A closing thought. The UN this week also named somebody to advise the world about talking to creatures from outer space when they arrive here.
Except they didn't: it was a hoax. UN representative Mazlan Othman, who was allegedly being lined up for the role of speaker-to-aliens, wrote in an email:
"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".
As far as I know, Stockwell is the most prominent Western politician to have been taken in by the hoax.
