Google's New UFO Mystery Solved

But Facebook and other companies claim it's an unintentional side effect

(NEWSER) - Those ubiquitous “Like” buttons are a convenient way to quickly share hilarious videos and buzzed-about articles with all your Facebook friends—but they’re also a convenient way for Facebook to track you, the Wall Street Journal reveals. Facebook’s “Like,” Twitter’s “Tweet," and other social widgets allow their creators to collect information about the websites people visit—even if the buttons are not actually clicked, a Journal study shows. You only have to log in to your Twitter or Facebook account once in the past month for Twitter or Facebook to know your browsing habits. More»

ET, phone your friend

(NEWSER) - Add this to your X Files. A figure looking amazingly like ET has been posted on a self-described "intergalactic news site" and has grabbed 1.5 million viewers on YouTube in the last three days. The "creature" was filmed lying on snow in the Russian Republic of Buryatia not far from a reported UFO incident in Serbia last month, reports All News Web . "We found him over there. It must have been lying there for days," says a translation for the Russian-speaking videographers. More»

Proposed panel would oversee contact with aliens

(NEWSER) - Hope ET didn't forget to send in his absentee ballot. The people of Denver are voting today on establishing a commission to deal with illegal aliens—of the extraterrestrial kind. The proposed Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission would be a privately funded, seven-member panel tasked with ensuring the "health, safety and cultural awareness of Denver residents" when it comes to future contact "with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles," ABC News reports. More»

(NEWSER) - ET, phone the General Assembly. United Nations scientific advisory committees are about to debate whether to place the organization's Office for Outer Space Affairs in charge of coordinating humankind's response if and when extraterrestrials make contact. The unit's boss is Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman, called "absolutely the nearest thing we have to a 'take me to your leader' person" by a space law expert, reports the Telegraph . “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication sustains the hope that some day humankind will received signals from extraterrestrials," she recently told scientists. More»

Scientists say SETI has the wrong approach

(NEWSER) - If aliens are out there and trying to communicate, they are most likely sending short messages—the interstellar equivalent of Tweets, the Telegraph reports. The theory of a cosmic Twitter is being put forth by two physicists calling for a new approach to the long-running Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project. ''This approach is more like Twitter and less like War and Peace,'' says one. More»