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Alien Contact Illegal in US
Hard_Code writes "Apparently it is illegal for United States citizens to make contact with aliens and their vehicles. " This is bizarre as hell. Not much in the way of proof, but its still pretty interesting. I'll definitely be giving extra terrestrials the silent treatment next time they try to abduct me. Update: 10/30 05:55 by CT : several people pointed out that this
is an Urban Legend. Pretty cool.
Yes, but does talking to aliens count as 'export'? If it does, then people in US can't talk to aliens securely (without breaking the law) , but those in the rest of the world can.
The thing that worries me is that the US government has developed the same paternalistic attitude to other cultures that has lead to the downfall of empires (including the British empire).
There is only one thing that bothers me with this story.
What do Rob mean by "NEXT time they try to abduct me"
When was last time ???
Well, i guess this means I can't e-mail my congressmen anymore :)
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
P.S. Very interesting, I got some errors when I tried to post this message - my browser refused to talk to www.slashdot.org (tried all 3 IPs). THEY'RE TRYING TO SILENCE ME!
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Stupid/senseless/blinkered/over-zealous laws are nothing new. As always, just ignore them.
Heck, on British motorways, only about 15% of drivers obey the speed limit. That's not because we're a nation of anarchists, but simply because there is no other recourse (this was never put to democratic vote, and politicians won't listen anyway), and stupid laws deserve contempt.
I sure hope that nobody who comes face-to-face with an extra-terrestrial is so totally lacking in gray matter that the first thing on their mind is whether contact is allowed by some politician. Sheesh. We'd lose all universe-cred.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I just checked out the Code of Federal regulations and that subsection they specify as containing this law doesn't exist. Take a look here for Title 14. It lists all the regs governing NASA.
let's see if I can copy this right..
http://www.cninews.com/Search/CNI.0199.html
This article says it is legal again, since 1991.
Which means it's been legal to talk to me since I was, oh, 23 or so.
Just to let people know, "The Star" is a tabloid, so I wouldn't trust any of this information. However, like most tabloid articles, it's pretty humorous. :)
You can find Title 14, Section 1211 (or rather, the lack thereof) at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cf r/14p1211.htm#14p1211s .
I know Rob can't personally verify every story before he posts it. But shouldn't you be a little more careful with a particularly implausible and inflammatory one, like this one? It took me ten minutes on Google to find this information.
(I hope this isn't a double post... my first version of this comment mysteriously vanished, along with about twenty other posts.)
MSK
http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/et-law.html says that the regulation in question was repealed in 1991. It's now OK to touch aliens in any way you like.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Well, in my opinion, I believe that this may actually be a good idea, to some degree. Imagine what happened to the native cultures when the Conquistadors landed in South America, but on a much larger scale. Any viral bodies that these "visitors" might be carrying could have devastating effects to humans.
Now, while I don't think that this is necessary legislation (if indeed it's actually in existence), I think that it may indeed be a good idea to at least ask those aliens to wash their hands before you let them in your house.
*sigh* repost because /. lost my original post.
I'm Agent Manhine and my Supervisor ( Agent Black ) Was able to confirm that this is indead ligit.
That 1 year jail term is realy a cover so we can recrute the best of those contacteas and "reeducate" the rest.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
and here I am on my way out the door to meet the ambassador from Arbarkulous Maalb for lunch.
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
1211 Removed in 1991 and I think its a page next to it 19259, but who the hell would have a copy of this thing on their shelf with THAT many pages...
t e.cgi?WAISdocID=203086071+14+0+0&WAISactio n=retrieve
.56 FR . ............57592 . ...................14191 . ....................19259
/.
:-)
http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisga
That is the line where I found it... If you're too lazy to go see it I'll paste that small section here...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1991
14 CFR
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page
Chapter V
1204.501 (a) revised..........................................
1204.503 (b), (f)(3)(i)(D), (ii), (g) and (i) revised.............57592
1204.504 (a), (e)(3)(ii)(B), (iii), (f) and (h) revised...........57592
1204.1400--1204.1407 (Subpart 14) Revised................35812
1205 Removed..........................................
1209.100--1209.104 (Subpart 1) Revised........................8910
1211 Removed..........................................
1213.102 (a) introductory text revised..............................66787
Hope the HTML works, I'm not too familiar with it on
[after preview] Ok... so you can't use PRE on the board? What a pain in the ass... So I formatted with Period's by hand... hope you all can read it
- 8Complex
There's a difference between Laws and Regulations, and CFR means Code of Federal Regulations. (14 CFR, for example, contains all the Federal Aviation Regulations: Parts 1 - 199.) Regulations are a civil, not a criminal, matter.
You cannot be imprisoned for violating a regulation, but other sanctions and fines can be applied. But you don't necessarily have the usual constitutional protections of due process etc. in a regulatory process.
The CFR's tend to be very technical, and the average congress person has no hope of understanding them. Try browsing Title 14. For example, 91.175 - Takeoff and Landing Under IFR.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Hey, I mean, If you saw an alien who needed to use your phone what would YOU do?
