David Bowie once wanted to beam Ziggy Stardust transmissions from space

David Bowie once considered beaming transmissions from space in his Ziggy Stardust guise.

That’s according to video games designer Phil Campbell, who worked with the music icon on the 1999 video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

Campbell told The Mirror: “We talked about buying up a bunch of old satellites that were circling the Earth and he was going to relaunch Ziggy from space.

“The idea was that Ziggy would beam us transmissions – ‘Are you receiving me…?’”

Bowie created the character of Ziggy Stardust for his 1972 album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and performed as his extraterrestrial alter-ego on the accompanying tour.

Omikron (just called The Nomad Soul in Europe) was released on PC and Sega’s Dreamcast console, and focussed on the hunt for a serial killer in a city with a supernatural undercurrent.

In the same interview, Campbell also suggested that Bowie was keen to make an appearance in the game.

“One day David said, could he leave his Bowie persona in Omikron, and come out as David Jones? It was a delicious thought – did he crave the anonymity of that?

“And it fitted the spirit of the game: Omikron was a giant trap, you could lose your soul in there forever.”

While Bowie didn’t end up featuring in the game, the Aladdin Sane musician enjoyed a successful acting career, appearing in films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth, Labyrinth and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

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