United Nations Names Ambassador To Aliens 306
Shag writes "Although searches for extraterrestrial intelligence have thus far come up empty-handed, the United Nations appears to be preparing for eventual 'first contact.' Many media outlets are carrying the story that Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist who heads the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna — already charged with things like keeping track of satellites to prevent Kessler Syndrome and coordinating the international response to any earth-impacting asteroids — will be the first person to meet with aliens if they do show up."
Update: 09/27 16:42 GMT by S : Looks like this one's too good to be true — in an email to The Guardian, Othman said, "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it."
The wrong man (Score:5, Funny)
Why doesn't the UN nominate one of those guys living in the backwoods to be the Ambassador to aliens? It seems to me that those guys are the people who seem to be getting abducted by aliens the most, not well-known astrophysicists.
Re:The wrong man (Score:4, Informative)
The wrong man? Mazlan is a woman.
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She should read(*) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
(*) Yes, read the book - the movies (except the one by Boris Nirnburg from 1968) have little to do with what the book is about.
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you just proved his point for him
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No wonder. Women are an alien species to us too!
Who wants.... (Score:3)
Re:Who wants.... (Score:4, Informative)
They're the gift that just keeps on giving.
I think I'd hate that job (Score:4, Funny)
Now that you mention it, don't most of those contacts also involve anal probing with dildo-shaped implements, mutilating cattle and apparently making crop circles for the heck of it?
I mean, I can imagine a thousand Martian redneck hillbilies going,
"Hey, Billy Joe Bob, it says here them Earthlings have a new ambers.. am... contact person."
"What's one of those do, Bubba?"
"Way I figures it, Billy Joe Bob, it means we gots to meet her when we goes down there."
"But we was gonna do some crop circling and mutilate some of those strange animals they keep around. Do ya figure she's gonna help us with that?"
"Nope, probably not."
"Right, I'll fire up the ol' anal probe then."
"Careful back there, Billy Joe Bob, I just bought us the Jackhammer probe upgrade. Don't wreck nuthing with it."
I mean, why not just get the goatse guy as the ambassador?
Re:The wrong man (Score:4, Funny)
I personally think a man like him is the perfect one for the job. Maybe he'll be able to amuse the aliens with our meager understanding of rudimentary physics, prompting them to keep us alive as their cute pets or even just live historical specimens instead of just eating us all or something.
Re:The wrong man (Score:5, Informative)
Mazlan Binti Othman is a Malaysian astrophysicist who has served in several roles within her country
Quoth SpeedyDX:
I personally think a man like him is the perfect one for the job.
Tip for aliens visiting Earth: Humans have two genders, and it can be embarrassing if you confuse them.
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That's exactly what I'm talking about. That kind of stupidity will get you eaten alive. Aren't you glad they didn't choose me?
Re:The wrong man (Score:5, Funny)
That reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw. It read: "When the aliens come, I hope they eat the FAT people first!"
I'm sure somebody got their panties in a wad over that one.
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uh, two main points on a gender continuum
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I suspect it's a U distribution with pretty sharp peaks. Are there hypermales or hyperfemales beyond the U-points, or do all the other genders all fall in the trough?
Do they know (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Do they know (Score:5, Insightful)
more likely it is the bureaucracy of the UN planning for every contingency, and establishing a hierarchy of who's in charge if something happens.
If aliens were to show up, and land in China or the US I cannot seriously envision a situation where they would defer to the UN ambassador to make first contact. However if they show up in somewhere with less bravado, and less scientists, they might have to go along with the UN or at the very least the UN would be fairly heavily involved in making sure they get as many representatives as they can there.
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So I suppose Cheyenne Mountain really has a stargate and some other one is in the middle of Siberia where the IOA has finally decided to "go public" and at least appoint a red shirt extra that is going to head off in an official capacity to negotiate the peace treaty terms with the Goa'uld System Lords. If the war in Afghanistan is merely to mask the huge expenses for fighting an interstellar war conducted by NATO members, perhaps this world is finally beginning to make sense.
Seriously, of all of the hairb
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Time is going to be on our side regardless and we will likely have months or even years to appoint such a representative if an ambassador of this nature is ever encountered.
Well, the clock started ticking when the scout crashed in roswell, and now the mothership is arriving, so really this is a case of the UN being slow on the uptake as usual.
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This is just bureaucracy in general.
Keeps track of satellites? Funny but I would have bet that was NORAD.
This guy is somebodies buddy and is getting a nice paycheck.
Frankly if they land in US, the UK, France, Brasil, China, Australia, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, or any number of other nations I don't see them saying.. Just wait here while we check with the UN.
