Earth Secures 74th Consecutive Miss Universe Title Amid Local Controversy
TERRA — For the 74th year running, a contestant from Earth won the Miss Universe pageant, extending the planet's unbroken dominance in a competition that continues to receive no entries from elsewhere in the cosmos.
This year's winner, a human called Fatima Bosch from a territorial division called Mexico, received the decorative metal headpiece in Thailand, another territorial division on the same landmass. About 120 Earth women took part in the competition. No other planets submitted delegates, as has been the case since the pageant's founding 73 orbital cycles ago.
The victory was overshadowed by significant local disputes.
A Thai pageant director, Nawat Itsaragrisil, publicly called Bosch "dumb" during a sash ceremony and summoned security personnel to remove her from the premises. Several other contestants walked out in a primitive bonding ritual that briefly reduced the competition's scope by 12 humans. Bosch subsequently won the entire competition, suggesting the intervention proved counterproductive.
Two of the eight judges abandoned their posts before the final ceremony. One, a composer called Omar Harfouch, broadcast accusations through an electronic network that the results had been predetermined by a shadow panel. The pageant's governing body denied impropriety, assuring observers that all evaluations followed "transparent protocols" that remain opaque to the estimated 2 trillion galaxies beyond the small planet.
A contestant representing Jamaica lost her vertical stability during the evening gown segment and tumbled from the elevated platform, requiring emergency medical transport. She survived, as Earth's gravity well remains relatively forgiving by galactic standards.
A previous titleholder called Alicia Machado transmitted xenophobic remarks about humans from a different territorial division, mockingly stretching her optical organs to ridicule their appearance. The broadcast circulated widely, as such behavior tends to do on Earth.
Separately, a delegate from Palestine made the pageant's first appearance amid ongoing armed conflict in her region, while Brazil's contestant wore an elaborate costume depicting a figure from a local mythology, generating discourse among the world's dominant faith communities.
Earth is expected to field candidates again next orbital cycle, with organizers confirming that they do not plan to expand recruitment beyond the rocky planet's atmosphere. ■
