About 30 years ago (where has all the time gone!) I wrote an article for this newspaper about what would actually occur if, by some remote chance, extra terrestrial aliens made contact with Earth.
Despite some guffawing from certain quarters, my article was current and pertinent because it had just been acknowledged by the United States that, in preparation for a possible ‘First Encounter’, they had set up a permanent ‘Foreign Affairs’ unit comprising diplomats, linguists, code-breakers and defence experts who would form the ‘front line’ should aliens make contact.
While they weren’t as open about it as the Americans, it was reported that the British and Russians had done the same thing.
Several efforts on my part to enquire if the Irish authorities had also considered the possibility of an alien visit met with blank stares and slammed down phones until I made contact with a Captain David Ashe who was then handling media enquiries for the Army.