Wales, UFOs, and Klingon

A few years ago, someone formally queried the government of Wales about alleged UFO sightings around Cardiff Airport. Apparently, this struck a nerve.

Call & Response

One of the opposition members of the Welsh Senned is Mr Darren Millar, the “Shadow Health Minister”. In parliamentary systems, this means he’s not really the Health Minister, but sort of in training just in case his party ever gains power. So far, so good.

The intrepid Mr Millar asked some questions of the government ^[1], apparently in a legally formal way which compels a response. Basically: what is the government’s official position on the UFOs around Cardiff Airport, how many reports have there been, how has the Ministry of Defence responded over the last 5 years, and will the government fund research into this?

In other words, just a troublemaker of a question with nothing serious behind it.

However, apparently a response was required. The Welsh government is also required to respond bilingually in English and Welsh. However, this time they elected a trilingual response, in part:

jang vIDa je due luq. ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS.

No doubt we all recognize this as a snippet in the Klingon language, a conlang constructed by linguist Marc Okrand for use in the Star Trek franchise.

Loosely translated:

The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter.

“Non-devolved” in this context means a power retained in Westminster by the British government, not something in the immediate remit of the Welsh government.

This is, somewhat unsurprisingly, the first time the Welsh government has communicated in Klingon.

The intrepid Mr Millar responded:

I’ve always suspected that Labour ministers came from another planet. This response confirms it.

… which is about what one would expect!

The Weekend Conclusion

Oddly, this is not the first time on this Crummy Little Blog That Nobody Reads (CLBTNR) that we’ve had to take note of Welsh government Ministers behaving… oddly. Back in early 2021, we noted ^[2] a death-wish policy that spread vaccines out over the month until the next delivery, rather than just getting them into arms as fast as possible.

I like this more recent little jape much better, as nobody will die from hearing a sentence or two of Klingon in response to a dumbfoundingly stupid question. One might even say it offers the precise amount of respect the question deserves.

As you can see here, the Weekend Publisher & Assistant Weekend Publisher agree. They are devoting their attention to far more important matters.

And now, on the day Congress has certified the results of the 2024 US presidential election, it is more important than ever to continue to avow:

Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.

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Notes & References

1: No author attribution, “Welsh government responds in Klingon to UFO airport query”, BBC News, 2015-Jul-10. ↩

2: Weekend Editor, “Proposed Darwin Award for vaccine policy”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2021-Mar-30. ↩