News of an alien ambassador from the United Nations spread Sunday on the internet. Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, head of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, was reportedly in line for the job. It would only really happen in reaction to extraterrestrial visitors, say Othman. Rapidly increasing discoveries of planets outside the solar system make the possibility of extraterrestrial contact less outrageous than within the recent past. There are a lot of people worried about extraterrestrial existence including Stephen Hawking who has given a warning to Earth. The British newspaper was the first to receive the news from Othman that there would be no extraterrestrial ambassador to space.
Mankind would respond through the United Nations to alien life?
The rumor flew all over the world as it “broke” in the Sunday Times that Othman will be the ambassador appointed by the United Nations to visit aliens. The search for alien transmission was something Othman spoke about in a recent seminar. It was quoted within the Sunday Times. She explained that earth needs to be ready to respond at any minute. Othman also gave the opinion the United Nations should be responsible for this. Newspapers like the Australian took the bait, mentioning that Othman would be talking more about imminent contact with aliens at a scientific conference sponsored by the Royal Society in Britain in the coming week.
The search for extraterrestrial existence
An extra-solar planet is also called an exoplanet. In 1992, this was first found to actually exist. Hundreds of exoplanets were discovered in the NASA space observatory launched in 2009 called the Kepler Mission. Stephen Hawking warned Earth although there is probably not any intelligent alien life. Hawking interviewed with the Sunday Times saying mankind should try getting noticed before it tries to try to find more alien existence. Aliens would probably be looking for somewhere they can get more resources from. He knows that this is something all of us can imagine. Just looking within the mirror can show us the consequences. “We only have to look at ourselves to view how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
Might there be ambassadors from space on earth?
The story about the U.N. extraterrestrial ambassador didn’t just come out of the blue. Othman started the rumor. The Guardian was likely tempted to just throw out some articles like every person else’s. Instead, it looked for facts of the story. The Royal Society got a call from the British newspaper that asked about the speech on alien contact made by Othman. No one there knew anything over it. The U.N. referred all inquiries about the Office for Outer Space Affairs to an unresponsive switchboard in Vienna. A Guardian e-mail is what got Othman’s reaction where she said there was no U.N. alien ambassador story. All she had to say was, “It sounds really cool, however I have to deny it.” Her speech to the Royal Society in the coming week can be about how Earth will deal with a problem that actually exists, a possible collision with near-earth objects.
Find more information on this subject
The Australian
theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-un-is-to-appoint-an-astrophysicist-to-be-the-first-contact-for-any-aliens/story-e6frg6so-1225929540635
Sunday Times
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece
The Guardian
guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/sep/27/un-alien-ambassador-mazlan-othman
