66 Japanese astronomers recently had a meeting about what to do should some extraterrestrial intelligence suddenly shows up and says, “Take me to your leader.”

The purpose of the meeting was to determine the national authorities to notify in the case that a signal from another world is received, but the astronomers were unable to reach a decision as to who exactly are the “national authorities.”

According to the Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence — a set of guidelines adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and other international astronomy organizations — the discoverer of an alien signal is strictly prohibited from informing the general public until after he/she verifies that the signal is extraterrestrial in origin, informs other observers or research organizations involved so that they can independently observe and monitor the signal, and notifies the “relevant national authorities.”

While these guidelines have existed for nearly 20 years, the Japanese SETI community has never formally discussed who exactly Japan’s “relevant national authority” is until this weekend’s conference.

No doubt the efforts of the astronomers were also hamstrung by the fact that there seem to be no real leaders in Japan these days.

Via Pink Tentacle