The

Hellwood Archive

Cult cinema, true crime, strange history and cultural oddities.

Stories from the darker corners of film, television, music, literature, crime, history and the unexplained.

alternative 3

1970s British television studio investigating a supposed secret Mars colony as monitors show grainy Viking-era images of the Martian surface

Alternative 3: The April Fool TV Hoax That Escaped into Conspiracy Culture

Alternative 3 was devised as an elaborate 1977 April Fool about missing scientists, environmental catastrophe and a secret human colony...

23 Sep 2026 • Archive Note