Mazlan Othman, an alien ambassador, appointed by the United Nations

First contact will be made by Malaysian astrophysicist.

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Mon, Sep 27 2010 at 1:16 PM

Photo courtesy IISD

Call me neurotic, but I've actually worried about who would be the first person to communicate with aliens should we make contact with them. A military leader seems to send the wrong message right off the bat, while a politician will be partisan and thinking "photo op." An average person might not have the skills to communicate well (and if Bebo's recent challenge to its users to create a first contact message is any clue, that's true), and a religious leader will leave out whatever part of humanity doesn't believe what he or she does. So who to choose? Without a pre-appointed person, initial communication with extraterrestrials could come down to whoever steps up to the plate first.

The recent choice of the United Nations to appoint astrophysicist Mazlan Othman as space ambassador will help me rest easier; not only is she a pioneering woman (the first to graduate from her program at the University of Otago in New Zealand in 1981), she has the experience. Her previous post at the U.N. was as director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) which, according to Wikipedia, entails dealing with "... issues of international cooperation in space, prevention of collisions and space debris, use of space-based remote sensing platforms for sustainable development, coordination of space law between countries, and the risks posed by near-earth asteroids, among other topics." And unlike Stephen Hawking, who sees aliens as a possible threat to humanity (seeing their dealings with us as possibly akin to Columbus' introduction to Native Americans), Othman is said to be a moderate in her ideas about what to say to the first aliens we meet.

She sounds calm and sensible, saying in a speech to her colleagues recently, “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day human kind 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 U.N. is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.”

The United Nations has long held jurisdiction over many areas of space exploration, communication and possible settlement, and makes many of the international laws that govern how space is used (and shared) by space-faring countries. Its Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has been meeting since 1958 and now includes 69 member countries. So if we do make contact with aliens one day — which becomes more of a possibility as scientists continue to discover new stars and possibly habitable planets orbiting them — we will be as prepared as we can be.

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Comments: 11

Travis Nov 14 2010 at 8:57 AM

I think the story of the UN alien ambassador turned out to be false, I was bummed out. Here is a funny joke I saw about the United Nations appointing an alien ambassador, http://ponderingstuff.com/2010/11/13/no-alien-ambassador-for-the-united-...

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Thomas Sep 29 2010 at 5:44 PM

And all i want is a job! Perhaps she can root for me if I apply for a job on a spaceship.
Someone, tell me the UN is not using our dollars on such a frivolous department. Don't they have a goal of reducing world hunger by 2010? Isn't world hunger more imprortant than creating policies for something that will never happen?

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Me Sep 27 2010 at 10:17 PM

According to my research and direct questions the U.N. has made no open invites for off planet cultures to visit and travel the Earth. This is also true of almost every single country on the planet. So until the U.N. expends an invite this seems like another watered down step to pacify the masses lacking the substance behind it. Are they really still basing first expected communication with SETI? Seems like another distraction and when they got there WOW signal they wanted it was simply passed over.

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Even the Voyager Mission was not an invite if you look at it closely. So the question remains to the U.N. have we invited them? It is not worth overlooking the pleasantry? It would be very important as we are consistently extending our war toys further into space which certainly is not the best way to say a hello to those the greatest minds on the planet all agree would have bigger guns than us if they wanted.

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Stacy Sep 27 2010 at 2:52 PM

All those comments that are beginning to belittle and ridicule this issue. you are all SCARED. that's all FREAKING OUT! the idea of aliens will send allot of out history down the window and while you ridicule the idea and what will soon become fact, you will need to get your diapers ready as everything you thought was real, was nothing but an illusion.

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Dave Sep 27 2010 at 2:44 PM

I submit we have a UN appointed person for Unicorns, Leprechauns, Sasquatch and a person to be on the lookout for when the Notre Dame Football team is Good again.