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UPDATE: OK, this seemed like a cool story, reported by many news sources, but apparently, it isn’t true. The Discovery Discoblog has the details. . I guess there was a truth abduction.
If aliens ever visit Earth and actually do use the time-worn phrase, “Take me to your leader,” or if a SETI search ever finds a signal of an alien civilization saying “hello,” there may be someone ready and waiting to respond. The United Nations is considering selecting a special ambassador to be the first point of contact for aliens wishing to communicate with Earth. Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist and currently head of the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is expected to be named to the position.
“Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a ‘take me to your leader’ person,” said Richard Crowther, in an article in the UK newspaper, the Telegraph.
Crowther is an expert in space law at the UK space agency who leads delegations to the UN. Reportedly, the plan to make UNOOSA the coordinating body for dealing with alien encounters will be debated by UN scientific advisory committees and should eventually reach the body’s general assembly.
The proposal is said to have been prompted by the recent discovery of hundreds extrasolar planets, which makes the discovery of extraterrestrial life more probable than ever.
Ms. Othman said in a recent talk to fellow scientists, “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that someday human kind will received signals from extraterrestrials. When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.”
But will visiting ET’s be greeted with open arms, or with a conditional sterilization? Under the Outer Space Treaty written in 1967, (which UNOOSA oversees) UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by “sterilizing” them. Reportedly, Othman supports a more tolerant approach.
But physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that aliens should be treated with caution.
“I imagine they might exist in massive ships,” he said, “having used up all the resources from their home planet. The outcome for us would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” Alien abduction would be the least of our worries.
In the meantime, US citizens wishing to be ‘ambassadors’ for space exploration should consider joining JPL’s Solar System Ambassador program. This is a great program (which I am honored to participate in) to spread the word about the wonders of excitement of space exploration and science. Find out more at the SSA website, and if interested, the program is now taking applications for new ambassadors. Hurry, as applications are being taken until September 30, 2010.
Source: The Telegraph
I think Tim Lambert has the right take
His question regarding the Australian works equally well for the Daily Telegraph.
UT is better than this.
It is not true, yet :
http://bit.ly/cfGLOB
HeyNOW! This seems to be an extension of earlier US gov’t attempts at appointing refutable scientists to panels charged with creating a credible response if and when we where ever contacted by aliens races. This was back in the mid-late 1960’s. Back then, Dr. John C. Lily was involved in attempts to communicate with dolphins and/or other cetacean residents on Earth. He attempted to put together a consensus into how to communicate were we to be contacted. His experiences with Dolphins started with typical, at the time, dissection and brain wave analysis with then primitive EEG machines. His experiments were widely discredited when he used LSD with his dolphins and sensory deprivation chambers (A NASA interest examining how astronauts would react to extended duration zero Gee environments). He injected 500 mg’s of pure Sandoz LSD into his thigh and injected similar into his dolphin subjects. He then wrote about how they were transported to ‘other dimensions in space/time’ and saw what he described as a ‘Cosmic Computer’… Needless to say, main stream science decided that his experiments were WAY far too ‘Woo woo’ and his work was discredited.
Tay… a flying saucer lands… and you offer and take LSD with the occupants in an attempt to communicate. Um… YIKES! Because of course with LSD you may see aliens… but how could you describe what you saw and communicated into any kind of understandable language??? and WHO would believe you? LOL~
This is not out of line with what I have predicted for the near future. Here we have the release of news reports about an ET ambassador at the UN. It did not go far. However, I have thought that before long there will be some cyber-multi-media program to convince millions of people Jesus has returned. The same could of course be done with aliens landing, but Jesus is a bigger figure in most people’s minds. This little report is a sort of mini-short along those lines, and there have been others. There must be some cyber-hoaxers out there who could create a decent appearance of something like this.
LC
Lol.
I’m surprised some “Return of Jesus” type”event” hasn’t happened already. Surely someone somewhere would have something to gain from creating such a media splash and the resulting cult following. At the very least, it would certainly be more believable and life-changing for many people then it’s alien version.
