A fun microcosm of the UN in action: Not only are they willfully embarrassing themselves, but should the day ever come when an envoy is needed, their plan will go straight out the window as nations jockey furiously for position in the E.T. receiving line.

Let’s face it. If they landed tomorrow and said “Take me to your leader,” they’d be taken to Obama. And then he’d take them to the AFL-CIO.

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth’s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN’s little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire…

Professor Richard Crowther, an expert in space law and governance at the UK Space Agency and who leads British delegations to the UN on such matters, said: “Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a ‘take me to your leader’ person.”

Uh huh. Truth be told, I think this is one job for which President Spock might be well suited. Human emotion is a risky proposition when dealing with the lizard people, as they might not fully understand it. No worries about that with O. Plus, any leader dealing with a potential enemy whose arsenal is bigger than his own would naturally want to show extreme deference lest he provoke a confrontation. He’s got that covered too. And the best part? If it did happen, we’d get a fresh round of polls asking, “Is Obama secretly one of the lizard people?” 20 percent or bust!

Exit question: Dude?

Update (9/28): Too good to check?

The Royal Society knew nothing about it. The United Nations referred all queries to the switchboard of Unoosa in Vienna. Its switchboard number wasn’t much help. “The person at extension 4951 is unavailable, please leave your message after the tone,” it said. Those messages might make for some interesting listening today.

Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. “It sounds really cool but I have to deny it,” she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she’ll be talking about how the world deals with “near-Earth objects”.