United Nations Names Ambassador To Aliens

Shag writes "Although searches for extraterrestrial intelligence have thus far come up empty-handed, the United Nations appears to be preparing for eventual 'first contact.' Many media outlets are carrying the story that Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist who heads the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna — already charged with things like keeping track of satellites to prevent Kessler Syndrome and coordinating the international response to any earth-impacting asteroids — will be the first person to meet with aliens if they do show up." Update: 09/27 16:42 GMT by S : Looks like this one's too good to be true — in an email to The Guardian, Othman said, "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it."

Comments

The wrong man

[Sonny Yatsen]

Why doesn't the UN nominate one of those guys living in the backwoods to be the Ambassador to aliens? It seems to me that those guys are the people who seem to be getting abducted by aliens the most, not well-known astrophysicists.

Re:The wrong man

[odies]

The wrong man? Mazlan is a woman.

Re:The wrong man

[SpeedyDX]

I personally think a man like him is the perfect one for the job. Maybe he'll be able to amuse the aliens with our meager understanding of rudimentary physics, prompting them to keep us alive as their cute pets or even just live historical specimens instead of just eating us all or something.

Re:The wrong man

[TheRaven64]

Quoth Wikipedia (linked from TFS):

Mazlan Binti Othman is a Malaysian astrophysicist who has served in several roles within her country

Quoth SpeedyDX:

I personally think a man like him is the perfect one for the job.

Tip for aliens visiting Earth: Humans have two genders, and it can be embarrassing if you confuse them.

Re:The wrong man

[SpeedyDX]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. That kind of stupidity will get you eaten alive. Aren't you glad they didn't choose me?

Re:The wrong man

[Anonymous Coward]

She should read(*) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

(*) Yes, read the book - the movies (except the one by Boris Nirnburg from 1968) have little to do with what the book is about.

Re:The wrong man

[causality]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. That kind of stupidity will get you eaten alive.

That reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw. It read: "When the aliens come, I hope they eat the FAT people first!"

I'm sure somebody got their panties in a wad over that one.

Re:The wrong man

[JustOK]

uh, two main points on a gender continuum

Re:The wrong man

[roman_mir]

you just proved his point for him

Re:The wrong man

[LordBmore]

Hold on a sec...Mazlan Othman...M. Othman...Mothman... My God, the Ambassador to aliens is clearly some sort of hybrid! Someone get Fox Mulder on the line!

Re:The wrong man

[Surt]

I suspect it's a U distribution with pretty sharp peaks. Are there hypermales or hyperfemales beyond the U-points, or do all the other genders all fall in the trough?

Re:The wrong man

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great. So she'll criticize all their decisions, insist that they're dressed poorly for the occasion, and when she gets really aggravated with the 'lack of communication' she'll just bottle it up and walk away?

Though now that I think about it, they'll probably be female aliens anyway. The male ones will get lost somewhere outside the Milky Way and refuse to ask for directions.

Re:The wrong man

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure somebody got their panties in a wad over that one.

That's okay, the panties are removed before cooking.

Re:The wrong man

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't have guessed it from looking at her.

Re:The wrong man

[IrquiM]

HUman

Re:The wrong man

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and more to the point, the aliens will decide who gets the honor of "first" contact, not someone put forth by a largely dysfunctional committee that wouldn't know what do with a real alien if it hit them in the face.

Re:The wrong man

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they did: it's anti-American!

Re:The wrong man

[initialE]

No wonder. Women are an alien species to us too!

Do they know

[Dyinobal]

Do they know more than we do? Should we be expecting, "first" contact soon?

Re:Do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

My bets for official first contact are sometime in December of 2012.

Re:Do they know

[Sir_Sri]

more likely it is the bureaucracy of the UN planning for every contingency, and establishing a hierarchy of who's in charge if something happens.

If aliens were to show up, and land in China or the US I cannot seriously envision a situation where they would defer to the UN ambassador to make first contact. However if they show up in somewhere with less bravado, and less scientists, they might have to go along with the UN or at the very least the UN would be fairly heavily involved in making sure they get as many representatives as they can there.

Re:Do they know

[Monkeedude1212]

They should have appointed a Poet.

Re:Do they know

[halivar]

So you are in agreement that a larger, more powerful outside force should use their power to force sovereigns to meet their demands and social mores or die.

So what's your beef with US foreign policy, other than sheer hypocrisy?

Re:Do they know

[Beardo the Bearded]

It's okay, I got the reference.

Re:Do they know

[Teancum]

So I suppose Cheyenne Mountain really has a stargate and some other one is in the middle of Siberia where the IOA has finally decided to "go public" and at least appoint a red shirt extra that is going to head off in an official capacity to negotiate the peace treaty terms with the Goa'uld System Lords. If the war in Afghanistan is merely to mask the huge expenses for fighting an interstellar war conducted by NATO members, perhaps this world is finally beginning to make sense.

Seriously, of all of the hairbrained and stupid things that the UN has ever done in all of the years I've been alive, this has got to be one of the most insane bureaucracies to do nothing that I have ever seen. If or when mankind starts to wander around in the greater part of this galaxy, and presuming that some other sentient life form with advanced weapon technology happens to also be "out there" that could be a genuine threat to the Earth is found, and presuming that those "aliens" happen to be at roughly similar levels of develop as we will be when that encounter happens, perhaps an office like this will be needed.

If the aliens we discover happen to be "human-like" but are at a stone age level of technology, it will be trivial to deal with them and certainly they will be no threat. If on the other hand they are hugely more advanced and somehow have hyper drive technology but we are puttzing around the Galaxy in Bussard ram-jets.... we'll simply get wiped out except for the benevolence of this supposed alien race. Either way, an ambassador is not going to be needed. BTW, encountering an alien race with either kind of situation I mention here would still be considered "close" in terms of evolutionary development from a larger universal time perspective. We would be lucky to encounter multi-cellular life forms of any kind or a non-corporeal life form where the technological differences would be absolutely moot. I bet most "habitable worlds" with life are mostly a variation of bacterial sludge and algae.

That doesn't make for exciting science fiction, but having an astronaut spend a 50 year trip between stars to investigate a planet with water oceans only to discover a bunch of slime covering rocks and getting sick from some critter on that world is about the most drama I expect mankind to ever find with aliens in the next couple of millennia... if only we would be so lucky to even find such life forms in the first place.

Time is going to be on our side regardless and we will likely have months or even years to appoint such a representative if an ambassador of this nature is ever encountered. It sounds like some idiot has been watching too many Science Fiction movies and can't distinguish reality from fiction. This is an absolutely stupid thing for any planner and it is by far and away more important to send an ambassador to Sealand or one of the other micronations on the behalf of the UN rather than preparing for something like this.

Re:Do they know

[LWATCDR]

This is just bureaucracy in general.
Keeps track of satellites? Funny but I would have bet that was NORAD.
This guy is somebodies buddy and is getting a nice paycheck.
Frankly if they land in US, the UK, France, Brasil, China, Australia, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, or any number of other nations I don't see them saying.. Just wait here while we check with the UN.

Re:Do they know

[caerwyn]

It's not necessarily hypocrisy- only if the complaint with US foreign policy is based on a complaint about the use of power rather than on what the US is attempting to force others to do. It would be perfectly consistent to desire an outside force to impose a "good" order while decrying what one sees as an outside for imposing a "bad" one. Humans have done this throughout history; it's the reason why, for instance, a people can oppose an invading religious crusade and then feel completely justified in turning around and attempting to do the same to their neighbors.

Now that's not to say that any of this is anything but absurd, but it's not *necessarily* hypocritical.

Re:Do they know

[bhartman34]

This is just a guess, but I don't think they'd choose to land in the US or China. Strategically, wouldn't it be a bad idea to land in a more densely populated area? If you had the technology to do it, wouldn't you land in Antarctica or somewhere else where it would take a while for people to get to you? You might want somewhere with a population density somewhat greater than Antarctica, but you wouldn't want to land somewhere with wall-to-wall people and the highest technology on the planet readily available, would you?

Re:Do they know

[Surt]

Time is going to be on our side regardless and we will likely have months or even years to appoint such a representative if an ambassador of this nature is ever encountered.

Well, the clock started ticking when the scout crashed in roswell, and now the mothership is arriving, so really this is a case of the UN being slow on the uptake as usual.

Re:Do they know

[TheoMurpse]

So you are in agreement that a larger, more powerful outside force should use their power to force sovereigns to meet their demands and social mores or die.

Do you think a nation has the right, as a sovereign, to commit internal genocide?

If not, then there has to be a larger, more powerful outside force to stop them. There's just a disagreement as to how minimal the, say, "crime against humanity" has to be before the larger force may intervene.

If you do believe the nation has the right to commit genocide, I think you're a monster or someone more obsessed with philosophical symmetry than with pragmatic results (which likely does not bother you).

I just wanted to expose you one way or the other. :)

Re:Do they know

[Teancum]

Somalia sounds to me like a very good place to land, and it might do a bit of good for the people in that part of the world. Perhaps the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula?

I would have to agree that Washington DC or New York would be an awful place for an alien to land, as they would likely be shot out of the sky well before they even got close. Especially if it was a "first contact" situation. Moscow might not be all that much better or Beijing for that matter. All of these cities have air force pilots with a trigger finger that wouldn't hesitate to shoot down something that wasn't responding to air traffic control.

Re:Do they know

[halivar]

I certainly believe that a nation has the right to intervene in another in the case of genocide. If aliens came along and saw Hitler exterminating 7 million Jews, I would certainly hope they would vaporize him.

The AC's perspective, however, is completely inconsistent. Is he an interventionist, or what?

Re:Do they know

[ColdWetDog]

It was Johannesburg. I saw the video.

Re:Do they know

[PPH]

What do you mean 'first', earthling?

Re:Do they know

[bhartman34]

I would have to agree that Washington DC or New York would be an awful place for an alien to land, as they would likely be shot out of the sky well before they even got close. Especially if it was a "first contact" situation.

I think any civilization w/ a sufficient technology to actually get here might not be (or even have to be) worried about getting shot out of the sky. But I'd think they'd want to play it safe and not go somewhere they could be overrun by sheer numbers.

Re:Do they know

[mcgrew]

Hmmm, I'm eligible to retire in December 2012 so maybe they'll make me an ambassador.

Re:Do they know

[Blakey Rat]

Seriously, of all of the hairbrained and stupid things that the UN has ever done in all of the years I've been alive, this has got to be one of the most insane bureaucracies to do nothing that I have ever seen.

Be fair! At least the UN isn't indirectly supporting rape with this one.

Re:Do they know

[dtml-try MyNick]

To be honest my heart skipped a beat while reading the summary.
But alas, it has been debunkt allready.

The day that the un really appoints someone as a sort of intergalactic ambassador will be the day that we'd really should ask some serious questions. I don't believe that the un is efficiënt enough to do something like that "just in case".

