Which UN Secretary-General recorded an English greeting for the Golden Record?

The UN Secretary-General who recorded an English greeting for the Golden Record was Kurt Waldheim.

Waldheim’s message appears at the beginning of the record’s spoken greetings, before greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages. His role gave the project an official international voice, complementing the record’s broader portrait of Earth’s cultures, sounds, science, and music.

The Golden Record was assembled for NASA in 1977 by a committee chaired by astronomer Carl Sagan. It was attached to both Voyager spacecraft, which carried identical copies beyond the outer planets. The record also includes a written message from U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the English greeting “Hello from the children of planet Earth,” spoken by Sagan’s six-year-old son, Nick.

A common mix-up is confusing Waldheim’s English greeting with the 55-language section. The English-language greeting within that later multilingual sequence was spoken by Nick Sagan; Waldheim supplied the separate opening English message.