Billionaire Elon Musk could block Twitter-using aliens, an expert warns

Elon Musk could scupper the plans of aliens trying to make first contact with earth if he axes anonymous bots from Twitter, an expert has warned.

Musk, who bought the social media platform for a mind-boggling £35bn, has spoken of “defeating spam bots” and said he would make efforts to block them from Twitter.

But Nick Pope, who used to work as a Government advisor on the threat of UFOs, believes these bots are just the sort of tools that aliens could use to contact us.

Nick, Britain’s top space boffin, said: “If Earth is being visited or monitored by aliens, they’ll know the importance humans attach to the internet and social media.

“They’ll already have been paying close attention to Elon Musk, because he’s such a key player in the space program, so now that he’s bought Twitter, they’ll be looking at him even more closely.

“They may even think he’s Earth’s supreme leader – after all, Twitter has such power, it even banned a former President of the United States!”

However, he claims humans should look closer to home for signs of messages from little green men.

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He added: “Might we miss out on first contact just because an email from an alien went into someone’s spam folder, or because we mistakenly think someone’s pulling our leg on Twitter?

“In these days of big data, AI and deep learning, perhaps we should be trawling the internet and social media sites for anything that might be a real message from an alien.

“To get our attention, a genuine alien message would probably include the solution to a major unsolved problem in mathematics, physics or computer science – something advanced, but verifiable.

“It would be a sort of extraterrestrial calling card, and if it’s on Twitter, Elon Musk is now perfectly placed to find it.”

On April 21, days before his successful buyout, Musk tweeted: “If our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!

“And authenticate all real humans.”