Would be a fun meeting I reckon.... "alright, we need a alien ambassador, who wants the job?, Who's carreer is on a dead enough track to not mind the lifelong laughter and mockery when your political functions are discussed.....? " :)

No, not gonna happen unless there is a real reason to do so

Re:Do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the poet is not named Millstone-Jennings.

If they are, the aliens will just nuke us all from orbit (or at least fling relativistic bombs at us) just to be sure the poetry does not spread.

Re:Do they know

[Sir_Sri]

Wouldn't that depend heavily on their intent? When making first contact with japan the US basically sailed into tokyo bay with the biggest ship it could muster in the area. Sometimes you introduce yourself with the biggest guns you have, and make very clearly why you're there, and other times you gingerly step ashore with few guys a flag, and if you're lucky a translator.

If anyone really wants attention you find the densest plot of land, or the one with the most lights, and land there. If they're trying to hide then there are a whole lot of tracts of mostly uninhabited places they could set up shop.

Re:Do they know

[Terrasque]

Even as advanced as we've become, a good swordsman or archer could still kill you pretty effectively.

Re:Do they know

[bhartman34]

You might be right about an archer, but I don't think there's a hell of a lot a swordsman's gonna do about an M16. You only see a problem when you scale things up. If you're suddenly faced with a thousand swordsmen, then your M16 might not get you out of trouble.

Re:Do they know

[TapeCutter]

"more likely it is the bureaucracy of the UN planning for every contingency, and establishing a hierarchy of who's in charge if something happens."

The story is bogus (as shown by the gaurdian link in TFS), the position only exists in the vivid imagination of The Australian's resident anti-science, anti-UN "journalist", Jonathan Leake.

Re:Do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

It's governed by self-interest, short-sighted capitalist concerns and greed?

Re:Do they know

[bhartman34]

Wouldn't that depend heavily on their intent?

Maybe, but maybe not. Whether your intentions were peaceful or not, wouldn't you be very careful about a situation in which you're heavily outnumbered, and you'd certainly want to stay away from any society that had sufficient technology to destroy your ship.

Also, keep in mind: When the US landed in Japan, at least they knew the Japanese were humans, like them. When you can't make assumptions about what your (potential) foe's weaknesses are, you're in a very different place.

I think the place that makes the most sense to have a first contact would be somewhere sparsely populated, where it would take time to mount any significant attack against you, should it come to that. It's not a matter of hiding. It's a matter of keeping the odds more in your favor.

Re:Do they know

[JWSmythe]

BTW, encountering an alien race with either kind of situation I mention here would still be considered "close" in terms of evolutionary development from a larger universal time perspective. We would be lucky to encounter multi-cellular life forms of any kind or a non-corporeal life form where the technological differences would be absolutely moot. I bet most "habitable worlds" with life are mostly a variation of bacterial sludge and algae.

    Don't worry, they think the same of us.

    Really, we know of something like 10^21 stars in 200 billion galaxies. That allows for an awful lot of planets. The number of habitable planets is likely quite large. Hell, we have at least two planets in our system.

    Assuming the religious nuts weren't right, and all of it was spontaneously created within a few days at the whim of some imaginary being in the sky, we know that the universe (as we know it) is about 13 billion years old. The earth is a baby, only about 4 billion years old.

    If one of the planets that became habitable was created closer to the beginning of this universe, and it took 4 billion years for them to advance to our current level, that would only put them something like 9 billion years ahead of us.

    In all practicality, nothing lasts forever. Not a lifeform, a civilization, or even a planet. It's very likely that great civilizations have come and gone in places that we can barely imagine. But if just one of those civilizations, that was born billions of years ahead of us, were to have still survived and became a space faring civilization, you'd have to think that they just may have mapped out the known universe and know which planets may be habitable in the future, and which species are likely to thrive and reach their level of technology someday.

    If there are aliens, they'd be out there watching us. Maybe just the occasional visit. They'd also likely know that we aren't exactly the friendliest species in the universe. We can't even play nice with each other, why would you risk accidentally giving us space travel.

    No, we are still way too primitive. We can name a UN liason to vising aliens, but that definitely doesn't mean that they'll just say "Oh ok, we have someone to talk to now. Come on, lets give you a space ship and let you guys travel the universe. Just promise not to start any fights." Sure.

    Not that I'm saying world peace would bring them any sooner. We've proven, and continue to prove, that we are a dangerous and destructive species, which won't change any time soon. We do have exceptions in our species, but not enough to make us even a practical consideration.

Re:Do they know

[mcvos]

You might be right about an archer, but I don't think there's a hell of a lot a swordsman's gonna do about an M16.

I think you've got that backwards. An M16 is superior in every possible way, at any possible range, to a bow. But at close quarters, I'm not sure an M16 would really be better than a good sword.

Re:Do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

An M16 is superior in every possible way, at any possible range, to a bow

you keep saying that as you look up to the raining cloud of fire tipped arrows, launched from somewhere on the other side of that tall, impenetrable-by-bullets, castle wall.

Re:Do they know

[bhartman34]

A society with sufficient technology to have M16's would not be impeded by a castle wall.

Need someone official..

[EDinWestLA]

.. to welcome our new alien overlords.

"charged with keeping track of satellites"

[John Hasler]

Except that it is the US Air Force that actually does the job.

Re:"charged with keeping track of satellites"

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Air Force is just a small part of the UN Air Force.

Re:"charged with keeping track of satellites"

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Air Force works for the US government. The UN is the United Nations, a completely different entity.

Re:"charged with keeping track of satellites"

[GooberToo]

The UN has no forces. All UN forces are actually forces of other countries. So for example, the UN Air Force is likely to be US Air Force, German Air Force, Japan...so on and so on...

No he won't

[Yvan256]

They may have appointed him as the official contact person, but in the event it does happen, nobody really knows how and where first contact will happen. It might very well be with a farmer in the middle of nowhere, or with a penguin in the arctic.

Re:No he won't

[js3]

When the Alien utters the phrase "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER" we know where to send it to.

Re:No he won't

[dunezone]

I would say if an Alien race were to make contact with us they would have studied our language so they can properly communicate with us. Otherwise first contact would be them crashing or making an emergency landing.

Re:No he won't

[magnus.ahlberg]

Correct, he won't since the person appointed is a she. Way to go with the stereotype male association though.

Re:No he won't

[wisnoskij]

And it is all well and good to elect someone to be the first person to speak with them. But if they ever did show up it would be such an important event that I would not be surprised if someone important like the leader of the country they land in takes over the job.

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

They should appointed someone with some multi-language skills. What language we should assume the aliens will speak?

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, nobody will be. We're too far away for it to ever happen.

Re:No he won't

[OzPeter]

or with a penguin in the arctic.

If its a penguin in the Arctic then I'd be really surprised

Re:No he won't

[tehcyder]

They may have appointed him as the official contact person, but in the event it does happen, nobody really knows how and where first contact will happen. It might very well be with a farmer in the middle of nowhere

It generally has been so far.

Re:No he won't

[Beardo the Bearded]

It would be a puffin, Leroy.

Re:No he won't

[electron sponge]

They should appointed someone with some multi-language skills. What language we should assume the aliens will speak?

English, obviously. Just like in the movies. Aliens watch movies too I'd assume.

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

If and when aliens make contact we are all going to become pets. So it deosnt really matter who is in charge. You just better hope you are interesting enough to not be put down. :(

Re:No he won't

[hedwards]

The FLOTUS?

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you know people have already devoted their lives to attempting this already, it is not worth your time.

Re:No he won't

[Yvan256]

This is Slashdot. Do you really expect me to comment AFTER reading the summary?

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Appointed HER. For christ's sake, read before you make a stupid comment. And you're modded 'insightful'. Yeesh.

This fucking site...

Re:No he won't

[Grogan The Destroyer]

Yeah... that penguin might be from another planet him or herself. Golly, that would be confusing.

Re:No he won't

[Surt]

They should appointed someone with some multi-language skills. What language we should assume the aliens will speak?

English, obviously. Just like in the movies. Aliens watch movies too I'd assume.

And if they watch enough movies, odds are they will arrive speaking English.

Re:No he won't

[ks9208661]

Yes, and if they're bad guys, they'll have a british accent, like in Star Wars, Braveheart and The Patriot.

Re:No he won't

[electron sponge]

In that case I propose a simple test to discern the intent of the extraterrestrials: Hello Mr. Extraterrestrial. Can you tell me how you'd say the name of the element with the atomic number 13? If they say aluminum, we're cool. If they say aluminium, target all firepower on the Super Star Destroyer.

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

... or with a penguin in the arctic.

That would be one really lost penguin....

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

or with a penguin in the arctic.

If its a penguin in the Arctic then I'd be really surprised

If you think you're surprised, you should see the alien's face!

Re:No he won't

[oldmac31310]

He meant to say a penguin in the attic. Makes much more sense, wouldn't you agree? A simple spelling error.

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that people are familiar with names used everywhere on the planet. Without that bit of knowledge, you can't know if a name is for a man or a woman.

Re:No he won't

[Grelfod]

So does anybody speak the language of the predators? seems dangerous to assume that 'they' will speak our language - unless they are built like us there may be no way to communicate verbally...

But I would take either the licking of lips (or mandibles if they have no lips) or superior strength and weapons (since they have better space travel) as a bad sign for us ugly bags of mostly water

Re:No he won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Valiant Thor, 1974

Re:No he won't

[gr8dude]

Do you also not take your time when you go to another country and meet new people?

I guess this depends on what brought the aliens here. If they were hungry - we're dinner. If they were explorers who look for interaction - I don't see why they wouldn't try to study us and devise a communication protocol.

Re:No he won't

[V!NCENT]

I thought man and whoman were equal, so why bother with the male/female thing? Do you feel not accepted enought or something?

Re:No he won't

[eriqk]

Aliens watch movies too I'd assume.

Mostly tv shows about single female lawyers, though.

they will give a book called To Serve Man

[Joe The Dragon]

they will give a book called To Serve Man

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[Anonymous Coward]

To Serve FOR Man

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[pi865]

To Serve Forty Man

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[mark72005]

To Serve Forty Men with fava beans, and a nice Chianti.

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[melikamp]

Suspicious of the alien's intentions, Lisa sneaks into the kitchen and finds a book titled How To Cook Humans. She takes the book and shows it to the aliens, who explain to her that part of the title was obscured by space dust, which they then blow away to reveal the title How To Cook For Humans. Lisa, skeptical at this, blows off more space dust, revealing the title to be How To Cook Forty Humans. The aliens blow off the last of the space dust, finally revealing the real title How To Cook For Forty Humans. ~ WIKI

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[CFBMoo1]

I'm going to give them my copy of Earth (The Book) instead. I'm half way through it and it's actually a great read. If I was from out of town and this was my visitor guide it'd be informative and humorous. Assuming I understood those concepts and could learn to read English.

http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780446579223.htm

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[ks9208661]

To Serve For Forty Man

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[Dabido]

Don't go! 'To Serve Man', it's a cook book!!!!!

