UNOOSA should nominate Kirsan Ilyumzhinov instead

I was reading in yesterday's newspapers that Dr Mazlan Othman, who is Malaysia’s first astrophysicist, will soon become Earth’s first official point-of-contact with aliens if they come a-calling. 

Dr Mazlan heads the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa) and will be the nearest thing that we have to a “take me to your leader” person when she takes on the new role, according to online portal www.news.com.au.

Dr Mazlan was reported to have told fellow scientists recently of an increased likelihood in the meeting with alien life after a discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars.

"The United Nations must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any first contact. The continued search for extraterrestrial communication by several entities sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials. When we do, we should have in place a co-ordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject."

However, with all due respects to Dr Mazlan -- by the way, I met her three years ago up at a Penang Hill function -- Unoosa has it all wrong on two counts. First, what do they mean by "if they come a-calling"? There are no if's about it. The extraterrestrials have already come a-calling. Don't believe it? Just ask Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. This eccentric soon-to-be-ousted leader of the autonomous Kalmyk Republic in the Russian Federation has claimed to be in contact with aliens. Not only once, mind you, but on many occasions in 1997. And this brings me to the second point. If ever we need to name an alien ambassador, shouldn't Kirsan be the high-profile first choice? My vote goes to him! Anytime. Anywhere. 

He's quite proud and candid about it, actually. He wears it like a personal badge. Where others would have withdrawn into a shell and undergone psychiatric treatment for an alien encounter, Kirsan has even gone forth to talk about his experience openly. Just recently, newspapers around the world began talking of his claims again. Here are the salient excerpts from The Independent newspaper:

You do realise, he asks, that chess is a "cosmic game"? Excavations have shown that chess was played with similar rules, in various continents, centuries ago, he says, adding: "There was no internet before, so how did it get across the world? It means that it was brought from somewhere."

He also insists that there is "some kind of code" in chess, evidence for which he finds in the fact that there are 64 squares on the chessboard and 64 codons in human DNA. He then explains why he believes sweetcorn was brought to Earth by a different civilisation. "I'm not ill. I'm psychologically normal," he says. "I didn't hide it [the contact with aliens] even though I knew that people would laugh at me and say I was crazy. Maybe it was a form of self-sacrifice."

His main goal ... is to increase the number of chess players in the world from 600 million to a billion. And he has serious reasons for wanting this to happen. "Above us, they are looking at us, and maybe they will get tired of us, and suddenly..." he tails off, making dramatic gestures of destruction. "How can we save ourselves from them? Only though intellect, concentration and spiritual energy. If a billion people are in these chess centres, playing chess, the world will have positive energy."

Sorry, Dr Mazlan, I think you have already been upstaged by Kirsan. The politician overshadows the technocrat once again. :-(