Consignments.</p>
<p>Mardi 10 Janvier 1978. Another envelope from Trojan. This one, arriving exactly a week after that Photostat copy of
  The Smoother Plan, contained the most serious indictment yet of the men behind Alternative 3. Trojan had again been
  scouring the archives and, as a result, had secured two documents - one dated Wednesday, August 27, 1958, and the
  other dated Friday, October 1, 1971. Both had been issued by "The Chairman, Policy Committee". Both here addressed to
  "National Chief Executive Officers" and both were headed "Batch Consignments".</p>
<p> The covering note from Trojan was tersely triumphant. It said:</p>
<p><q>Peut-être que maintenant vous allez me croire ! This is what made me decide I wanted out - et c'est la seule
  raison pour laquelle je collabore avec vous.</q></p>
<p> Le document de 1958 indique :</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>Each designated mover will, it is estimated, require back-up labor support of five bodies. These bodies, which
    will be transported in cargo batch consignments, will be programed to obey legitimate orders without question and
    their principal initial duties will be in construction.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> Priority will naturally be given to the building of accommodation for the designated movers However, it is stressed
  that, in the interests of good husbandry, accommodation will also provided for the human components of batch
  consignments - as well as for relocated animals - as a matter of urgency. The completion of this accommodation, which
  will be of a more basic and utilitarian nature than that allocated to designated movers, will in normal circumstances
  take precedence over the creation of laboratories, offices, other places of work, and recreational centers. All
  exceptions to this rule will require written authorization from the Chairman of the Committee in Residence.</p>
<p> It is estimated that the average working life-span of human batch-consignment components will be fifteen years and,
  in view of high transportation costs, every effort will be made to prolong that period of usefulness.</p>
<p> At the end of that life-span they are to be considered disposable for, although this is recognized as regrettable,
  there will be no place for low-grade passengers in the new territory. They would merely consume resources required to
  sustain the continuing influx of designated movers and would so undermine the success potential of the operation.</p>
<p> Preliminary work is now progressing to adapt batch-consignment components, mentally and physically, for their
  projected roles and the scope of this experimental work is to be widened. Further details will be provided, when
  appropriate, by Department Seven.</p>
<p> Pre-transportation collection of batch-consignment components will be organized by National Chief Executive Officers
  who will be supplied with details of categories and quantities required. No collection is to be arranged without
  specific instructions from Department Seven.</p>
<p> Le document de 1971 indique :</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>Experimental processing of batch-consignment components is now producing a 96 per cent success rate. This is
    considered not unsatisfactory.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> The Policy Committee briefing circulated on September 7, 1965, explained the necessity for all components to be
  de-sexed: 1) To eliminate the possibility of them forming traditional mating relationships which could detract from
  the efficiency of their sole-function performance. 2) To ensure components do not procreate and so haphazardly
  perpetuate a substandard species. This second consideration is of particular importance for the products of such
  procreation, during their initial years of growth and development, would have no operational value and would merely be
  a liability on the resources of the new territory.</p>
<p> The permanent elimination of self-will and self-interest has presented great difficulties. Long-term laboratory
  tests have revealed that an unaccountably high percentage of components eventually regress towards their
  pre-processing attitudes, so rendering themselves unreliable and unsuitable for the envisaged role.</p>
<p> Advanced work, conducted principally in America, Britain, Japan and Russia, has now resulted in a substantial
  reduction of the "Component-personality" failure ratio. However, this branch of research is now to be intensified.</p>
<p> The Policy Committee has given careful consideration to suitable means of jettisoning rejected potential components.
  It has been agreed that they are not to be considered responsible for their unsuitability and that there is nothing to
  be gained by killing them. Such a solution, although simple enough to implement, would be unnecessarily harsh. They
  are therefore to have their memories destroyed - a process for so doing has now been perfected at Dnepropetrovsk and
  details are eing circulated to all A-3 laboratories - and then they will be permitted to resume their lives.</p>
<p> In future no de-sexing will be done until after the personality-adjustment of the projected component, male or
  female, has been assessed and approved. This will ensure that those which eventually return to their homes as rejects
  will betray no evidence of laboratory work. </p>
<p>On August 22, 1977, this story appeared in the London Evening News:</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><q>A mystery girl who baffled Scotland Yard for two weeks has discharged herself from the hospital.</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p> And the Yard said today it still does not know who she was or where she has gone.</p>
<p> The girl, aged between sixteen and twenty, was admitted to Whittington Hospital, Holloway, after wandering into a
  hospital building late one night.</p>
<p> She appeared to have lost her memory and, d-spite intensive efforts by doctors and detectives, her back-ground
  remains a mystery.</p>
<p> One week before that story appeared, Hertfordshire police were appealing for help in identifying another amnesia
  victim - a man in his mid-thirties - found wandering on a gold-course near Harpenden. So were police in Manchester.
  Their memory-blank case was a man aged about twenty.</p>
<p> That particular section of August, 1977, produced a great rash of people with the same problem. They turned up in
  Germany and in France, in Italy an in Canada. They were all physically fit and apparently normal - apart from having
  no idea who they were or where they had been.</p>
<p> What produced that extraordinary epidemic of amnesia? Far too many cases were reported for the global outbreak to be
  dismissed as coincidence. Had something gone dramatically wrong with a complete batch of "projected
  components"...something so severe that it had been necessary to return them to their old surroundings?</p>
<p> For instance, that man found wandering on the golf-course near Harpenden...was he there simply because the
  Alternative 3 planners had rejected him as a slave?</p>
<p> We do not claim to know. And although we have interviewed him - in addition to twenty-three other amnesia victims
  who appeared at about the same time - we see little hope of conclusively establishing that these people had been part
  of a "Pre-transportation collection". </p>
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