Re:they will give a book called To Serve Man

[Anonymous Coward]

To Serve For Forty Man

So it's OUR decision?

[Artifakt]

Isn't it more likely any aliens will pick whomever THEY want?

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[Monkeedude1212]

How will they know?

If WE landed somewhere and found alien life, would we know enough to say "I'd like to speak to Jim, please"?

No we'd probably say something like "Take me to your leader" Which is where you are brought before the UN council with someone already appointed to mediate the conference.

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, the aliens have a UN too?

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[hedwards]

The UN is leader of what precisely? I mean in all seriousness, the main reason that the UN lacks credibility is that it has basically no say in anything. Except in the rare case where there's agreement to do the least possible task applicable to the situation.

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to your tea-party, troll

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[Monkeedude1212]

Currently it exercises no real power over the planet but it's the place where most of the world can be represented at once in a single room.

I mean, until we have unification across the globe there isn't any real way for us to have a "leader" for them to go to. Rather than just speak to the President of the United States, who might withhold information for political reasons, its more probably they wish to speak to EVERY leader of the human race.

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[dbcad7]

Every country that makes movies.. imagines that theirs is the country that the aliens will land at, and that these aliens for some reason want to talk to the "leaders".. maybe the concept of leaders doesn't exist for them.. or maybe they have a different idea on what a leader is.. more likely is that we are just not interesting enough to talk to.

Re:So it's OUR decision?

[makubesu]

We're hoping the aliens RTFA.

Someone with experience instead?

[MalHavoc]

I guess it depends on how you want the first meeting to go, but maybe Jodi Foster or Sigourney Weaver would have been better choices. Or Ahhhnold. But he has to get to the chopper.

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[js3]

Are you saying Aliens might be more susceptible to T&A?

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[sorak]

Are you saying Aliens might be more susceptible to T&A?

Isn't everybody?

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[Teancum]

Of course why would an alien species even have breasts? That is an advanced evolutionary development found only in mammals and the developed breasts found on humans aren't even found on most primates (except when the mothers are lactating).

The "A" on the other hand is more ordinary and can be found in at least in many vertebrates. Of course even that is an advanced and highly evolved form of life even though it has been quite successful in terms of adapting to the climate changes on the Earth including more than a couple evolutionary crashes. Mammals barely survived the last meteor strike and wouldn't have made it through a couple of the huge hits that wiped out almost all multi-cellular life.

James Cameron insisted on breasts with the aliens on Avatar simply because he felt that audiences who have grown up with Star Wars and Star Trek wouldn't recognize who the "girls" were if those weren't seen. If you can explain an evolutionary path that would develop a human looking breast on an alien and explain why it didn't simply turn into an udder instead, I'll bite.

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[Surt]

That just means the aliens won't have built up any resistance to the power of T&A due to lack of prior exposure.

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[TheoMurpse]

I am Lrrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8. Take me to your single, female lawyer!

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[oldmac31310]

good look finding them on those two!

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[drinkypoo]

If you can explain an evolutionary path that would develop a human looking breast on an alien and explain why it didn't simply turn into an udder instead, I'll bite.

Isn't that impolite? At least nibble.

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying Aliens might be more susceptible to T&A?

Isn't everybody?

Mars always needs women.

Re:Someone with experience instead?

[Alsee]

Yeah, but human T+A is a rather underwhelming 3.

-

I'm not sure we get to decide

[Max Romantschuk]

If extraterrestrial life forms (biological or mechanical) would decide to come here I'm pretty sure they'd have the means to scan the planet and meet up with whoever they damn well please.

We already have UAVs that are pretty impressive. I'm sure a swarm of intelligence gathering bots the size of insects are not an issue for someone with the capacity for intrastellar travel. I'm guessing they'd pick somewhere remote without huge crowds people bothering them as they attempt to make first contact.

Or then they'd just kill us all and turn us into fertilizer, who knows?

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[js3]

Everyone assumes aliens will be far more technologically superior to us. If we happened on an Alien planet with prehistorical man, our UAVs still wouldn't be able to tell who their leader is.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[causality]

Everyone assumes aliens will be far more technologically superior to us. If we happened on an Alien planet with prehistorical man, our UAVs still wouldn't be able to tell who their leader is.

And coincidentally enough, we are not capable of interstellar travel.

If your intention was to refute the idea that a civilization capable of interstellar travel would have technology that makes our UAVs look like primitive toys, you have not succeeded.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[muntis]

Haven't you plaid Civ? Maybe they pushed on interstellar travel tech tree not AI. No one says that our (earthlings) technological development course is only one.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[tehcyder]

If we happened on an Alien planet with prehistorical man, our UAVs still wouldn't be able to tell who their leader is.

He'd be the one with all the hot cavechicks around him.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[MozeeToby]

Only two choices. Either they have the technology and cultural stability to make a multi-thousand year journey in an arkship or they have the AI to create a self repairing, self directing, maybe even self reproducing probe (and all of those take quite a bit of problem analysis and creativity). Either way, they should have the patience and ability to wait around a few centuries or even millenia to learn all about our culture, politics, and languages. The former would actually be more mind blowing in my opinion; could you imagine putting humans on a hollowed out asteroid for 50k years and expecting them to be alive at the end of it? The idea of an intelligent machine is much less interesting to me than a race that can live in a tiny enclosed space with limited resources for thousands of years without killing each other in the process.

Besides, I dispute that our UAVs wouldn't be able to determine who is the leader, because the systems that comprise our UAVs includes several humans in the loop. Everyone from the pilot to the intelligence analyst to the commanding officer would review the images for clues. It stands to reason that any completely autonomous UAV (which ours are not) would need to have a similar level of intelligence and problem solving abilities.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Teancum]

Interstellar travel is in theory possible with a nuclear reactor (fission or fusion both work) powering a rocket engine. The rest is mainly engineering and perhaps building the vehicles at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points. It doesn't take a new kind of physics for a person to at least within a lifetime be able to travel to another star.

This said, it wouldn't necessarily be all that fast and it wouldn't be a "routine" trip.... perhaps ever. I also think that such a spacecraft would be insanely expensive to build, but perhaps could be done for the same cost as is being poured into the Constellation program. But "capable" of at least basic interstellar travel is possible. Interplanetary travel is indeed possible and in fact has been done, more than once even with people.

All this said, a civilization that has "routine" interstellar travel and has citizens on multiple planets conducting interstellar trade would indeed be making almost anything we have look like toys.... presuming that we even encountered them at a point where they aren't trying to colonize the Earth first.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Teancum]

I've heard it speculated that perhaps if our civilization had decided to concentrate on ceramics instead of metallurgy that our civilization would be quite different today. Almost everything that we use metals for at the moment in theory can be made with ceramics. Unfortunately with just a few exceptions our knowledge of ceramics is rather primitive compared to metallurgy in part because we abandoned that path a long time ago... except for "works of art" and other minor things.

In many ways, I wish Civ had multiple developmental paths for their civilization instead of a narrative storyline on the tech tree, including crazy off-shoots for things like airships, rolling roads, and Tesla's broadcast power. There definitely are some things you can point to that we haven't developed as a "real civilization" because we went a different route.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Surt]

Right, the way we can't tell who the taliban leadership is as we do intelligence gathering, or which bee/ant is the queen, or which lion is dominant in the pride. These things are impossible to identify by study.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[ColdWetDog]

Interplanetary travel is indeed possible and in fact has been done, more than once even with people.

I'll bite.

Pics, or it didn't happen.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[dwye]

I think his point was that we, and by extension, the aliens, could not tell who the Big Man in a tribe of primitives was without spending time with them, and would certainly not be able to tell who was the real leadership just by remote sensors. The could well land on earth and contact Tiger Woods, thinking that the coverage last year meant that he was leader.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[The_mad_linguist]

Or there are as-yet unknown laws of physics that let you sidestep the whole "speed of light" issue (like, I dunno, something that lets you move in a specific direction at c while traveling backwards in time. Pretty sure that doesn't violate anything other than the assumption of rotational invariance)

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[mcgrew]

How are you going to find those cave men without breaking the lightspeed barrier? It would take eight years at half the speed of light to reach the nearest star. The Voyagers have been flying since the 1970s and they've only recently gone past the heliosphere.

If an alien species comes here, they will necessarily be far, far above our level of technology. And we're not going to find them at their home until our level of tech is far, far above whet it is now.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[GooberToo]

I assume he means both manned and unmanned travel and is likely including the moon. We now have man made objects outside of the solar system so technically we have achieved interstellar travel - just not in the way we'd all recognize from scifi and TV.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[GooberToo]

Theoretical physicists currently agree FTL is at least theoretically possible albeit improbable. They also agree there is a hell of a lot of physics we don't even begin to understand. Hell, we're still looking for basic players to explain the most fundamental abstracts of the physics we think we have a fairly strong grasp of and that in turn directly points to not understand even a hell of a lot more.

Anyone who says its impossible lacks any and all credible proof. Those that say it may, one day, be at least possible, are supported by the physics we know and understand today.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[GooberToo]

Ceramics are now actively being explored by a small but growing number of physicists, chemists, and materials engineers.

As a side, seriously doubt such claims as combining metals to form different alloys is actually pretty easy to do, even by nature. Different types of ceramics are still fairly difficult even by today's standards and frequently require tools such as scanning electron microscopes. And for as long as we've been doing that, metallurgy didn't really take off into big science until maybe three or four decades ago; much of which stems from improve tank armor and plane materials, and out growth from there.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[khallow]

The could well land on earth and contact Tiger Woods, thinking that the coverage last year meant that he was leader.

And how would that hurt the negotiations? If they're looking for a friendly, popular response, that could well be far more effective than contacting political leaders directly.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Joebert]

If extraterrestrial life forms (biological or mechanical) would decide to come here I'm pretty sure they'd have the means to scan the planet and meet up with whoever they damn well please.

Assuming the aliens came here looking for something specific you're probably right. I like to think anything capable of making it here would be doing so on an exploratory capacity though, meaning they're going to take what they can get when they can get it.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[dwye]

Alternately, they could have contacted Lindsey Lohan or Paris Hilton. Do you really want THEM as our ambassadors?

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure they'd have the means to scan the planet and meet up with whoever they damn well please.

Yes, but the problem is that those scanners self-destruct when shot by a blaster. They'll just rely on the Force instead.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[vbraga]

I disagree somewhat. Technical ceramics are in wide use like refractories. Or the semiconductor that powers your computer. In eletronics like diodes. Or as seals in advanced valves. Or the C-C thermal protection spacecrafts use. As electrodes in fuel cells. For a single example take a look at the multiple uses silicon carbide has:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_carbide#Uses

Or YSZ:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yttria-stabilized_zirconia

Been a long time since I took that History of Technology in college, but we've probably been using ceramics for as long as we've been using metals. And even if we've been using metals since almost the dawn of civilization metallurgy as a science is pretty recent. De Re Metallica by Agricola was published in mid 1500. Metallography - our ability to understand metals microstructure using microscopes - started in the late 19th century.

