Alternative Three

1 9 7 7 (UK)
1 x 52 minute episode

On June 20, 1977, Anglia TV in England caused a nationwide stir when a (bogus) program called Science Report broadcast a 'documentary' called  Alternative Three. By linking facts with half-truths, and by staging interviews with so-called "astronomers" and "astronauts," the makers suggested that both NASA's space program and the Cold War were decoys and that the power elite in the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain had in fact been working together on a secret project - "Alternative Three" - that had established bases on the moon and on Mars, so that they could escape the coming ecological nightmare on earth. 

Insiders who were deemed a security risk were callously murdered. Scientists had been abducted to do experiments in the space colonies. Even ordinary folks had been snatched and forced into slave labour on the moon and on the red planet. 

It was, of course, all a hoax, made clear by the closing credits that listed the actors on the show and contained a copyright notice dated April 1. Nonetheless, Anglia was flooded with calls, and newspaper headlines reported "shock" and "panic." 

To this day, some people believe that all of it, or some of it, is true.