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Re:Do they know (Score:5, Funny)
They should have appointed a Poet.
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It's okay, I got the reference.
Re:Do they know (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are in agreement that a larger, more powerful outside force should use their power to force sovereigns to meet their demands and social mores or die.
So what's your beef with US foreign policy, other than sheer hypocrisy?
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It's not necessarily hypocrisy- only if the complaint with US foreign policy is based on a complaint about the use of power rather than on what the US is attempting to force others to do. It would be perfectly consistent to desire an outside force to impose a "good" order while decrying what one sees as an outside for imposing a "bad" one. Humans have done this throughout history; it's the reason why, for instance, a people can oppose an invading religious crusade and then feel completely justified in turni
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Do you think a nation has the right, as a sovereign, to commit internal genocide?
If not, then there has to be a larger, more powerful outside force to stop them. There's just a disagreement as to how minimal the, say, "crime against humanity" has to be before the larger force may intervene.
If you do believe the nation has the right to commit genocide, I
Need someone official.. (Score:3, Insightful)
.. to welcome our new alien overlords.
"charged with keeping track of satellites" (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that it is the US Air Force that actually does the job.
No he won't (Score:3, Insightful)
They may have appointed him as the official contact person, but in the event it does happen, nobody really knows how and where first contact will happen. It might very well be with a farmer in the middle of nowhere, or with a penguin in the arctic.
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When the Alien utters the phrase "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER" we know where to send it to.
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And it is all well and good to elect someone to be the first person to speak with them. But if they ever did show up it would be such an important event that I would not be surprised if someone important like the leader of the country they land in takes over the job.
Re:No he won't (Score:5, Insightful)
or with a penguin in the arctic.
If its a penguin in the Arctic then I'd be really surprised
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It would be a puffin, Leroy.
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It generally has been so far.
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They should appointed someone with some multi-language skills. What language we should assume the aliens will speak?
English, obviously. Just like in the movies. Aliens watch movies too I'd assume.
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They should appointed someone with some multi-language skills. What language we should assume the aliens will speak?
English, obviously. Just like in the movies. Aliens watch movies too I'd assume.
And if they watch enough movies, odds are they will arrive speaking English.
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This is Slashdot. Do you really expect me to comment AFTER reading the summary?
they will give a book called To Serve Man (Score:5, Funny)
they will give a book called To Serve Man
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To Serve FOR Man
Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man (Score:4, Funny)
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So it's OUR decision? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it more likely any aliens will pick whomever THEY want?
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How will they know?
If WE landed somewhere and found alien life, would we know enough to say "I'd like to speak to Jim, please"?
No we'd probably say something like "Take me to your leader" Which is where you are brought before the UN council with someone already appointed to mediate the conference.
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Currently it exercises no real power over the planet but it's the place where most of the world can be represented at once in a single room.
I mean, until we have unification across the globe there isn't any real way for us to have a "leader" for them to go to. Rather than just speak to the President of the United States, who might withhold information for political reasons, its more probably they wish to speak to EVERY leader of the human race.
Someone with experience instead? (Score:5, Funny)
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Are you saying Aliens might be more susceptible to T&A?
Re:Someone with experience instead? (Score:5, Funny)
Are you saying Aliens might be more susceptible to T&A?
Isn't everybody?
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Of course why would an alien species even have breasts? That is an advanced evolutionary development found only in mammals and the developed breasts found on humans aren't even found on most primates (except when the mothers are lactating).
The "A" on the other hand is more ordinary and can be found in at least in many vertebrates. Of course even that is an advanced and highly evolved form of life even though it has been quite successful in terms of adapting to the climate changes on the Earth including mo
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That just means the aliens won't have built up any resistance to the power of T&A due to lack of prior exposure.
I'm not sure we get to decide (Score:4, Insightful)
If extraterrestrial life forms (biological or mechanical) would decide to come here I'm pretty sure they'd have the means to scan the planet and meet up with whoever they damn well please.
We already have UAVs that are pretty impressive. I'm sure a swarm of intelligence gathering bots the size of insects are not an issue for someone with the capacity for intrastellar travel. I'm guessing they'd pick somewhere remote without huge crowds people bothering them as they attempt to make first contact.
Or then they'd just kill us all and turn us into fertilizer, who knows?
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Everyone assumes aliens will be far more technologically superior to us. If we happened on an Alien planet with prehistorical man, our UAVs still wouldn't be able to tell who their leader is.