But your suggestions to Civ are right on the spot :)

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Teancum]

Yeah, I suppose this photo has been photoshopped and was something made by a Hollywood studio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_over_Apollo_11_Lunar_Module.jpg

I suppose you are a part of the Apollo landing hoax crowd that also denies that spacecraft even went to places like Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn. There are spacecraft currently enroute to the rest of the dwarf planets that haven't had spacecraft go near them.

The pics are there. Getting to Mars is merely engineering and money, not trying to figure out how to get it accomplished in the first place.

BTW, I said interplanetary travel is pretty routine. I'll admit that interstellar travel hasn't happened yet, but I'm just trying to point out that perhaps it could happen.

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[Alsee]

Greetings human.
Take me to your leader, Hugh Hefner.

-

Re:I'm not sure we get to decide

[causality]

I think his point was that we, and by extension, the aliens, could not tell who the Big Man in a tribe of primitives was without spending time with them, and would certainly not be able to tell who was the real leadership just by remote sensors. The could well land on earth and contact Tiger Woods, thinking that the coverage last year meant that he was leader.

While you are restating his point (which I understood the first time), I will reiterate mine: because we are not an interstellar civilization we are not in a good position to declare what capabilities such a civilization does and does not have.

We can say, "well, we don't think WE could do this and that, because we haven't yet imagined a great way to do it, so clearly no one else could either" but a) that's an overgeneralization and b) that breaks down rapidly when talking about a civilization that is significantly more technologically advanced than we are. It's about as invalid as statements get.

Sorry but repeating or rephrasing it won't change that.

Put him on the US/Mexico border

[js3]

I hear a lot of illegal aliens come from Mexico

"will be the first person to meet with aliens"

[tomhudson]

No, he wasn't.

first contact team

[Nidi62]

The best first contact team is clearly an egotistical mathematician, an even more egotistical physicist, a biologist with clinical depression and low self-esteem, and lastly a psychologist that doesn't take his job seriously. We just have to hope the aliens aren't spherical or that the contact is made under water.

Re:first contact team

[tophermeyer]

God I wish I had mod points for you. Brilliant.

Re:first contact team

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey hey, don't forget the Marine Biologist who gets severe seasickness.

Re:first contact team

[Culture20]

We just have to hope the aliens aren't spherical

We demand bouncing, followed by rolling, followed by rolling of the third type.

Re:first contact team

[JaneTheIgnorantSlut]

Don't forget the black guy. Someone has to be the first to get killed.

Re:first contact team

[TaoPhoenix]

They Rollin' they Hatin' - Tryin' to catch you Spacin' Dirty!

Re:first contact team

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that entire movie was about a causality loop, no aliens were involved. The gov thought there were at first, hence the alien contact team. But they were wrong. The sphere was never created by anyone, it merely traveled back in time. Here is the sequence.
1) Ship in the future finds the sphere and brings it aboard.
2) Sphere gives the crew of the ship super funky thought manifesting powers.
3) Crew accidently thought manifests a black hole/time portal through which the ship flies.
4) Ship crashes into the ocean on earth in the past.
5) Time passes.
6) Ship/sphere are discovered underwater by navy and explored by the aforementioned team. There are no snakes on the motherfuckin plane.
7) Sphere gives team super funky thought manifesting powers.
8) Team uses super funky thought manifesting powers to attack each other eventually using them to banish the sphere to deep space, where it waits for the ship in the future to pick it up.
9) Rinse, and repeat as necessary.

Maybe the sphere was built by aliens in the alternate timeline it came from, but as soon as the ship took it back in time, that reality ceased to exist. After that, the sphere was stuck in the time loop. No beginning and no end.

This is my favorite drunk movie. It requires just enough thought to keep you focused and stop the room from spinning when you have one too many. Disclaimer: IANAphysicist. In fact, I work at a gas station. I'm just a fan of causality and time travel paradoxes. If I am wrong in my interpretation, forgive me or enlighten me.

Re:first contact team

[V!NCENT]

They see me posting on /., they is trolling,
trying to trick me baiting flames.

=D

Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

Coincince?. Maybe....

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

I'm not sure what a "coincince" is, but considering that the UFO nuts have some new "groundbreaking" revelation every couple months, I'd say you probably shouldn't get too excited about this.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

"coincince" is short for "iPad keyboard in the morning" :)

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

And if by "UFO nuts" do you mean "five former USAF officers who were in charge of nuclear weapons and base commanders?"

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

And if by "UFO nuts" do you mean "five former USAF officers who were in charge of nuclear weapons and base commanders?"

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.

At least creationists and global warming deniers have the good sense to cite scientists when making an appeal-to-authority type logical fallacy. When you start citing military officers, you've completely dropped the ball. Some of the craziest people I've met happen to work for military intelligence, and I know two airforce pilots who are convinced that the face on mars is an authentic alien artifact.

That's not to say that you shouldn't listen to military experts when they're speaking within the realm of their expertise; I'm just pointing out that the military - like any other field of human endeavour - has it's share of lunatics and idiots, and you need to look at the data instead of the credentials.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

This is not an "appeal to authority." This is an "appeal to you can't just dismiss these folks as crackpots.". But I guess in the mi d of a kneekrek skeptic anyone can be dismissed as a crackpot.

But, just for fun, let's follow your line of reasoning. So you're saying that only a certified UFO expert could be a credible witness to a UFO? No one, no matter how otherwise trusted in their judgement, intelligence, or emotional stability, could be a credible witness to a UFO? I'm guessing that you would dismiss such an expert out of hand, but I'll leave that to you to confirm.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[GooberToo]

I completely agree with your point, but despite their reports at the time, the government and the military did not consider them crazy. In fact, at least one of them was given additional access to nukes and broader authority over our national defense. Furthermore, these are all people who are constantly monitored and evaluated. You can say many things, but crack pot is not one of them.

Basically, your dismissal is invalid as everyone who can assign authority has done so for at least one of them. In fact, using your own logic, comparing you against at least one of them, means you are far, far more likely to be a crazy nut job in comparison. Therefore, we shouldn't listen to your position in the least.

To be clear, while I agree with your general position, in this case, its not really applicable. And if its not applicable to at least one, your hand waving and ready dismissal is without justification. They may be crackpots, but not by your argument and rational.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

This is not an "appeal to authority." This is an "appeal to you can't just dismiss these folks as crackpots."

Apparently you don't understand what the term "appeal to authority" means.

So you're saying that only a certified UFO expert could be a credible witness to a UFO?

No, I'm saying that no one could be a credible witness to a UFO. If the best you can come up with is "this guy says it happened", then you've failed to provide any meaningful evidence.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

I completely agree with your point, but despite their reports at the time, the government and the military did not consider them crazy.

If you'd ever worked in the military, you'd know just how meaningless that sentence really is. I already linked to the famous case of Major General Albert Stubblebine - if that's not enough to convince you that crazy people slip through the cracks, then I don't know what will.

They may be crackpots, but not by your argument and rational.

I didn't use any argument or "rational" - I simply stated that they're UFO nuts. The reasoning behind that statement should be obvious. Whether their beliefs are caused by delusion, ignorance, senility, or full out insanity, they can still be classified as "nuts".

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

Bubba, I know exactly what "appeal to authority" means, I just don't agree that claiming there's evidence someone is sane means they're an authority. :) By your line of reasoning any person making any argument can be discredited because you doubt tbeir sanity. (Based on zero evidence, as you're currently doing. You require evidence for others, but none for your own assertions.)

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[GooberToo]

No, I'm saying that no one could be a credible witness to a UFO.

Ummm....You just took a left turn into crazy town there.

Go read what the definition of an UFO. Anyone can be a credible witness of a UFO. Period. The only thing which requires credibility beyond seeing a UFO are possible implications or cause and effect which people assert may have a association with the UFO in question.

Factually, anything can be a UFO. For example, a UFO can be a plane; albeit unrecognizable as a plane to the observer. Someone saying they saw an object in the sky but could not describe it as a plane has factually seen a UFO. Period. Using your logic, no one can be a credible witness to anything. That's just dumb.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[GooberToo]

If you'd ever worked in the military, you'd know just how meaningless that sentence really is. I already linked to the famous case of Major General Albert Stubblebine - if that's not enough to convince you that crazy people slip through the cracks, then I don't know what will.

Re-read what I said. You're arguing that because crazy people can slip through the cracks, the only possible explanation is that all people you disagree with are therefore crazy. That, bluntly, is crazy.

Honestly, at least one of them has been established as both sane and extremely credible. Generally they have all been given a thumbs up. Regardless, they may all be crazy. I don't know. And factually, you don't know either. But as I originally stated, your argument doesn't indicate anything other than your belief in irrational and illogical argument to establish an equally false position. As such, your dismissal of the reports is nothing but hand waving masquerading as rational debate.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

*sigh*

Does being a pedant give you some strange sexual thrill or something? Or is there another reason why you chose to completely ignore the context of the discussion?

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

You're arguing that because crazy people can slip through the cracks, the only possible explanation is that all people you disagree with are therefore crazy.

How in the world did you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

Honestly, at least one of them has been established as both sane and extremely credible.

Great! Which one, and where's your evidence?

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[GooberToo]

So basically you're saying, you've ignorantly dismissed the entire thread because, for no other reason, you personally disagree and don't want to know. You've been contrary to be contrary as you've not bothered to read anything on the subject whatsoever.

Traditionally, if you're willing to take a point to the mat, you should know at least something of the counter point. Otherwise, you tend to look foolish.

And this concludes the thread...

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

Ah, right. So when I say "Harold Shipman was insane" and you say "he couldn't be insane, he was a doctor!", that's not an appeal to authority. Right. Whatever makes you happy, Captain Logic.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[c6gunner]

I asked you to tell me which one of them is sane and, instead of admitting that you don't know the first thing about the situation, you decided to get huffy and storm off. Very mature. If you think you're fooling anyone, you're delusional.

Re:Hmmmmmm...

[greg_barton]

And your assertions of Shipman's mental state rests on what authority?

Where do I apply?

[loftwyr]

Umm, just in case the aliens do decide to land openly in my lifetime, anyone got a link as to where I send my resume to join his team?

You know... just in case... not that it's going to happen tomorrow or anything... really....

Re:Baby Steps

[Anonymous Coward]

DERP DERP DERP

Who wants....

[WED Fan]

The question was...Who wants to be first in line to melted/eaten/death rayed/vaporized/exposed to space herpes?

Re:Who wants....

[BergZ]

I'll have you know that managing space herpes is as much fun as it was contracting them.
They're the gift that just keeps on giving.

Re:Who wants....

