By Laura Twomey
You may have read recently about the proposed appointment of a space ambassador by the UN. The ambassador would be tasked with coordinating humanity’s response if (and when) extraterrestrials make contact. You may laugh at the notion, but you cannot deny that the headline was intriguing.
Well, tin foil hats at the ready, readers! There’s a lot more to the story than a job vacancy. The articles suggested that Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, was about to be offered the job. So what’s the problem? Well, it was all a lie. Completely made up. The whole story, with its name dropping of Stephen Hawking, its apparent wish to appoint Othman, and complete with big-cheese UN sources, sounded credible. And who is going to discredit a UN source these days?
Othman, later contacted by the Guardian, said she had no knowledge of the job but that ‘it sounded cool’. The UN office in question later denied any reports too, hitting out at the initial article in the Sunday Times.
So I asked myself, as a closeted enthusiast of all things interstellar, why was this story released, to such traction with the media, when it was based on not much more than folly and wishful thinking? Why did it receive so much coverage when, on the same day across the Atlantic, a much more interesting story was unfolding?
You may argue that such is the nature of modern news coverage, but when it comes to matters extraterrestrial, there’s always a more crazy explanation. So here comes the interesting part, and please allow me to indulge in a bit of conspiracy theorising. (And who doesn’t like a good conspiracy anyway?) Just hours after the ambassador story broke, and the media got their ‘crackpot’ story of the day quota filled, a press conference was held in The Press club in Washington D.C. Held to promote a new book, the conference was organised by author Robert Hastings. Seven former US air force personnel were in attendance.
There was a surprisingly lacklustre turnout of journalists, for a conference that dropped a shocking bombshell. The revelations contained in the book were nothing short of explosive. And before you ask, the following is all fact, not the script of a Will Smith movie…
That afternoon, it was revealed by the men present, that UFOs had been interfering with American nuclear weapons. It was claimed that these alleged UFOs had descended from the skies, activated and deactivated launch codes, and that they had disabled all the weapons. The author of the book released declassified documents and witness testimony in his possession from the aforementioned air force personnel. These men confirmed beyond doubt the claims laid down in Hastings’ book. They had all been in charge of the missiles at various points in their career.
The men clearly understood the act of perjury and had signed affidavits. The claims seemed legitimate. Even to the most hardened skeptic, the information revealed is hard to dispute. Well, that may be stretching it, but it must be at least acknowledged that this is among the most credible accounts of UFO activity in recent times.
The Air Force men present claimed that the mysterious craft were sending us a message via their behaviour and activities. The signal was that we are ‘playing with fire’. They claimed that the weapons in our possession threaten the future of the human race, and the integrity of the planet’s environment, which is frankly an indisputable reality. This is probably a lesson Moscow, Washington and Pyongyang should learn.
They almost certainly won’t, not least because most people heard nothing about the conference, while reams were published about the fake ambassador post. Although the Washington Post was present, a bastion of good journalism, the author of the follow up article stated he had only gone to the meeting because the press club “had good cookies”. For such an important revelation, any reporting of it had an air of parody. No doubt if the conference had revealed that a terrorist group had been remotely controlling nuclear weapons, the coverage would have been significantly more extensive.
So, was the ambassador story a big cover up from the corridors of power to overshadow the press conference? Do the UN and other governments know a lot more about potential intelligent life beyond our world than they are letting on? Are we letting the mainstream media distract us from what’s really going on in our universe? Should I just take The X-Files out of my life and replace it with The X Factor? Answers on a postcard please, because I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s in the dark about this…
