The UN Ambassador to Aliens - An Intentional Diversion?

On Sunday, September 26, 2010 The Sunday Times ran an article stating that Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman was being appointed as an Ambassador to Aliens, essentially, by the United Nations. She would be the official spokesperson for the planet in the event of ET contact.

source

The story was written by The Sunday Times science editor Johnathan Leake. It was subsequently picked up by several other outlets including:

The Telegraph
UN 'to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors'

and

CBS
United Nations Appointing Ambassador to Alien World?

It turned out the next day, Monday, September 27, that the story was a gross exaggeration at best, or at worst, almost completely made up.

The Guardian debunked the article thusly:

"Reading all this our Martian visitor might have been encouraged to try to get in touch. They would have had a frustrating time.

The Royal Society knew nothing about it. The United Nations referred all queries to the switchboard of Unoosa in Vienna. Its switchboard number wasn't much help. "The person at extension 4951 is unavailable, please leave your message after the tone," it said. Those messages might make for some interesting listening today.

Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be talking about how the world deals with "near-Earth objects"."

source

So this professional jounalist, science editor at "the largest-selling British national "quality" Sunday newspaper" (Wikipedia), writes a false, sensational article that is proven to be such less than 24 hours after publication.

As people woke up Monday morning, they were exposed to well-publicized news of a silly, alien-themed "hoax" of sorts originating with a major newspaper. Follow-up commentary was understandably sarcastic and/or tongue-in-cheek, but also with an emphasis on the idea of alien life being either too far away or too primitive to worry about.

From The Economist:

"So is there going to be an alien ambassador? Well for one thing, distances in space are so vast the chances of anything more than a signal arriving from aliens is fantastically remote. For another, it is more likely that if we discover alien life it will be some form of microbe found under a damp rock on Mars or some pattern in the chemistry of a planet several hundred million years away."

So what gives? Honest mistake? Maybe.

It is interesting to note, however, that there was another news story scheduled to be happening that morning. A press event took place at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.

Al iens Are Monitoring Our Nukes, Worry Ex-Air Force Officers

"Captain Robert Salas was on duty in Montana in 1967 when a UFO shut down the nuclear missiles on his base. And he's hardly the only one to make such a claim.

On Monday, six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about similar events at the National Press Club, all centering around unidentified flying objects and nuclear missiles. They plan to urge the government to publicly confirm the incidents, stating that they were ordered never to discuss the events."

Pretty decent interview done here with Robert Hastings, who organized the event:



It's my theory that the intent of the fake "Alien Ambassador" story was to overshadow the UFOs and nukes story and prime the public into a state of mind that would be less receptive to the accounts of the former Air Force personnel.

Or it may just be a big, strange coincidence.

Thoughts?

Here's the press conference itself:

a reply to: BiffWellington

I doubt it was a coincidence. Just My thought on that. I am only about 25 mins into the video You posted. Interesting to say the least!!
Thanx for this Thread.
It is some interesting stuff indeed...

a reply to: BiffWellington

Re: Dr. Frank Stranges and meeting Valiant Thor (Book:Stranger at the Pentagon).
I would like to know if he revealed who killed JFK and RJK??
He does mention in his book he viewed who really killed them in the spacecraft by instant replay????

a reply to: BiffWellington

Re: Dr. Frank Stranges and meeting Valiant Thor (Book:Stranger at the Pentagon).
I would like to know if he revealed who killed JFK and RJK??
He does mention in his book he viewed who really killed them in the spacecraft by instant replay????

I dunno...

I suppose the UN has a written contingency plan for what to do after potential contact with an intelligent alien species. I'm sure many governments also have such a contingency plan; it's what governments and other organizations do. Contingency plans allow people to think through situations ahead of time rather than "flying by the seat of their pants" if certain situations should arise.

I'm sure such a contingency plan names a person who would be at the top of the list to contact about diplomatic protocol when first dealing with these aliens (i.e., to get the right people in the room when making first attempts at communication)

HOWEVER, having a contingency plan is just that -- a plan that is CONTINGENT upon certain things first happening, such as contingent upon the world (the UN, The U.S., or some shadow Illuminati government who secretly run things) learning about the existence of a specific intelligent alien species. I also find it plausible that they have certain people in mind for the personnel required if the contingency plan ever needs to be put into operation.

...So maybe they don't have an official "Ambassador to Aliens" per se, but it would not surprise me one bit if the UN and/or some world governments have considered who would be among the people to make the first official contact. I'd be more surprised if they hadn't officially considered it.

a reply to: BiffWellington

I think I remember when this happened and speculated likewise regarding the UN appointment being nothing more than an intentional distraction from the sincere efforts at the conference.

Confounding how the story was generated to begin with otherwise.

There is seriously an ambassador to aliens? How much are they paid? damn...

originally posted by: Orionx2
There is seriously an ambassador to aliens? How much are they paid? damn...

No. That's the thing. There's not, and there wasn't, but it was written about as if there were, by a major newspaper, with no reason to make such a claim.

The question is "why?".

What does Johnathan Leake have to gain by publishing an article which he knows will be immediately refuted because it's completely baseless?

originally posted by: BiffWellington

originally posted by: Orionx2
There is seriously an ambassador to aliens? How much are they paid? damn...

No. That's the thing. There's not, and there wasn't, but it was written about as if there were, by a major newspaper, with no reason to make such a claim.

The question is "why?".

What does Johnathan Leake have to gain by publishing an article which he knows will be immediately refuted because it's completely baseless?

I'm not sure if baseless is the correct assumption - more slightly flawed and tongue in cheek. Mazlan Othman was the Director of the United Nations for Outer Space Affairs - their remit can be found using the link below which takes you to a very interesting site...

www.unoosa.org...

If you haven't time to look, it describes the organisation is being in place to -

promote international cooperation in the peaceful use and exploration of space, and in the utilisation of space science and technology for sustainable economic and social development. The Office assists any United Nations Member States to establish legal and regulatory frameworks to govern space activities and strengthens the capacity of developing countries to use space science technology and applications for development by helping to integrate space capabilities into national development programmes.

If you look at the Guardian article you have included, it clearly states that the whole representing Earth to ET's was based upon a misinformed comment by a member of the UK Space Agency and appears to be nothing more than his assumptions. Does that make the Times article baseless? Well, not sure, but it does make it guilty of taking a quote, not checking the validity but still treating it as a fact, but then again I'd argue that a large - maybe even majority - portion of articles to linked to on ATS are often guilty of exactly the same thing.