The BBC star opened up about what would occur if he found alien life
(Image: Radio X)
Professor Brian Cox has revealed how he left BBC bosses ‘panicked’ over potentially finding extraterrestrial life whereas filming one among his collection.
The 58-year-old Oldham native is a professor of particle physics within the Department of Physics and Astronomy on the University of Manchester and the Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science.
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Rising to fame within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties as a keyboard participant with the rock band Dare and D:Ream, Prof Brian is now identified for fronting numerous science programmes, together with his BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage and the Wonders of.
On prime of this, Prof Brian has launched quite a lot of well-liked science books, together with Why Does E=mc2, Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe, Human Universe and The Quantum Universe.
On Tuesday morning (March 10), Prof Brian joined Chris Moyles within the Radio X studio this morning. During their dialog, he recalled receiving a ‘panicked phone call’ from BBC bosses whereas presenting Stargazing Live with comic Dara Ó Briain.
Prof Brian was warned to not discover any proof of alien life whereas broadcasting as there wasn’t any protocol for what to do if he pulled off the not possible.
Chris stated: “I was reading about you, and it says that towards the end of last year it was announced that yourself – Brian Cox, Professor Brian Cox – you are the new UN Champion for Space.”
Prof Brian replied: “Yeah. The UN has a department called the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and it’s been there since the 1960s.
“And the joke is – it’s not even a joke – it’s the smallest office in the UN with the biggest remit, because its job is everything other than the Earth in the universe.”
Chris was then left surprised when Prof Brian revealed that his workplace could be the one contacted ‘if there was an alien invasion’.
“So, you remember Stargazing Live I used to do years ago with Dara Ó Briain? And there’s one episode of that, and it was live on BBC2, and we had this thing where we looked for exoplanets, which are planets around distant stars.
“And so, there’s all this data and people could phone in and do this thing and they could find planets. It was wonderful. And someone did! And so, we were at Jodrell Bank, this huge radio telescope, which you’ll know if you go to Manchester on the train, you pass it.
“And we turned it towards the star where this new planet had been found for a laugh, and saying, you know, ‘What happens if we hear them? We’ll try and contact them’,” he recalled.
The professor continued: ”And we had a panicked cellphone name from the BBC going, ‘What if we actually hear something? Because we don’t know what the regulations are. So, are we allowed to broadcast live that we’ve discovered an alien civilization? Who do we ring up?’
“And no person knew! So, they did not know what to do in the event that they detected dwell on-air indicators!”
Saying that it was a ‘really weird’ cellphone name to obtain, Prof Brian famous that regardless of reassuring the broadcaster that they weren’t going to search out any alien life, he stated he questioned if he must ‘ring the Vatican’ in the event that they did as ‘nobody knew the answer’.
