Alternative 3 - Influence

Influence

Barkun notes that Alternative 3 and the intermittent availability of Watkins' book "lent itself to conspiracist interpretations," and though Alternative 3 did not mention UFOs or extraterrestrials, many of the plans mentioned in Alternative 3 have been featured in later assorted conspiracy theories. Barkun argues that Alternative 3 was important in that its "role in the growth of conspiracy theory lay in a later permutation" related to UFOs and the UFO conspiracy theory. Milton William Cooper, for one, featured similar tales in some of his writings.

An episode of Dimension X featured a plot very similar to the later Alternative 3: On the 14 July 1950 episode "The Man In the Moon", an employee of the fictional United States "Bureau of Missing Persons" overhears a radio broadcast from a man who claims to be held prisoner on the Moon. The employee investigates, and uncovers the kidnapping of many persons, including scientists and engineers, who are then forced to toil on the Moon by German overseers, who had colonized the Moon in the late 1930s, and who are preparing an invasion and takeover of the Earth. In turn, the movie Iron Sky also tells the story of Nazi moon-bases and a planned Earth invasion.

The novel Sold for a Spaceship (1973) by Philip High is set in the aftermath of a global ecological catastrophe; a ruling elite who escaped into space attempt to return to Earth, but find that they are unable to survive, whereas those left behind have adapted.

Liverpool doom metal band Anathema's 1998 album Alternative 4 was also named after the programme.

Psychedelic rock band Monster Magnet have a song about the conspiracy, titled "Third Alternative" on their Dopes to Infinity album.

The novel Stark by Ben Elton features a conspiracy of the rich and powerful to escape a doomed Earth which is very similar to that depicted in Alternative 3.

The song "Alternative Three" on the album Karma Had It Coming by Nova Scotia punk rock band, The Broomhandles takes inspiration from the program.

Costa Botes cited Alternative 3 as one of the influences that inspired him to produce the New Zealand mockumentary Forgotten Silver with Peter Jackson.

A character in Richard Linklater's 1991 film Slacker, portrayed by Jerry Delony, claims that Alternative 3 is "absolutely true" and that humans have been on Mars since 1962.