[pyrosine]

Now you put it that way.... where do I sign up?

Re:Who wants....

[thehostiles]

to be honest, it's probably not nearly as bad as it sounds. consider this chart.

http://nerdnirvana.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Lets-say-youre-the-first-human-ever-to-make-alien-contact.gif

Re:Who wants....

[dan828]

Oh come now, the likelyhood of being eaten by space herpes is minimal. In the mean time, you get to draw a paycheck for doing next to nothing. Call in to the secretary, "I'll be doing research on theoretical contact scenarios with aquatic extra-terrestrial intelligence, so I'll be in Hawaii for the next couple weeks. Call me if anything urgent comes up, and I'll submit my expense report when I get back."

Bollocks.

[Xest]

This guy's appointment is bollocks.

You really think if Aliens show up you'd be able to stop attention whores like Berlusconi and Sarkozy finding it in themselves to stop humping Obama's leg for a moment and running off to meet these aliens and declare their love for all species terrestrial and extra terrestrial? That's if they managed to beat Ahmadinejad there as he rushes to greet them with the insistence that they're muslim and clearly want all zionists to die.

No, this guy would likely be left in the dust as the worlds drama queens and attention whores rush to proclaim themselves as the voice of planet Earth.

Likely, this rush of the worlds arseholes towards them would probably make them jump back in their ship and fly straight back to the planet zog or whatever long before he got chance to meet them.

This is probably just one of those things public sector organisations like the various UN bodies tend to do to justify payrises. Fill in the public sector pay form as needed to calculate pay:

[] Manager of 10 or more people +$2,000
[] Financial responsibility +$1,000
[] Project planning responsibility +$1,000
[] Intergalactic relations responsibility +$50,000

The various state actors running our countries couldn't pass off an opportunity for something like this to someone no one's heard of even if the aliens in question were more of the Alien vs. Predator kind and their lives depended on it.

Re:Bollocks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is.
But, for heaven's sake, if you bothered to read anything around here, I REDUNDANTLY repeat that he is a she.

Re:Bollocks.

[Xest]

In that case, let's just hope that if they visit, they don't arrive at the wrong time of the month.

Re:Bollocks.

[Teancum]

I'm going more conspiratorial here. The UN wants to take over the management and control of the whole of the universe outside of the atmosphere of the Earth. This is merely their first step toward asserting full sovereignty over the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and anything else of use. You want to talk about a huge bureaucracy that is going to hamper the ability of mankind to be free, this will be it.

BTW, I agree that the appointment is pure BS here. There is nothing for this guy to do and will likely never be anything for him to do.

Re:Baby Steps

[Steauengeglase]

That's very interesting Caller, but tonight we are talking about how and why Kenny Rogers was behind the Kennedy Assassination. Next we have a Clyde from east of the Rockies. You're on Caller.

Re:Baby Steps

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Insightful

Still some time until April 5, 2063

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't they doing this a bit early considering it is still almost 53 years until first contact will occur?

Re:Still some time until April 5, 2063

[Tetsujin]

Aren't they doing this a bit early considering it is still almost 53 years until first contact will occur?

What are you talking about? An alien starship crash-landed on an island in the south pacific eleven years ago. It's been reconstructed and relaunched as our most powerful warship; we had a brief war with an overwhelmingly powerful alien army, and life on the surface of the Earth was almost completely obliterated back in March.

cars

[slshwtw]

How do they know the alien will want to make first contact with a human instead of some other life form? Presumably its first instinct will be to reach out to a moving car as the obvious dominant life form.

Re:cars

[jschen]

If an alien species came to us, then it either is native to outer space, or got here by some sort of spaceship. Assuming the latter, the alien species obviously also is using transportation devices, and should have no trouble recognizing our cars as transportation just as we should have no trouble recognizing its spaceship as transportation. They'd likely find the person behind the wheel more interesting than the car. As long as they find the land most interesting, based on the human technological footprint on the planet, they likely would choose to contact humans. However, if they love water, they may well choose to contact a dolphin first.

Re:cars

[Teancum]

I love the reference to Ford Prefect here. Other suggestions include humpback whales, dolphins, hermit crabs, or cows. Perhaps this explains the cattle mutilations talked about in UFO circles.

Re:cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry sir, but it appears the joke has gone over your head. Have a nice day.

Re:cars

[X86Daddy]

And that would have been an excellent premise for rebooting an '80s cartoon franchise into live action films. Alas, it's too complicated or something, so no plot at all was chosen instead.

Re:cars

[Anonymous Coward]

it makes sense, dolphins are the second most intelligent life form on the planet. After all, man is the third.

Re:cars

[ColdWetDog]

Either get your humor meter re calibrated, up your Prozac or just go look at the useful instructional video.

Re:cars

[Terrasque]

Who knows.. Maybe they are silicon life forms, that travel in specially made organic space ships?

I think I'd hate that job

[Moraelin]

Now that you mention it, don't most of those contacts also involve anal probing with dildo-shaped implements, mutilating cattle and apparently making crop circles for the heck of it?

I mean, I can imagine a thousand Martian redneck hillbilies going,

"Hey, Billy Joe Bob, it says here them Earthlings have a new ambers.. am... contact person."
"What's one of those do, Bubba?"
"Way I figures it, Billy Joe Bob, it means we gots to meet her when we goes down there."
"But we was gonna do some crop circling and mutilate some of those strange animals they keep around. Do ya figure she's gonna help us with that?"
"Nope, probably not."
"Right, I'll fire up the ol' anal probe then."
"Careful back there, Billy Joe Bob, I just bought us the Jackhammer probe upgrade. Don't wreck nuthing with it."

I mean, why not just get the goatse guy as the ambassador?

Does she believe in God?

[HockeyPuck]

Contact, been there done that.

Mistake

[Joebert]

I'm no rocket scientist, but I for one would feel safer if we put a stripper in charge of greeting the aliens.

Re:Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no rocket scientist, but I for one would feel safer if we put a stripper in charge of greeting the aliens.

They did. What did you think all that anal probing was about?

Re:Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we do both? With all the strippers working their way through university, can't we find an astrophysics grad student who moonlights as a stripper? She would be a good metaphorical representation of humanity - educating ourselves in the right direction, but still immaturely obcessed with sex, and completely unphased by the hypocrisy of our situation :)

Re:Mistake

[Joebert]

Can't we do both? With all the strippers working their way through university, can't we find an astrophysics grad student who moonlights as a stripper? She would be a good metaphorical representation of humanity - educating ourselves in the right direction, but still immaturely obcessed with sex, and completely unphased by the hypocrisy of our situation

I thought strippers who are smart enough to put themselves through school, put themselves through something practical, like Business school.

Re:Mistake

[Sryn]

Reminds me of the 'welcoming party' a Japanese town in Kyushu sent out to entertain the first group of US Marines (?) to land on the home islands right after Japan surrendered in WWII.

Sryn

Cushy job

[Captain Spam]

Othman: "Well, good, now I'm the Ambassador to Aliens. Sure, it's a useless title, but it's still a title, meaning I'm getting extra pay from the UN, and I get a say on the way things are run. Not much of a say, but still, extra pay and recognition for doing nothing? Now THAT'S a cushy job, I say! Guess I can take it easy from here on out. I mean, it's not like I'm going to have to do anything about..."

(looks outside, flying saucers start landing)

Othman: "Aw, son of a..."

Who has most experience & knowledge?

[PatPending]

Clearly the person with the most experience and knowledge of aliens is: Sigourney Weaver

Re:Who has most experience & knowledge?

[Knyterage]

Yeah, I'm going to vote for Richard Dean Anderson on this one.

Re:Who has most experience & knowledge?

[Tetsujin]

Clearly the person with the most experience and knowledge of aliens is: Sigourney Weaver

Yeah, she was in "Avatar", after all... ...Though, she died, didn't she?

Re:Who has most experience & knowledge?

[roman_mir]

well yeah, that's if you want to kill all the aliens we may end up meeting

Re:Who has most experience & knowledge?

[Drathos]

Sorry, but my vote goes to Doctor Who. Hard to beat the experience and knowledge of a Time Lord.

Re:Who has most experience & knowledge?

[dwye]

Clearly the person with the most experience and knowledge of aliens is: Sigourney Weaver

Yeah, she was in "Avatar", after all... ...Though, she died, didn't she?

Well, until they start writing the sequel, and need her back, like a friendly Freddy Kruger (or like David Bowman in Odyssey 3001, more accurately -- she is recorded in the Mother Tree, but too interested in its contents to let herself be transcribed back into her avatar, yet).

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Mrs. Othman is proposing that she be in charge of first contact. It's a proposal at this point, and it hasn't risen above the point of self-hype. No one has been appointed, no debates have occurred.

I don't see it.

[L4t3r4lu5]

If they set off from the closest sun-like star (18 Scorpi, 46 light years) right now, at the maximum speed we have achieved in space flight (62000km/h - Voyager 1) they would be here in approximately 80,000 years. That long ago, we were using pointy sticks to hunt and living in caves.

Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species. First contact with an alien civilisation a century out of time with itself. That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.

I don't see it.

Re:I don't see it.

[iONiUM]

You kind of think inside the human box. I realize our current understanding of the universe and physics puts maximum travel speed at what you specified, or even somewhat close to the speed of light. But I'm kind of assuming that in 200-500 years from now, our understanding will be fundamentally different, and we will find ways that seem extremely impossible right now to travel great distances at faster speeds. I guess that sounds like a sci-fi argument, but I just don't really think our understanding of spacetime and physics is very good at the moment.

Re:I don't see it.

[mounthood]

If they set off from the closest sun-like star (18 Scorpi, 46 light years) right now, at the maximum speed we have achieved in space flight (62000km/h - Voyager 1) they would be here in approximately 80,000 years. That long ago, we were using pointy sticks to hunt and living in caves.

Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species. First contact with an alien civilisation a century out of time with itself. That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.

I don't see it.

Cat changed, but Lister was still a regular guy.

Re:I don't see it.

[KublaKhan1797]

You are assuming "they" would be coming here to meet us. Earth has been able to sustain life for a lot longer than 80,000 years, more than sufficient for anyone advanced enough to notice. I know it's folly speculate on the reasoning of an alien species but a life sustaining world might just be interesting enough for them to come looking. I know we would love to find out how life had developed on a different planet.

Re:I don't see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely correct. A civilization that has progressed a mere 100 years past our current time would be highly technically advanced, let alone one that has progressed 1000 years further.. Let's face it, our physics is NOT correct. We have been trying to unify the 4 forces for over 70 years to no avail. There is FAR more to learn regarding the universe and physics. The speed of light argument is a tired argument. Clearly something is happening in our skies. Millions of people all over the world have had experiences with various unidentifiable craft, be they military or otherwise. There is far too much evidence that shows we have been and are being visited by strange craft. I challenge all to put your balls back on and do the research. The sheer volume of evidence will astound you.

Re:I don't see it.