Re:I'm not sure we get to decide (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone assumes aliens will be far more technologically superior to us. If we happened on an Alien planet with prehistorical man, our UAVs still wouldn't be able to tell who their leader is.
And coincidentally enough, we are not capable of interstellar travel.
If your intention was to refute the idea that a civilization capable of interstellar travel would have technology that makes our UAVs look like primitive toys, you have not succeeded.
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Interstellar travel is in theory possible with a nuclear reactor (fission or fusion both work) powering a rocket engine. The rest is mainly engineering and perhaps building the vehicles at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points. It doesn't take a new kind of physics for a person to at least within a lifetime be able to travel to another star.
This said, it wouldn't necessarily be all that fast and it wouldn't be a "routine" trip.... perhaps ever. I also think that such a spacecraft would be insanely expe
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He'd be the one with all the hot cavechicks around him.
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Only two choices. Either they have the technology and cultural stability to make a multi-thousand year journey in an arkship or they have the AI to create a self repairing, self directing, maybe even self reproducing probe (and all of those take quite a bit of problem analysis and creativity). Either way, they should have the patience and ability to wait around a few centuries or even millenia to learn all about our culture, politics, and languages. The former would actually be more mind blowing in my op
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I've heard it speculated that perhaps if our civilization had decided to concentrate on ceramics instead of metallurgy that our civilization would be quite different today. Almost everything that we use metals for at the moment in theory can be made with ceramics. Unfortunately with just a few exceptions our knowledge of ceramics is rather primitive compared to metallurgy in part because we abandoned that path a long time ago... except for "works of art" and other minor things.
In many ways, I wish Civ had
Put him on the US/Mexico border (Score:3, Funny)
I hear a lot of illegal aliens come from Mexico
"will be the first person to meet with aliens" (Score:2)
first contact team (Score:5, Funny)
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We just have to hope the aliens aren't spherical
We demand bouncing, followed by rolling, followed by rolling of the third type.
Hmmmmmm... (Score:2)
Coincince? [thesun.co.uk]. Maybe....
Where do I apply? (Score:2)
Umm, just in case the aliens do decide to land openly in my lifetime, anyone got a link as to where I send my resume to join his team?
You know... just in case... not that it's going to happen tomorrow or anything... really....
Bollocks. (Score:2)
This guy's appointment is bollocks.
You really think if Aliens show up you'd be able to stop attention whores like Berlusconi and Sarkozy finding it in themselves to stop humping Obama's leg for a moment and running off to meet these aliens and declare their love for all species terrestrial and extra terrestrial? That's if they managed to beat Ahmadinejad there as he rushes to greet them with the insistence that they're muslim and clearly want all zionists to die.
No, this guy would likely be left in the dust
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In that case, let's just hope that if they visit, they don't arrive at the wrong time of the month.
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I'm going more conspiratorial here. The UN wants to take over the management and control of the whole of the universe outside of the atmosphere of the Earth. This is merely their first step toward asserting full sovereignty over the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and anything else of use. You want to talk about a huge bureaucracy that is going to hamper the ability of mankind to be free, this will be it.
BTW, I agree that the appointment is pure BS here. There is nothing for this guy to do and will likely never
cars (Score:5, Funny)
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Does she believe in God? (Score:2)
Contact [imdb.com], been there done that.
Mistake (Score:5, Funny)
Who has most experience & knowledge? (Score:5, Informative)
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Clearly the person with the most experience and knowledge of aliens is: Sigourney Weaver
Yeah, she was in "Avatar", after all... ...Though, she died, didn't she?
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well yeah, that's if you want to kill all the aliens we may end up meeting
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Sorry, but my vote goes to Doctor Who. Hard to beat the experience and knowledge of a Time Lord.
I don't see it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species. First contact with an alien civilisation a century out of time with itself. That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
I don't see it.
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You kind of think inside the human box. I realize our current understanding of the universe and physics puts maximum travel speed at what you specified, or even somewhat close to the speed of light. But I'm kind of assuming that in 200-500 years from now, our understanding will be fundamentally different, and we will find ways that seem extremely impossible right now to travel great distances at faster speeds. I guess that sounds like a sci-fi argument, but I just don't really think our understanding of spa
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If they set off from the closest sun-like star (18 Scorpi, 46 light years) right now, at the maximum speed we have achieved in space flight (62000km/h - Voyager 1) they would be here in approximately 80,000 years. That long ago, we were using pointy sticks to hunt and living in caves.
Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species. First contact with an alien civilisation a century out of time with itself. That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
I don't see it.
Cat changed, but Lister was still a regular guy.
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Actually I am wondering just how big of a shock 100 years would be to a scientist.
