NASA to make MAJOR ALIENS REVELATION this week

Secret White House briefing rumours stoke SETI speculation

NASA has set the interwebs a-tremble with a teasing announcement to the global media that a news conference will be held in Washington DC on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life".

The space agency's routine ploy of trailing major briefings in advance has caused trouble before. In 2008, "revelations" that the White House had been informed of a NASA announcement's content before the media caused fevered speculation ahead of a briefing on data from the "Phoenix" polar Mars lander.

Some believed that life - or anyway hospitable conditions for it - had been found. Others said that no, in fact proof positive had been found that Mars could not harbour life, perhaps casting doubt on the value of the USA's ambitious plans to send a manned mission there.

In the event it turned out that nothing more had been discovered than the fact that Mars would actually be an ideal habitat for creatures along the lines of the Discworld dragons imagined by Terry Pratchett - that is they might have perchlorate-fuelled metabolisms prone to make them catch fire or explode when upset. (That's the gist of it, anyway.)

But, until the embargo on the NASA story this week ends, we can't reveal what it is that the space boffins are going to announce. Now is surely the time for wild and colourful speculation, not dull scientific fact.

Our assessment is that just like last time, the White House has received a secret advance briefing from NASA - quite possibly from the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, for instance. It's perfectly plausible, then, that even now the US government is in receipt of interstellar communications from beyond our solar system - perhaps a reasoned message or ultimatum etc from a highly developed civilisation, or alternatively a horrific, jumbled guff-blurt of the sort our own world (well, the now-moribund teenybopper web-2.0 socio-jibber-jabber portal Bebo) recently beamed into space.

If the latter, one can only imagine the consternation in the Oval Office recently as NASA delivered such translated messages from the great beyond as this one (actually sent toward the possible habitable planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 581 by an Earth being known as "nicole" – courtesy of Bebo and controversial Russian "active SETI" proponent Alexander Zaitsev – employing a powerful radar telescope located in the Ukraine):

Hi im nicole. my ambitions for when i am older is to perform, i love anything to do with drama and someday i would love to appear on the west end stage, in a hit show.i also wouldnt mind doing a few television programs whether it is as a extra or a main part i dont mind i would love to appear on doctor who as i love it. anyway laters.Nicole x

Transpose into the alien equivalents at your own discretion, or offer your conspiracy/ETs/etc theories as ever in the comments pages. ®