What was Alternative 3?

Alternative 3 is a television programme, broadcast in the UK in 1977 as a fictional hoax, an heir to Orson Welles’ radio production of The War of the Worlds. Purporting to be an investigation into Britain’s contemporary “brain drain,” Alternative 3 uncovered a plan to make the moon and Mars habitable in the event of a terminal environmental catastrophe on Earth.

The programme was originally meant to be broadcast on April Fools Day, 1977. While its broadcast was delayed until June by industrial action, the credits explicitly date the film to April 1st. Alternative 3 ended with credits for the actors involved in the production and featured interviews with a fictitious American astronaut. However, some conspiracy theory supporters have argued Alternative 3 is at least partly true.

Full Story: Wikipedia

Black Belt Jones writes:

Chances are if we’ve been to the pub together over the last 15 years, I will have mentioned Alternative-3, amongst the canon of great media proto-ARGs that include Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds, Ghostwatch, etc.

I re-watched it on the plane over to the USA, and my addled-brain couldn’t help but retcon the whole thing into the LOST universe.

It was made of course, when the DHARMA initiative is intended to have made their orientation movies, which helps.

But the plot within it is worthy of Abrams, Lindelhof, et al.

Full Story: Black Belt Jones.

There wasn’t a whole lot of new occult stuff to chew on in the season premiere. But the last “Missing Pieces” clip reminds of me of an interesting occult reference Trevor Blake pointed out:

In 1875 Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society, a proto-New Age occult organization that would have been quite an influence on The DHARMA Initiative. The “New Age” movement that the DHARMA Initiative invokes has its origins in Theosophy.

According to the White Dog Cafe web site:

While living on Sansom Street, Madame Blavatsky became ill with an infected leg. During her illness, she underwent a transformation which inspired her to found the Theosophical Society. In a letter dated June 12, 1875, Madame Blavatsky described her recovery, explaining that she dismissed the doctors and surgeons who threatened amputation, (”Fancy my leg going to the spirit land before me!”) and had a white dog sleep across her leg by night, curing all in no time.

Vincent is a yellow lab of a very light, mostly white color. The role of yellow labs and their possibly mystic role is expanding upon in the Lost Experience, particularly through the character Dr. Vincent Wally Bole. From Lostpedia:

“His life was a hellish nightmare of neglectful parents, and a near fatal accident until a kindly yellow lab pranced into his life and change him… forever.”

The nickname Wally comes from the family’s trusted Labrador Retriever who saved his life when, as a child, he fell into an abandoned well on the family estate. After this incident and because he had less-than attentive parents (his father was a near-famous neurosurgeon, his mother a saucier and the co-host of a little-watched TV show) he came to look to the dog as his surrogate parent.

The bond that developed between them and a chance encounter with The Hanso Foundation CEO and founder, Alvar Hanso, at a life-extension workshop in Rangoon would inspire Dr. Bolé to expand his research and eventually create the Retrievers Of Truth Institute for the Advancement and Research into the Mental Abilities of Yellow Labrador Retrievers.

It’s also noteworthy that Bole’s yellow lab research is in some ways reminiscent of the real life mad scientist John C. Lilly’s dolphin communication experiments. Lilly’s other work, particularly Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer has had a lasting impact on occultists, including Robert Anton Wilson, who Damon Lindelof has acknowledged as an influence.

Also, in Further Instructions Charlie makes a reference to the movie Altered States (”I’m going to stand out here in case you devolve into a monkey”), a movie inspired by Lilly’s work.