Sunday there were rumors on the web about the United Nations sending out an extraterrestrial ambassador. The Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman was expected to take the job as the head of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs. It would only really happen in response to extraterrestrial visitors, say Othman. There have been lots of discoveries of planets outside of the solar system lately meaning it is more believable to have alien contact. Earth was given a warning about alien life as a result of all the concerns. This warning originated from Stephen Hawking. There isn’t going to be an alien ambassador, says the British newspaper after it received an e-mail from Othman.
U.N. to organize humanity’s response to aliens?
The story that Mazlan Othman would be appointed the U.N. alien ambassador “broke” within the Sunday Times and spread like a super bug worldwide. The search for alien transmission was something Othman spoke about in a recent seminar. It was quoted in the Sunday Times. Othman thinks the U.N. should be the ones making the reaction that earth needs to have ready. 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 next week.
The alien existence search
In 1992 was when we first knew for sure there was an extra-solar planet, or exoplanet. The Kepler Mission, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration space observatory launched in 2009, has identified hundreds of possible exoplanets. Stephen Hawking warned Earth although there is probably not any intelligent alien life. Hawking doesn’t think that mankind should be working so hard to discover alien life, according to the Sunday Times. He thinks we need to be getting our own messages out and get Earth noticed. Aliens might probably be searching for somewhere they can get more resources from. He also said we need only to look within the mirror to imagine the consequences. “We only have to look at ourselves to view how intelligent existence might develop into something we would not want to meet.”
Is Earth playing sponsor to aliens?
Othman was the one who begun the U.N. extraterrestrial ambassador story. The Guardian was likely tempted to just throw out some articles like everyone else’s. Instead, it looked for facts of the story. The British newspaper called the Royal Society to ask about Othman’s upcoming speech on alien contact. Nobody had heard over it. The Office for Outer Space Affairs questions were all referred somewhere else by the United Nations A switchboard in Vienna is where they went. 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 next week could be about how Earth will deal with a problem that actually exists, a possible collision with near-earth objects.
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