Ha HA Ha…. a ‘fake’ story eh? Funny that…
Umm… my earlier comment did not state that Dr. John C. Lily was actually appointed to a panel for determining a response to contact… he was.
http://www.floatdreams.com/johnclilly.htm
Hmm…. no mention of his work with the US gov’t project to establish protocols for *.coms with aliens. Interesting…?
The United Nations is planning on spending and wasting more taxpayer dollars on a job that requires no knowledge and no qualification skills. The ambassador will betray the poor in society, and kiss up to the aliens, with hopes to further enslave and control mankind. The free election system is broken in the world, and these kinds of positions need to remain vacant empty to prevent corruption because who ever is runs and is elected in politics is a criminal who believes they must spend taxpayer money on policies that they support and get favors for by lobbyists. Only by stopping elections, having empty ballots and empty seats in congress, can there truely be freedom in the world. It is unlikely that a honest candidate can ever run and be elected, who would do as promised and never spend a penny like everybody else.
Let’s appoint Ivan3man for the job so he can spellcheck them or someone sexy like our Nancy. 😀 😀 😀
Well now, there’s a useful purpose for the UN. I knew eventually we would find a use for it….
Communication should not be difficult — In the US, most of our aliens speak Spanish.
Should we start with “Klaatu barada nikto”???
to name just a few who tried to be Christ includes the Jones town church suicides, and the Mason criminal. both claimed to be Jesus Christ, and impersonators are trying to be Christ everyday to get fame and money if they could. the bible predicts Christ’s return only after the anti-christ has ruled earth for ~7 years. So anybody who can convince enough people that they are Jesus Christ will be the anti-christ and fulfill scripture. Nobody will believe a media campaign that someone is Jesus Christ unless they can do miracles like heal people and walk on water, because all the fanatics are looking for the anti-christ to appear today.
Good grief. The UN can’t even broker a discussions between Palestine and Israel what chance they’d get it right between earthlings and aliens. And the UN is the best thing we have!!!
i nominate ringo starr as our ambassador
Klaatu Barada Nikto.
Dwdeclare: One of Ringo Star’s albums has a “Day the World Stood Still” motif on the cover.
As for Jesus’ returning, frankly I no more believe that sort of thing than I believe Santa Claus comes on Christmas. Of course there are a lot of people who believe this sort of thing. There are a variety of these types. Most just watch and wait, and see the moral decay of the world as a sign of His soon coming. A few have ideas we need to do something to bring Jesus here, and some political types have suggested a big war might do the trick — and they might take the Whitehouse in 2012. We might want to reconsider this whole 2012 thing 🙂 , maybe the Mayans were on to something — this time it is our turn to get our clocks cleaned. Then there are those who fancy themselves as Jesus Christ and cause a range of trouble, mischief and mayhem.
I am not suggesting that some person presents themselves as Jesus, but a total virtual reality Jesus standing 1000m tall who comes down on pillar of cloud surrounded by angels with diadems and rainbows and the whole Revelations bit. Imagine that some group broadcasts this by various means around the world, so that people in various parts of the world see Jesus coming down other than where they are at. Then comes a whole virtual reality presentation of the beginning of the end times and a global variant of the Orson Wells 1937 broadcast of “War of the Worlds” sends lots of people into a complete panic and tizzy. I think those presenting this could sit back and have a lot of fun doing this! There might be an amplification effect as well, for the religious broadcasters might jump on this and it would be double fun if Faux News got on the band wagon as well. This might be a couple of days of real fun!
LC
The late great Arthur C. Clark ‘ s early work called ‘Childhood’s end ‘ Is a must read for all of you.
He had a prophetic tendency.
Maybe we are being prepared psychologically for the first announcement ?
it takes a lot of faith that Christ will return after 2,000 years, objective classical science is based on an observer interpretations of external reality including billions of galaxies, each having billiions of stars, including exoplanet discoveries… Surely aliens we rationalize live sinfully too, and need God’s savior Jesus Christ to avoid damnation, but likely have not heard about God’s son. What if an advanced alien civilization had a different savior who died on their planet in of course their bodily form? It would mean nothing to us, in fact it would degrade us as superior to anything that crawls on the earth, swims in the water, flies thru the air (the bible)