In Gerry Anderson's UFO, were the moonbase officers ordinary human beings in costumes, or something else?

Question

The Gerry Anderson TV series UFO featured a group of officers who manned the deep space radar systems.

They were all young and female. They wore identical costumes and distinctive makeup and had purple hair that was styled in the exact same way. (See picture below).

The effort seemed to have been taken to make them seem unique or mysterious, and they were set apart from the other female characters who dressed normally and had normal mannerisms.

In-universe, were these characters supposed to be ordinary human beings, merely dressed up in an unusual way for some reason (if so, what?), or were they supposed to be something else, such as robots, aliens, or clones?

Is this ever discussed in the series, such as there being an origin or spotlight episode for them, or in any official sources such as a guidebook or novelization?

Answer 1

I believe that they are normal human beings and the purple wigs are just a part of their uniform.

From the UFO fandom website you can see a picture of Lt Ellis without the wig:

Lt Ellis was the commander of the moonbase and is in the middle in your photograph.

Out of universe, the purple wigs were a design choice of Sylvia Anderson, intended to just be 'futuristic' and minimize the effort of doing individual hair styles.