[LWATCDR]

Actually I am wondering just how big of a shock 100 years would be to a scientist.
Roll back to 1910.
We do have cars, airplanes, large steam ships, and radio. Nothing we have today would strike them as magic. Very advanced but not outside the realm of imagination.
Out of all the advancements maybe computers and biology would be the biggest shockers. And biology wouldn't really slap them in the face.
If you go back only 50 years and thing would really be not that big of a deal.
That would be 1960.
We already have computers, satellites, and transistor.
I am not all that sure that if you take someone from today and put them 100 years in the future that they would be all that shocked. Well unless things are going really bad and we are living in Solent Green times.
I think once a society reaches a certain level of scientific understanding they can deal with progress without huge culture shock that we imagine.
If anything they will disappointed. I think we all still dream of a technical Utopia. Problem is that I fear that one person Utopia is another hell.

Re:I don't see it.

[Quiet_Desperation]

That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.

I would hope so! Give the woman some privacy!

Re:I don't see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps all of these visits by "UFO's" are merely time travelers who are just trying to watch history being made. That would certainly explain the "Foo fighters" that were found in the skies during World War II (not that I would want to go join a bombing raid during the 1940's).

Most of this is either raw speculation or stuff blatantly made up to sell books and magazines. There is nothing to conclude that aliens exist, and it certainly hasn't been "millions" of people who have witnessed UFOs.

The universal speed limit of the speed of light seems to be a pretty solid one... right up there with thermodynamics. Yes, there is more to learn about physics and perhaps there is a small exception to Relativity that might permit people to travel faster than light besides an "Einstein-Rosen bridge" or some other thing like an Alcubierre drive. Good luck with those.

Re:I don't see it.

[c6gunner]

We do have cars, airplanes, large steam ships, and radio. Nothing we have today would strike them as magic.

I'm thinking CGI might. Show them Avatar, and see how they react.

Re:I don't see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species.

The ability to Increasing speed above the speed of light wouldn't really imply the possibility to increase speed by a couple of orders. It would more likely mean the possibility to increase it by arbitrary orders. Making distances insignificant.

Re:I don't see it.

[Teancum]

The age of the solar system is about 5 billion years and the universe is guesstimated as about 15-20 billion years old (at least on the order of magnitude). 100 years out of 20 billion is nothing. A million years is practically nothing. What kind of "technology" would you have encountered a million years ago on the Earth, and how much of a shock do you think you might have if you showed up on the Earth a million years from now?

The oldest buildings on the Earth are about 10-15 thousand years old (the Pyramids of Giza.... tough things to destroy even with a nuke and deliberately trying).

We have too short of a time frame to compare in our lifetimes to really think of what technology an alien might have.

Re:I don't see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they set off from the closest sun-like star (18 Scorpi, 46 light years) right now, at the maximum speed we have achieved in space flight (62000km/h - Voyager 1) they would be here in approximately 80,000 years. That long ago, we were using pointy sticks to hunt and living in caves.

But the good news is, the patent on pointy sticks is due to expire!

Re:I don't see it.

[The_mad_linguist]

Well, you can see some of the predictions made for the year 2000 in the year 1900 here.

The reaction would probably be along the lines of "so why the hell haven't you guys exterminated mosquitoes yet?"

Re:I don't see it.

[LWATCDR]

But what type of tech has not been dreamed of by now? I doubt that at this point anything will be more than we can handle.
We not understand it but I doubt that we would be in awe of it.
In other words we would not bow down but ask how did you do that?

Re:I don't see it.

[LWATCDR]

Actually they where really good.
I find the misses interesting. Every technology at some point seems to become the darling and then it becomes mature and boring in short order.
They had extremely high hopes for ships two days to cross the Atlantic but very little for aircraft.
If you go to the late 1940s you will see them predicting Mach 3 airliners or rockets to Europe but nothing really about computers and the video phone was the best telecomuntions break through.
In the 1960s it was moon bases and Giant Electronic brains.
Today it is Biotech and Nanotech.
I wonder if we are over estimating or under on those.
My prediction is that Computers have reached mature and boring.

Re:I don't see it.

[mangu]

Yes, there is more to learn about physics and perhaps there is a small exception to Relativity that might permit people to travel faster than light besides an "Einstein-Rosen bridge" or some other thing like an Alcubierre drive. Good luck with those.

I'd rather say that relativity has some better explaining to do before thought experiments become absolute truth.

Things like, when I walk down the street, in my my left foot's reference the earth's invasion has started in a distant planet, while in my left foot's reference the invasion hasn't been decided yet and may be canceled. In the next step, both references shift from one foot to the other.

Or what seems like pretty strong evidence that invalidates one of the basic postulates of relativity, the idea that some local change somewhere cannot cause instant changes in some remote place.

Although relativity is quite accurate in its predictions, there are logical and experimental arguments against it, such as those I mentioned above, so it's not quite OK to regard it as absolute truth in *all* its predictions yet.

Re:I don't see it.

[The_mad_linguist]

Well, to be fair, it was a couple years before the Wright Brothers actually got heavier-than-air working.

Of course, there were already naysayers in 1906.

Re:I don't see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still thinking flat, like what a person from 1810 would think of travel in 2010. They'd imagine faster horse and buggy vehicles, but not, for example, 747s or ocean liners or the average Honda. Such things would be beyond their comprehension not only of what will happen but what can happen. A giant steel bird? Insanity.

You, on the other hand, can only think of what you know. Things like "modern" space travel and how horribly long it would take you to travel anywhere in space. This is not about you.

What you need to be thinking of is what we might come up with in a thousand years or 10,000, or a million years. A civilization like that will have acheived far more in physics than we can probably comprehend, including ways to travel much more easily than we do. Advanced civilizations are not going to be launching rockets with 80,000 year ETAs. No, they'll pop through dimensional gates and be someplace else in moments. We don't know how such things could work but neither did our ancestors 200 hundred years ago know how to build a 747. We do. Someday we will know how to jump between the stars too.

However, alien visitation on the earth is not as simple as showing up.

One, we may not see it or recognize it when it happens. It could be easily misinterpreted or missed entirely. Two, aliens may not care. If they can travel the universe, they will have mastered resources and not need anything they can find here. Mars does not need women or our water or gold. Three, out of all the millions of species on the planet Earth, from bacteria, to fish in the sea to the birds in the sky, to the mammals on the land, we humans are the ONLY species that has such an intense need to tell stories around our figurative campfires and share them that we invented ways to share those stories and communicate over distances. Radio. TV. Etc. If only ONE species out of millions here did it, then it is reasonable to expect that the universe could indeed be full of life but few or none of them have any similar need to share stories, or ability. Afterall, most of the life on this planet is either bacterial or insect and none of them are broadcasting.

Extrapolate this out and it vastly reduces any chance we might hear something. That doesn't mean we're alone. Just that maybe nobody else needs to make sitcoms.

Re:I don't see it.

[L4t3r4lu5]

And his sausage on a plate he left in his kitchen covered 98% of the world's surface.

Is Lister still a good representation of the current state of Humanity on earth?

Re:I don't see it.

[L4t3r4lu5]

We also imprisoned homosexuals, were just getting around to abolishing slave labour fully, and there was no such thing as rock, reggae, tanks, trench warfare, and we were only just starting to use Vacuum Tubes. It would also be 10 years until we discovered the building blocks of life with any real accuracy. DNA was discovered earlier, but it wasn't identified until 1952 as being responsible for hereditary traits.

It would be very different.

Just curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

How good does this "Mazlan Othman" taste? Why do I ask? I'm just curious, that's all...

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Baby Steps

[Anonymous Coward]

dude seriously,

you are showing the signs of schizophrenic paranoia - seek professional help. no really.

Science?

[wisnoskij]

But does science not basically say: yes their is most likely a lot of life out their, but with with the maximum speed being light and with the planets so far away we are unlikely to find any unless we have expanded to many many planets and long distance space flight become common (meaning most likely thousands of years from now minimum).
Thoe we or them could just get lucky and some of the first planets we try could have life. But at least for us that will not likely be for a few hundred years and it would almost certainly be unmanned.

But then if we have the chance, no matter how small, of discovering alien life within a few hundred years then their is no reason that an Alien civilization could not do it with us right now.

Re:Science?

[Teancum]

This isn't the realm of science but rather philosophers. There are physicists who have dabbled in the realm of cosmology (originally a branch of theology but now something more concrete in the physical sciences) that have in turn speculated on alien races and the likelihood that we would encounter one of them. At best, the Drake Equation is about the only really "hard" scientific statement about the likelihood of aliens, and even that is mostly pure conjecture and not even a hypothesis.

If there are aliens "out there", they are already here, or we will be those aliens that are conquering the universe instead. I've heard it speculated that we could completely fill up the Milky Way galaxy in about 200,000-300,000 years with nothing but a Bussard ram-jet or nuclear rockets as a species. What a galaxy filled with people would be doing is only a raw guess, but this is a time span that is so small compared with the age of the universe that it shows a similar alien race building spacecraft and flying between stars should have been here a long time ago, presuming that they have even attempted interstellar travel.

Re:Science?

[wisnoskij]

I completely disagree it is not the realm of philosophers. philosophers cannot give us probabilities of the likelihood of other life on other planets, that has to do with chemistry and physics.

and that figure (200,000-300,000) I assume if a absolute maximum, and would likely be completely unfeasible.

It very well might not take into account many management problems, like just because you transfered 10 people to a planet does not mean they will be able to accomplish much in terms of population growth or building (even though the species will be growing back on planet earth).
and eventually if we are relying on the population growth from earth (or other early plants) for the figure then their is the problem of earth running out of materials to build space craft and just being far away from uninhabited planets.

and that is not even mentioning that trips would take at the minimum a little less then 1 lifetime (so who would even want to go to another planet if it means spending your entire life on a spaceship).

and when inhabiting many planets their would be a big risk of some of them being bombarded by apocalypse sized asteroids or other planet killing phenomenon.

and that figure seems like it would require a lot of procreation, and if that were to continue even a few hundred years after empty planets ran out then the entire race could have some serious population problems.

So basically I am saying that would take a lot of luck, a completely dominate totalitarian government that lasts the entire 200,000-300,000 years, a really strong desire to populate the entire galaxy, and probably some technology to freeze people during transport so that they do not run out of food (and so that they do not have to spend their entire life aboard a spacecraft).

Re:Science?

[Teancum]

I believe that over the next couple of centuries we are going to have a whole bunch of experience at colonizing new worlds and learning how to move stuff around in space. On top of that, we as a species are going to be very much aware of what is needed to maintain habitability.

BTW, I don't think it would take a totalitarian government to spread mankind around in this way. Do you realize the time span here? I'm suggesting that once you get people "out there" in between the stars that they are not going to be content to stay put in one place but will continue to spread out and more significantly they will also reproduce, make more spaceships and spread out just like all life does when it encounters an empty niche. I'm basing this upon ethnographic studies done for how mankind spread throughout the Americas doing nothing more than simply being a hunter-gatherer nomads that had some babies and those with wanderlust moved on to build a new tribal group in another location after a generation or two.

