OK. This is the worst news ever. Brace yourself. The United Nation’s is appointing the head of the Office for Outer Space Affairs to come up with a response should we be visited by space aliens.
Really.
The Telegraph reports:
Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity’s response if and when extraterrestrials make contact.
Aliens who landed on earth and asked: “Take me to your leader” would be directed to Mrs Othman.
The 58-year-old is expected to tell delegates that the proposal has been prompted by the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting other starts, which is thought to make the discovery of extraterrestrial life more probable than ever before.
Mrs Othman is currently head of the UN’s little known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa).
This is the United Nations that can’t handle a dweeb like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But they’re going to handle Jabba the Hut?
The good news is that there’s been a lot of debate already. But there’s already debate on how aliens should be handled.
Opinion is divided about how future extraterrestrial visitors should be greeted. Under the Outer Space Treaty on 1967, which Unoosa oversees, UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by “sterilising” them.
Mrs Othman is understood to support a more tolerant approach.
More tolerant? Oh great. She’s already appeasing the aliens and they don’t even exist yet!
Let’s hope that we get some warmup runs with aliens like jar jar Binks before they’re forced to deal with some real heavy duty intergalactic space villains.
This is lunacy. What’s next? An ambassador to Bigfoot? Seriously. We now have people in jobs to handle problems that don’t exist yet but might someday?
And what is she spending her days doing. She gets into her office, tosses her E.T. lunchbox on her desk and then…what?
She could spend an hour or two learning to play the theme to Close Encounters on the synthesizer.
Write a paper comparing and critiquing the human response to aliens in Mac and Me with how the campers treated the alien they named “Meathead” in Meatballs 2.
Read a Whitley Streiber book during her coffee break.
Figure out a way to explain to the aliens that Israel is evil.
And maybe if there’s time figure out how we can point all of our nuclear weapons skyward instead of at each other.
September 28, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Surely we can figure out a way to send some of our tax dollars to help fund her important work?
September 28, 2010 at 3:47 pm
This is all great fun. The moment the aliens give her the "take me to your leader" line, I hope she escorts them with great efficiency.
And I hope they ask some "probing" questions.
September 28, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Unite with U.N.I.T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwy6RbBHOIw
September 28, 2010 at 4:04 pm
How did Bill Pullman not get this job? He has way more experience than this lady, as the take-no-crap-from-aliens President in Independence Day!
September 28, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Hmmm. Something tells me a Mohammedan would not be the best "ambassador" or signal that we are putting our "best foot forward" so to speak should we be visited by extraterrestrials.
September 28, 2010 at 5:38 pm
JPM – good call!
If it were up to me, I would have appointed Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.
September 28, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Well, we all know the first ones to visit us will be Vulcan anyway. So, nothing to worry about.
September 28, 2010 at 8:32 pm
I'm sure they've already drafted the response for when the aliens make contact:
"And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to…toil in their underground sugar caves."
-Kent Brockman
September 28, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Somebody's been watching too many "V" reruns…
And don't you think it would be a better fit for the leader of the almost-free world to be the first to welcome anyone from "out there"? In fact, I think Obama is the natural choice, as he is always the happiest when he is as far away from the U.S. as possible. He can go with them, and sell "universal" health-care to the poor oppressed beings from every planet he can find. Only thing is, after a week of his whining and droning on about Rush and FoxNews they'd bring him back.
September 28, 2010 at 10:52 pm
This is great news! It means that all of the world's poor have their needs met. Peace and understanding between nations at last.
Now with those priorities out of the way, the UN is finally free to spend its money on less crucial purposes.
September 29, 2010 at 2:33 am
Why does Israel have to be involved?
September 30, 2010 at 2:53 am
Jabba the Hut? Right on!