Roll back to 1910.
We do have cars, airplanes, large steam ships, and radio. Nothing we have today would strike them as magic. Very advanced but not outside the realm of imagination.
Out of all the advancements maybe computers and biology would be the biggest shockers. And biology wouldn't really slap them in the face.
If you go back only 50 years and thing would really be not that big of a deal.
That would be 1960.
We already hav
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Science? (Score:2)
But does science not basically say: yes their is most likely a lot of life out their, but with with the maximum speed being light and with the planets so far away we are unlikely to find any unless we have expanded to many many planets and long distance space flight become common (meaning most likely thousands of years from now minimum).
Thoe we or them could just get lucky and some of the first planets we try could have life. But at least for us that will not likely be for a few hundred years and it would a
Ok question: (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?
We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population. If the majority lifeform "rules" the planet it would strike me as odd that aliens would consider us the owners of the planet mearly by virtual of intelligence. If anything there is the possibility they would see us as an unfair blight of a minority species taking a vastly significant share of real estate from the bulk of lifeforms. They might go so far as to cull the herd to ensure the bulk of the lifeforms have a porportional access to Earth. Since we are less then 1% of the lifeforms on Earth, why assume we would get much of a say.
As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."
If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.
It would stike me as more intelligent to survey the bulk of lifeforms and find out what the majority needs to continue to survive. While not intelligent I would expect an ambassador for "those that cannot speak for themselves" to have been appointed who subsequently surveys the ecosystem as a whole.
It is hard to claim Earth has human-kind's personal planet when A: We don't manage it very well and B: are a tiny fraction of the population.
Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.
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Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?
Because of our great spelling skills, and furthermore we're the best at rishathra, or so I read. If that woman ever reads the ringworld books, its gonna be awkward.
You're special! (Score:3, Funny)
Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?
Trees are lousy conversationalists.
And maybe superintelligent aliens have evolved beyond dreary, weepy, emo-goth kid, warmed over nihilism that uses Keanu Reeve movies to make their (for lack of a better term) point.
You have made Sad Keanu even sadder. :-(
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Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?
Why are you commenting on slashdot instead of having tea and crumpets with the roaches under your sink?
Aliens are not green...most of them (Score:2)
Most aliens are not green. Most of them have skin color like us. Some even look exactly like us, but there internal works differently.
I am not saying that because I am Star Trek / Babylon 5 / Sci-fi fan. A common form for humanoids is that of the human race, to some extended. I am sure there are other forms too. Like insectoids, reptileloids and so forward.
I also want to make it clear that I am not one of those crazy UFO hunters. Those people are crazy. It is also a fact that dish looking space ship is quit
This is good for when first contact is made public (Score:2)
This is good for when info about aliens goes public - In the mean time, first contact will continue to be conducted under the auspices of UNIT...
I thought (Score:2)
I thought U.N.I.T. was in charge of stuff like that. Or Capt Jack Harkness. Or maybe The Doctor.
Here's the thing (Score:2)
Language Barrier (Score:2)
Wait a second. Just how do we know these space aliens speak Malaysian or whatever language Malaysians speak? Shouldn't we put forward a proper English speaking delegate, someone with a little charisma and flair? I nominate Bill Clinton or Rowdy Roddy Piper. Or Tony Stark...wasn't he great in that Iron Man movie?
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She just needs to remember the universal greeting..
Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong!
Why don't aliens land at MIT? (Score:2)
Why do aliens land at some remote location and abduct the village idiot?
If aliens were smart, they'd land at MIT or Cal-Tech.
Wrong person... (Score:2)
Re:Baby Steps (Score:5, Funny)
That's very interesting Caller, but tonight we are talking about how and why Kenny Rogers was behind the Kennedy Assassination. Next we have a Clyde from east of the Rockies. You're on Caller.
Re:Baby Steps (Score:4, Insightful)
Kennedy assassinated? That was just a cover-up so that he could be an ambassador to the aliens, who was in turn succeeded by Elvis Presley and proceeded by Amelia Earhart. This new guy being appointed by the UN is just the latest in a whole series of ambassadors to the aliens going back for more than a century...... .... or so I've heard from Art Bell's Coast to Coast. Now that is a reliable source of information as good as I've ever found.
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Aren't they doing this a bit early considering it is still almost 53 years until first contact will occur?
What are you talking about? An alien starship crash-landed on an island in the south pacific eleven years ago. It's been reconstructed and relaunched as our most powerful warship; we had a brief war with an overwhelmingly powerful alien army, and life on the surface of the Earth was almost completely obliterated back in March.