This isn't luck, it is simply adapting to the environment and being able to cope with what you find. Life grows and thrives. BTW, yes it would require a whole lot of procreation. That seems to be a rather constant topic on Slashdot in some form or another where many people are even obsessed with the concept.

As far as how to feed astronauts are going to be able to eat and live their lives as they travel between stars..... my point was the basic presumption that there was some reasonable means of interstellar travel where people could at least travel between nearby stars. There are plenty of stars within 50 light-years of the Earth including more than a couple that are strong candidates for "Earth-like" planets or at least places where people could in theory make a home with some technology. The trick is going to be settling the first few worlds, but do you really think it is going to take us another billion years before a creature from the Earth is going to travel to another star system?

Re:Baby Steps

[Anonymous Coward]

That's very interesting Caller, but tonight we are talking about how and why Kenny Rogers was behind the Kennedy Assassination. Next we have a Clyde from east of the Rockies. You're on Caller.

Now you're talking!

Let's put one of the hosts of Coast to Coast AM in the place of this brainiac. Art Bell (past host) or George Noory (present). would jump at the chance. Failing them; why not Howard Stern.

Huh

[cheekyjohnson]

They seem to have covered for themselves. If an alien spoke to me somehow, I'd warn them of the overall stupidity of our race and tell them that the humans will likely just betray them in the end for whatever stupid reason they can come up with when they're done using them (and hope the aliens aren't the same way). Honestly, though, I think that any life form intelligent enough to build technology capable of traversing such huge distances would be more than intelligent enough to stay away from such an idiotic species.

Yes, she will

[Anonymous Coward]

And actually say: Sorry-lah, Rosmah is still doing her hair. Can you please wait for a minute or two?

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[account_deleted]

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Lady in question is denying it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian apparently got an email from her: ""It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story.". Whether that's "I have to admit it's not true because it isn't" or "I have to admit it's not true because I've been told to" is a different matter I guess.

Ok question:

[kenp2002]

Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?

We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population. If the majority lifeform "rules" the planet it would strike me as odd that aliens would consider us the owners of the planet mearly by virtual of intelligence. If anything there is the possibility they would see us as an unfair blight of a minority species taking a vastly significant share of real estate from the bulk of lifeforms. They might go so far as to cull the herd to ensure the bulk of the lifeforms have a porportional access to Earth. Since we are less then 1% of the lifeforms on Earth, why assume we would get much of a say.

As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."

If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.

It would stike me as more intelligent to survey the bulk of lifeforms and find out what the majority needs to continue to survive. While not intelligent I would expect an ambassador for "those that cannot speak for themselves" to have been appointed who subsequently surveys the ecosystem as a whole.

It is hard to claim Earth has human-kind's personal planet when A: We don't manage it very well and B: are a tiny fraction of the population.

Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.

Re:Ok question:

[vlm]

Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?

Because of our great spelling skills, and furthermore we're the best at rishathra, or so I read. If that woman ever reads the ringworld books, its gonna be awkward.

Re:Ok question:

[ceejayoz]

We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population.

We are the only lifeform that can change that fact if we feel like it.

Re:Ok question:

[electron sponge]

Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?

Because their interactions with ant colonies would be disappointingly one-sided.

Re:Ok question:

[c6gunner]

Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?

Why are you commenting on slashdot instead of having tea and crumpets with the roaches under your sink?

Re:Ok question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing confers ownership, and only survival mandates responsibility. Our survival is much less coupled to ecological phenomenon that most other species due to our mobility and intelligence. However, we sustain a livable environment to promote our survival, and the survival of many other species. Although we aren't doing a great job, we certainly aren't totally botching it up. I believe this makes your judgment overly critical - as far as I can tell, we are the only species even trying to take action to preserve ecosystems.

Re:Ok question:

[Anonymous Coward]

As an intelligent alien I can assure you I'm not going to travel thousands of light years to ensure the biodiversity of your planet. Nor do I have any interest in playing with your reproductive organs, get over yourself. Seriously, an infinite number of species go extint every second in this Universe why would we care about those on your world? "Ambassador for those that cannot speak for themselves"? HA! We didn't climb to the top of the Galactic food chain by worrying about silly things like this. If it makes you feel any better, our fleet will be arriving in your year 2012 to harvest all humans and maybe take some gold. However, all the poor speechless animals will be able to roam free, so I guess that's a good thing in your mind. Silly humans, you are as entertaining as you are delicious.

Re:Ok question:

[Blakey Rat]

We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population.

Assuming you mean "on Earth," that's one hell of a "one of the".

As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."

Seriously? Of all the movies you could cite... seriously?

If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.

So would you be ok with the US swooping down on, for example, Bangladesh and sterilizing half the population? (I mean, how else do you plan to "restrict their ability to breed?") If an alien came down and did that, would you cheer them on? I'm asking seriously.

Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.

Possibly; but we're getting better at it each and every day. 10,000 years ago, we (humanity) wiped out every large mammal on 3 continents without shedding a tear. Hell, the UK was whaling into the mid-50s. Now we spend millions of dollars preserving them.

And it's not like Gorillas would do a better job of it, not right off the bat at least.

Re:Ok question:

[kryliss]

I find it hard to believe that an advanced civilization would come (x) light years to our little planet so they could make sure that Bambi and Thumper have their fair share of the planet. As to why would they seek to make contact with humans? Look around. We are the dominant life form on this planet. Cities, roads, etc.... but who knows.. IANAA

Re:Ok question:

[pclminion]

If the majority lifeform "rules" the planet it would strike me as odd that aliens would consider us the owners of the planet mearly by virtual of intelligence. If anything there is the possibility they would see us as an unfair blight of a minority species taking a vastly significant share of real estate from the bulk of lifeforms. They might go so far as to cull the herd to ensure the bulk of the lifeforms have a porportional access to Earth. Since we are less then 1% of the lifeforms on Earth, why assume we would get much of a say.

This is called "anthropomorphizing" -- ascribing human tendencies, beliefs, and behaviors to non-human entities. For some reason there are a contingent of people who seem to think that space aliens will have a morality which is essentially the same as that of a mid-1990's environmental terrorist from the Pacific Northwest. Well, I think that's about as likely as discovering that they are all adherents of the Baha'i faith, or that they enjoy a fine Earl Grey. In other words, not fucking likely.

Re:Ok question:

[khallow]

This is called "anthropomorphizing" -- ascribing human tendencies, beliefs, and behaviors to non-human entities. For some reason there are a contingent of people who seem to think that space aliens will have a morality which is essentially the same as that of a mid-1990's environmental terrorist from the Pacific Northwest. Well, I think that's about as likely as discovering that they are all adherents of the Baha'i faith, or that they enjoy a fine Earl Grey. In other words, not fucking likely.

OTOH, anthropomorphizing works a lot better than wiggling our fingers while peering off into the distance, and saying "Who can understand their mysterious ways". It's at least an attempt to think alien. Even if the thought processes are alien, the game probably isn't.

Re:Ok question:

[Mindcontrolled]

Why are you commenting on slashdot instead of having tea and crumpets with the roaches under your sink?

Because occasionally I need a break from all that intellectual discussion, so I turn to slashdot for some mindless entertainment.

False?

[mwsw]

This story might be somewhat false.

• http://newslite.tv/2010/09/27/un-reported-alien-ambassador-r.html
• http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/69229,people,news,alien-ambassador-mazlan-othman-denies-reports
• ...

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[account_deleted]

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Aliens are not green...most of them

[jonfr]

Most aliens are not green. Most of them have skin color like us. Some even look exactly like us, but there internal works differently.

I am not saying that because I am Star Trek / Babylon 5 / Sci-fi fan. A common form for humanoids is that of the human race, to some extended. I am sure there are other forms too. Like insectoids, reptileloids and so forward.

I also want to make it clear that I am not one of those crazy UFO hunters. Those people are crazy. It is also a fact that dish looking space ship is quite bad for flying and stuff like that.

I did consider posting Anonymously. But dedicated to go against it. Even if I might get a little bit ridiculed in coming comments.

Re:Aliens are not green...most of them

[Grogan The Destroyer]

Sarah Palin is an alien. Her last name rhymes with alien. Therefore she is.

UFO Deception

[knowthetruth]

It is essential for everyone to know the truth behind the UFO deception. Please find out more from the following links: http://www.thebereancall.org/node/5840 http://www.letusreason.org/NAM24.htm http://www.crossroad.to/text/search_results.html?cx=015736079649539019301%3A-bdcqxfnx98&cof=FORID%3A11&q=UFO&sa=Search&siteurl=www.crossroad.to%2Ftext%2Fsearch.html http://www.understandthetimes.org/

This is good for when first contact is made public

[Tetsujin]

This is good for when info about aliens goes public - In the mean time, first contact will continue to be conducted under the auspices of UNIT...

They should have chose Will Smith

[Drummergeek0]

Who better to welcome the aliens to Earf?

Re:They should have chose Will Smith

[zombieChan51]

Who better to welcome the aliens to Earf?

Sean Connery

Nothing to see here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

She is actually the person responsible for a huge hype in our country, when the male part-time model Muszaphar Shukor followed Mark Shuttleworth (and a number of others) as a space tourist; only to be known as an 'astronaut', and the first Malaysian astronaut by the Malaysian population. Mazlan Othman had actually been in charge to bump up a trip financed by the Malaysian tax payer, to a full-fledged astronautic experience. At least in the eyes of the Malaysians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Muszaphar_Shukor gives the details.

And we should care, why?

[jav1231]

The U.N. is a joke. Corruption, brutal regimes named to civil rights posts, IPCC. I mean seriously, this is the job I want. Sit around collecting a check for something that will not happen in my lifetime.

Re:And we should care, why?

[shugah]

The US is a joke. Corruption, brutal torture of prisoners, climate science deniers. I mean seriously, this is the job I want. Sit around collecting a check for something that will not happen in my lifetime.

Fixed.

Re:And we should care, why?

[PPH]

The webmaster job at http://www.recovery.gov/ was already filled?

Re:And we should care, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.N. is a joke. Corruption, brutal regimes named to civil rights posts, IPCC. I mean seriously, this is the job I want. Sit around collecting a check for something that will not happen in my lifetime.

This piece of entertainment/news is now acknowledged to be the actual joke, and is it surprising that its effect is once again to try to undermine the credibility of the UN and doesn't this make your comment that of a tool?

Thank you.

Re:And we should care, why?

[jav1231]

The U.N. would have actually have credibility in order for it to be undermined.

As for the troll above, just because someone points out the ineptitude of the IPCC report doesn't mean they don't understand that the climate is changing or that they deny it.

Re:And we should care, why?

