United Nations to Appoint Alien Ambassador?
This story was updated at 2:18 p.m. EDT.
When aliens finally land on Earth and utter those five fateful words "Take me to your leader," the United Nations will know just who to call. Or will they?
According to some British news reports, the U.N. is set to appoint Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman as the world organization's space ambassador for extraterrestrial contact affairs.
This would make Othman the first point of contact if aliens ever reached out. But it seems there may be some confusion as to whether these reports are real.
In response to an email inquiry by The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, Othman wrote: "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it."
Othman currently serves as the director of the U.N.'s Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is a branch of the General Assembly that is "responsible for promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space," as stated on the official website.
The Office for Outer Space Affairs was established in 1962 and is based at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria.
Earlier news reports stated that Othman would have to present the position of ambassador at a scientific conference in Buckinghamshire, England next week. If the notion is approved by the U.N. scientific advisory committees, it will move to the General Assembly, according to Wired UK.
Wired also reported that at a recent lecture, Othman claimed that in the search for alien life lies the hope that "someday 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."
Othman already has a long list of accomplishments and honors, which include being Malaysia's first astrophysicist, and the head of the country's national planetarium. Her work as director of the Malaysian National Space Agency helped launch the country's first astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, to the International Space Station in 2007, according to Wired.
Recently, famed British scientist Stephen Hawking stated that if intelligent alien life forms do exist out in the vastness of space, they might not be the friendly cosmic neighbors that we have been looking for.
"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach," Hawking said in April as part of science-oriented TV series. "If so, it makes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits would be?"
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