Probably the same thing Ed O'Neill did, and tell him about 1-800-COLLECT. Save fifty percent to all calls in the Orion Arm, sixty after Galactic Midnight.I'm going to be very unscientific, because I have no data on hand. However there have been numerous stories published in the major Western-US newspapers (where the speed limits tend to be raised) that show that the average speed over the limit decreases when limits are raised. People still speed, but by less. The claim here is that most people only speed by a few mph, while a handful still drive 15 mph over the limit. This frees up the law enforcement teams to ticket those drivers who are most dangerous, without making judgments about moderate speeders.
Take this with a grain of salt, as I don't have any studies or figures onhand to cite.
If you actually read the text of the law, which was repealed about 8 years ago (see other posts), it's quite clear that it's a provision for quarantine of things which have been in contact with another planet, i.e. a space probe which returns from mars, a manned mission to the moon, etc, on the off chance they could bring back viral or other contamination (the original apollo 11 astronauts were quarantined for exactly this reason, probably under that same law).
Nowhere does it mention contact with extraterrestrial BEINGS (maybe the confusion came from the use of the phrase "extra-terrestrial" in the (perfectly clear) sense of "beyond earth", but was interpreted in the E.T. sense by a credulous reader.
Alright, about ten minutes ago there were about two dozen comments-- where the hell did they all go??
Can you say "alien abduction"?
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
The reason that the viruses the conquistadors brought with them were a problem was because ultimately the natives and the spanish were biologically very similar. The genetic differences between ethnicities are very minor and viruses don't require much if any adaptation to jump from one to the other.
An alien virus would be adapted to effect the biology of alien species. The likelyhood that an alien species would be genetically similar to humans is INCREDIBLY slim. Thus the virus would get here, find no suitable host, and either die or go into some sort of hibernation state.
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This makes me ponder .. why was that law made ?? .. so much so that a law was made ??
That is as long back as 1969 isn't it ?? Doesn't this mean that even then they thought that Aliens can contact men
Hey on second thought.. that also opens up the chance that maybe, maybe even as way back as '69 Earthlings had made contact with Aliens.. oh maybe it is the other way around !
Manifest
... "follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind
"1211, talking to aliens is no fun!" chanted an angry crowd outside of Blockbuster today. Debbie Smith, local protester, had this to say, "Look at Drew Barrymore, she played with that little brown alien and look what happened to her - drugs, booze, sex, is this what we're trying to tell our young people?!?"
ACLU spokesman Kent Harris replied, "Talking to aliens is every man and woman's right. George Washington was a mason and all they do is talk to aliens, well sometimes they talk to scientologists but thats about the same thing."
The point about the Star being a tabloid is well-taken. Certainly it explains the bizarre slant given the story.
The regulation in question was the enforcement for the biological-isolation régime observed after Apollo 11, 12, and (I think) 14. Astronauts returning from the moon had to wear respirators and (at first) suits; the command module had to be sealed, and anything exposed in the course of getting the astronauts out of it disinfected; the crew had to spend a couple of weeks in a negative-pressure lab; workers exposed to moon rocks were also put in the lab.
It was done, not because anyone thought it likely that there were Moon Germs, but because if there were, it'd look stupid not to have taken precautions.
As with any quarantine, this had the force of law, and the power to enforce it resided, not in the Public Health Service or USAMRIID, but NASA, in the person of its administrator. That's all the reg said.
The reason the section says "RESERVED" is because of the text of the repeal document, which specifically stated that 14 CFR 1211.100-108 would be "removed and reserved." It is common practice to do this, since if the section were not reserved, laws below it would need to be renumbered in keeping with the CFR's layout.
FWIW: This law was probably passed as a security measure in case we did find anything and ticked them off badly. I suppose the government thought the only way they could get the people who were "contacted" to come in for examination was by brute force.
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How nice to hear. Don't forget that it was Nov. 3rd, 1883 that the Supreme Court declared Native Americans "aliens". With my being a Miami "Injun", just replying to my post would be illegal, and also touching my car.... Who would have thought that an alien would drive a Ford Taurus. Hey, I'll have that meter maid arrested! ~Jason Maggard "It's almost dawn and the cops are gone, let's all get dixie fried!"
Well all I can say is the part giving them the ability to quarintine contactees is VERY logical. After all you don't want to wipe out the population because of some nasty alien virus. Yeah I know it sounds like something from a bad sci-fi movie but it is something to be taken seriously. Especially if you consider the fact that a virus from earth survived 3 years on the moon and was brought back home by the Apollo astronauts.
This highly important aspect seems to have been ignored by the author, hoax or not.
So it might be legal now, but there were 22 years that made "ET Phone Home" illegal in America.
So maybe Steven Spielberg was encouraging kids to break federal law if they encounter wrinkly aliens?
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
of this, I think this little play is appropriate:
"ET phone home... ET PHONE HOME!!"
"Hell no.. I'm not allowed to have any sort of contact with you, I'll be damned if I let you use my phone!"
Hey, I mean, If you saw an alien who needed to use your phone what would YOU do?
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Killroy Woz Here