[mjwx]

just because someone points out the ineptitude of the IPCC

By ineptitude the OP means they found a few typo's and one date transposed. It's not like the IPCC report was updated once the typo's were found... oh yeah, it was.

I thought

[JustOK]

I thought U.N.I.T. was in charge of stuff like that. Or Capt Jack Harkness. Or maybe The Doctor.

Here's the thing

[somaTh]

Do we really need someone appointed to be the guy who says "we surrender"? Honestly, if an alien race can make it here, they've already got a key piece of tech required for conquering us. We can only hope they come in peace and haven't been watching our broadcasts TOO closely.

Language Barrier

[lymond01]

Wait a second. Just how do we know these space aliens speak Malaysian or whatever language Malaysians speak? Shouldn't we put forward a proper English speaking delegate, someone with a little charisma and flair? I nominate Bill Clinton or Rowdy Roddy Piper. Or Tony Stark...wasn't he great in that Iron Man movie?

Re:Language Barrier

[Drathos]

She just needs to remember the universal greeting..

Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong!

Re:Language Barrier

[lymond01]

"Did you say the words?"
"Mostly."

Re:Language Barrier

[Surt]

We should indeed put forward an English speaking delegate, since the largest part of the translation material we've been beaming at them for decades has been in English. There is no human language they are more likely to know.

Re:Language Barrier

[shugah]

Most Malaysians speak Malay, Chinese and English.

Why don't aliens land at MIT?

[PatPending]

Why do aliens land at some remote location and abduct the village idiot?

If aliens were smart, they'd land at MIT or Cal-Tech.

Re:Why don't aliens land at MIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

All aliens want to do is anal probing. If they were smart they'd go to San Fransico.

Funding/Salary

[dbkluck]

Designating a point-person in advance, even for something extremely improbable, doesn't sound like a bad idea. Sort of like designating the presidential line of succession out to 20-odd places: it's very unlikely that all of the first 19 are going to die at the same time, but if they did, it would be at a time of unimaginable national catastrophe, and precisely the wrong moment to have any doubt about who was in charge. Likewise, in the unlikely event ET does show up tomorrow, it would be a terribly chaotic period as governments, scientists, armies, and religious leaders struggle to come to terms with its implications. Ticking this off the list of stuff to worry about is probably worthwhile.

ASSUMING the cost is negligible. If the position comes with a separate salary, that seems like a blatant misuse of UN funds. After all, we don't pay the US Secretary of Veterans Affairs extra money for being president-in-waiting.

Re:Baby Steps

[Teancum]

Kennedy assassinated? That was just a cover-up so that he could be an ambassador to the aliens, who was in turn succeeded by Elvis Presley and proceeded by Amelia Earhart. This new guy being appointed by the UN is just the latest in a whole series of ambassadors to the aliens going back for more than a century...... .... or so I've heard from Art Bell's Coast to Coast. Now that is a reliable source of information as good as I've ever found.

Ambassador to Atlantis

[josech]

I'd apply for UN Ambassador to Atlantis.

Is this a paying job?

[clay_shooter]

Of course if they wrote the job posting like they do in high tech...

• Applicants must have 15 years experience dealing with extra-terrestrials.
• Applicants must be fluent at least 3 different alien languages.
• Require at least two references
• Pay is DOE not to exceed $50/hour.

Wrong person...

[thoughtsatthemoment]

...'cause iContact belongs to Steve Jobs.

I nominate Keanu Reeves

[RockyPersaud]

If Mr. Reeves is unable to fulfill his duties, then the Deputy Ambassador, the guy who played Ted in the Bill & Ted movies, would be responsible for talking with the aliens.

What??

[mikazo]

She ain't no Zefram Cochrane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zefram_Cochrane

The Minor planet center

[Anonymous Coward]

The minor planet center is the body tasked with the designation of asteroids. Observers send their observations to the MPC
(in an antedeluvian ascii format not unlike fortran fixed form, you can't ask ) which then process them (identification with an already known satellites,
orbit computation ...).

Re:Baby Steps

[TheGratefulNet]

yeah, he just got back to see what condition his condition was in.

Today's UFO/Nukes Press Conference

[Doc Ruby]

I'd like to hear what this new "leader" has to say about the press conference going on right now in DC about documented UFO interference with US nuke weapons facilities.

Damn!

[Quiet_Desperation]

I am so gunning for that job starting right now.

Aliens: Greeting, human worm baby.
QD: Hi, I'm the supreme ruler here!
Aliens: Shall we parlay?
QD: No need. You can have the planet in exchange for an FTL star cruiser, the equivalent of ten billion dollars in your currency and a map to all the fun places in the galaxy.
Aliens: Done and done. Does your species serve irrational rulers well?
QD: They whine and moan a lot, but after a while they'll actually vote for you.

Hell, I'd sell you lot out for far, far less, but might as well aim high.

Re:Damn!

[zombieChan51]

I laughed so hard after reading that. Spraying Coffee all over my desk hard.

arrogant humans

[oliverthered]

we are already here and in communication with 'your' bacteria.

You're special!

[Quiet_Desperation]

Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?

Trees are lousy conversationalists.

And maybe superintelligent aliens have evolved beyond dreary, weepy, emo-goth kid, warmed over nihilism that uses Keanu Reeve movies to make their (for lack of a better term) point.

You have made Sad Keanu even sadder. :-(

They tried this in district 9..

[roadhog95]

..and look what poor Wikus got for his trouble??? Fuck the prawn!!! (district 9 movie)

I think we have the wrong idea here

[aekafan]

Instead of eating us, what if their first action is to give us a book titled "How to serve man" ?

Nod, wink

[Anonymous Coward]

"Othman said, "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it.""

Of COURSE you do....

Denial

[PPH]

But that's exactly what we'd expect from the advance scout of our alien overlords.

Watch Othman closely and see if he blinks horizontally with an inner set of eyelids.

Grr

[MacGyver2210]

Damn you Wikipedia! I start out looking at Kessler Syndrome and two hours and dozens of links later I'm reading about the Planck constant, Hawking Radiation, and Inertial Confinement Fusion.

UN Bureaucrat to meet Aliens, Planet is doomed

[Biggseye]

Really!! I find it hard to believe that an alien race would travel many light years to meet a UN Bureaucrat that has little to no power or importance in the actual scheme of things. They would be better off talking to the local Barbershop owner. I am sure that they would scope out the place before making contact. Hopefully who every meets them will be level headed, open minded, and not need a change of shorts in the first 5 seconds. At this point in time there is not a head of state in the world I would want them to meet. Actually I think I would have them meet Queen Elizabeth II. Not that she has any power, or she represents a world power, but she is, in my humble opinion, the classiest Lady in the world. If anyone could make a great impression it is her. she is tough and dignified. She knows the way the world works, and has the respect of a huge percentage of the world's population, Of course this assumes they come in peace and want to be our friends.

Are you all feeling sheepish now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you all feeling sheepish now? This appointment IS "BS". Unfortunately, the BS part is the report that this is the job to be done.

Oopsie doopsie.

Note who the one who sprang this story: the same man who fucked up the AGW witchhunt.

Jonathan Leake:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/leakegate_leake_based_story_re.php

He has form for making shit up. And because it puts the UN in the bad, it was swallowed.

How advanced..?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were aliens with sufficiently advanced technology to locate human civilization and make contact within the tiny amount of time during which we've been distinguishable from the non-technological animals, we should probably assume that they will find us interesting in the same way that we find ants interesting. I'm sure they'll be really intrigued to hear all about our various super-governmental communication bureaucracies.

Shameless, aren't you. So long as you bash the UN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shameless, aren't you. So long as you bash the UN, you don't care what you hear.

Go have a look at the talk she's supposed to give detailing her "new role".

Go on.

Do you see it in there?

No.

You don't know which one because you don't want it to be a made up story because you WANT this to be a Quango with the UN "proven" incompetent.

Note Jonathan Leake has made up several stories before that have had to be retracted because they were completely made up bollocks.

Just what we need

[hargrand]

Another overpaid UN official... and I don't care how much she earns off this post. She'll still be overpaid.

Actually they have two sexes...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two sexes in the human species. Genders are how society views those sexes and assigns them roles in language and thought. So in Slashdot tradition:

In Soviet Russia, gender is masculine, feminine and neuter by assignment.
In Soviet America, gender is masculine and neuter, by default.

The UN

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm glad it's the UN, since they UNnazied the world. I trust those guys, they make brawndo.

Life imitates art

[marcsiry]

In the movie "Men In Black," Tommy Lee Jones' character makes an offhand remark to the effect of, "The aliens didn't make contact until we indicated serious interest in making contact by setting up the Men In Black program."

I wonder at what threshold the aliens browse /.?

More than too good to be true

[Anonymous Coward]

The supposed alien ambassador's name is Mazlan Othman? M. Othman. MOTHMAN?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman

Glad to hear!

[avatar139]

Nice to know that the head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce is finally getting the public recognition that the job deserves!

Bill Cooper

[Anonymous Coward]

Approx 3:10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ULQeeV4_HI

Hello humans!

[V!NCENT]

"We are going to blow up your planet so we can build an intergalactic highway. Is there anything you want to know?"
-"Yes! Is there a God? What's the purpose of life?"
"Oh, uh... 42. Now get out of our way, please."

Have you ever thought about...

[Ian-K]

...the possibility that aliens are not really non-native to this planet?

That maybe some species used to live here beforehand and they sort of fly back to see how are the current inhabitants doing? Some particular theories go as far as saying we're the 24th species to walk this planet (or maybe the 24th iteration of some species ;) .
Another plausible view is that they've sort-of been around all along, but either they were out of sight well enough (Martians :P) or they can assume a human physique as desired?

I've been through all the alien-thing scenarios and all the above seem plausible, if you think outside the human box...

Then there's of course the UFO conspiracy theorists/evangelists (for lack of a better term) like Alex Jones, that actually have been warning the people for the last couple of years that this is actually about to happen and that the baddies will be the first to show up and try to pass as our saviours (hinting that the good guys might show up second...)

Anyways... there's a lot of good and bad info out there on these topics and gladly I spent the last year wading through them. For me the bottom line is to keep yourself educated and keep an observant mind about what's happening, both in terms of our "earthly" overlords and their "offworld" apprentices.

Baba

[dababaman]

The US administration is preparing the public for the general disclosure about E.T.s and what the protocols are once encountered.... Then, UN appoints a Malay physicist then takes it back? or not confirming it? There's talk as well about a fake alien encounter to unite the masses. Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of The Grand Chessboard, states that, "the only way humanity on Earth will unite is when we are threatened from an external source." What do you think will happen? - baba - http://urdudaan.com/ http://iphwn.ca/

Holy Haleakala!

[w0mprat]

I nominate Phil Plait for amabassador.

Not a man or a woman, its a MOTHMAN

[EvilDroid]

Nobody's noticed, its M. Othman? As in MOTHMAN?