Call it one small misstep for mankind.

Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman has officially denied media reports that she was selected by the United Nations to represent earthlings in their future dealings with aliens.

"It sounds really cool," Othman The Guardian, "but I have to deny it."

The United Nations has also denied the story, which was first told by The Sunday Times over the weekend and then subsequently re-reported by numerous other media outlets around the world.

The idea, according to the original erroneous piece, was that the planet would have a person in place when the eventual arrival of an alien ship led to the inevitable "take me to your leader" moment.

"The article in the Sunday times is nonsense," a U.N. spokesman said.

It remains a debated point, however, whether the world's governmental bodies should take the subject of possible alien encounters more seriously. As AOL News contributor Lee Speigel wrote in June, some European politicians are urging the U.N. to bring the topic of UFO sightings out into the open and urge world governments to declassify documents that chronicle human encounters with alien space ships.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., today, seven retired U.S. airmen testified about their own run-in with what they believe to be an extraterrestrial ship at an English air force base in 1980.

"They were brightly colored, changing from elliptical to round as if they were moving at very high speed," retired Air Force Col. Charles Halt told an audience at the National Press Club, the Daily Mail reported.

According to Halt, the suspected ship shot a beam of concentrated light at the feet of the men, who had been sent to investigate the UFO. "Was this a warning? An attempt to communicate? A weapon? Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared," Halt said.

In addition, Halt and the other former Air Force airmen contend that the aliens tampered with U.S. nuclear weapons while on their visit.

Here was Halt in 2007, telling a similar version his story: