INFLUX OF VISIBLE PLANETS PROMPTS U.N. TO APPOINT EARTH CONTACT FOR ALIENS ...

No joke! Reportedly, there has been a recent discovery of hundreds of new planets around the stars, and alien contact is said to be on the horizon. With that said, the United Nations has decided that they are the most appropriate point of contact given the nature of what they do. Strangely, we buy it. We grew up with E.T. and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". And, remember, "Third Rock From the Sun?". Oh, they're are just too many to name. "V" and "Independence Day" come to mind too. Duhhhh! By the way, they say they will most likely come in a radio or light signals, rather than in the flesh. Yikesss! Anywhoo, if you doubt us, Pop the Trunk for the details...


Via AP-

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth’s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any “first contact”.

During a talk Othman gave recently to fellow scientists, she said: “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive 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.”

Professor Richard Crowther, an expert in space law and governance at the UK Space Agency and who leads British delegations to the UN on such matters, said: “Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a ‘take me to your leader’ person.”

However, he thinks humanity’s first encounter with any intelligent aliens is more likely to be via radio or light signals from a distant planet than by beings arriving on Earth. And, he suggests, even if we do encounter aliens in the flesh, they are more likely to be microbes than anything intelligent.