October Already An Auspicious Month for UFO Disclosure Advocates
Despite the October 13 Qinling Mountain UFO hoax and the concurrent NYC party balloon UFO flap, October will go down in history as an auspicious month for advocates of UFO disclosure.
The oldest scientific society in the world, Britain's Royal Society, held its second conference of the year exploring the implications of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and Mazlan Othman, Director of the United Nations' Office for Outer Space Affairs, reasoned publicly that, if it became necessary for the human race to engage in diplomatic talks with representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization, her office would be the most logical candidate for the job.
As reported by The Guardian on September 26, Othman said, "When we do (make contact), we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.”
It became a matter of some debate the extent to which the U.N. has worked out its "coordinated response," likewise the subtext (if any) of Mazlan's comments, but the fact remains that Mazlan is a U.N. official and she did say that "we should have in place a coordinated response."
Blind(-siding mainstream media) with science
The Royal Society's interest in the topic, on the other hand, is clear.
Following up its January 2010 conference, The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society, the Royal Society hosted Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life October 4-5.
Writing for MSNBC, UFO researcher Nick Pope, who attended the October conference at the Kavli Centre in Buckinghamshire, said, "I had to remind myself that I was at the Royal Society, not a sci-fi convention."
Pope, perhaps ufology's most circumspect spokesperson, also cleared up the confusion about Mazlan Othman, reporting that "Othman made it clear (speaking at the Royal Society conference) that the story (about her appointment by the U.N. as 'alien ambassador') was false and derived from a mistaken interpretation of the point she did make – that is, that her U.N. office and the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, or COPUOS, might be appropriate forums for managing the global response to the discovery of extraterrestrial life."
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