So what would really happen if aliens did make contact?

[Trickystar1]

Trying to keep as far away as sci fi as possible, but what might really happen if ETI made contact?

Il start off by saying:

I think the odds of interstellar war is a slim one.

The odds that they would want us are somewhere between slim and none. They would come, at most, out of curiousity stay "long enough" to find out about us, and quite probably leave. For "us" to be interesting, from an interstellar warfare point of view, you have to have a couple of implausible things be true: 1. There is only one kind of DNA and one kind of life. Further, there has to be enough convergent evolution of just the right sort. Otherwise, we're less interesting than bacteria. How likely is any of that? Do you go uncounted millions of miles for food you*cannot digest usefully?*For a planet you very probably*cannot live on? 2. We have something they need really, really badly*even though they just crossed interstellar distances just fine without whatever it is. Think about it -- what could they*possibly*need on the one hand and do something that ambitious on the other. They could synthesize*whatever it is*atom by atom, practically, for the energy budget interstellar travel takes (keeping in mind that the likely distances involved, based on our SETI work, is, IIRC, in the 10s of light years, minimum). Genetic engineering (even of themselves) is a much cheaper solution than going to some not-so-nearby star to get "it" whatever "it" could possibly be.

[Capricorn]

Erase all life then mine the planet for the minerals.

That nice iron core might be worth having.

[Macavity]

If they are more advanced, then indeed, chances are, aliens will be MUCH more "advanced" than us. Will we become prey, be kept as pets or seen merely as organic pollution? I guess some sort of cull or mass neutering might be their first thought.... <ouch!>

That apart, the lives of my succession of Cats haven't been TOO bad.

[KevG]

Well, according to Stephen Hawking it would be a bad thing

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

[foundaplanet]

I doubt they would get us to sign some intergalactic space treaty for peace.

They'd probably shrink wrap us and put us on their deli counter.

I'm sure if we found life on another planet we'd start eating it.

[Trickystar1]

They are all friendly Aliens; if they wanted to take over this world, they would have done so before humans invented weapons.

[Mr Q]

I'm from that group that believes nothing good would probably come out of a contact. Yea, they would be much more advanced than us and taking the chance that they might not be as benevolent as we think, I would send a message back saying "Sorry, no one home here":evil6:

[Lancashire Astroguy]

The first contact is likely to be an undipherable series of radio pulses from a distant star. If it was closer than 50 light years this would be very surprising!

The initial SETI announcement would be accompanied by huge public interest, and would probably dominate the news for a couple of days. The excitement would die down once people realised the distances involved and the fact that we could never have a "real time" communication with this civilisation. Nonetheless, I'm sure Hollywood would do a good (or otherwise) job of keeping the discovery in the public eye - expect a large number of "Independence Day" type films!

Behind the scenes, the science would begin in earnest. First of all, some scientists would have to try and make sense of the message - if indeed it was a message directed at us at all, and not some stray transmission. Secondly, the star system itself will come under incredible scrutiny. How many planets does the star have? Which planet is the likely source of the transmission? What are conditions like on the planet (gravity, atmosphere, temperature etc)? Do the "aliens" transmit at different electromagnetic wavelengths? Answering some of these questions would no doubt require some considerable allocation of resources and new technology (with space missions likely).

Given the great distance of the planet anyway, I don't think there should be a rush to send a reply. If a reply is sent, it should be very carefully considered. I understand the views of those who say we shouldn't send a reply at all. I guess all these issues will have to be debated.

[RobH]

We'd be either be Exterminated (Daleks), Assimilated (The Borg) or Upgraded (Cybermen)

Seriously though.....there's no way of knowing. Any guessing can only ever be done from a human standpoint. You can't put yourself inside the head of a creature that has evolved on another world and have any idea at all of what makes it tick.

Rob.

[Demonperformer]

If they can reach us, they are more advanced than us. Look at what has happened in our history when a more advanced culture encounters a less advanced culture. Even when direct exploitation (debatably) does not result, look at the diseases that were brought to the polynesian islands by "the white man".

Yes, our iron core might be of some interest, but would they not be likely to have planets much closer to home that also have a useful iron core that could be mined?

So I think we are in the territory of scientific expedition, and if they are that advanced, they probably realize that interacting with the specimens that are being observed is going to skew the results, so they will observe us without making contact. Once they have observed us for a while, I don't really think they would want to make contact. I guess the risk would be that they might consider our violent tendencies as a race make us a potential threat to 'galactic peace' and might choose to eradicate us before we became a real threat.

But I'm not going to be losing any sleep that.

[stevetynant]

I wouldn't worry about it - the Americans will save us no matter who turns up.

[Specman]

Perhaps man kind was dumped here on some rock, light years from anywhere where we can't do any harm to any other life forms in the cosmos. Kind of alien Guantanamo Bay.

They seeded us in 'quarentine' then decided that we were such evil ba***rds that we couldn't be trusted so they just left us to our over devices, knowing that soon enough we would destroy our own world and self euthanase.

All the good stuff is happening on the far side of the Galaxy

[marcdearn]

If they did dump us here at least they chose a beautiful planet!

[ollypenrice]

It's very hard to get anthropomorphic film aliens out of your mind when thinking along these lines. I agree with Rob. Life could be all sorts of things. What about highly intelligent plant-like life, for instance. Even the simple idea that intelligence is associated with freedom of movement is anthropomorphic, as is the idea that there is a connection between high technology and high intelligence. There isn't, necessarily. It just happens that we are technological. We need to think far more abstractly about what life might be, not just dream little 'usses' with faster space ships and better ray guns... Fred Hoyle played with the idea of a highly intelligent cloud.

Olly

[Neilius]

It'd be funny if they turned out to be human in appearance, and everything else, DNA included. But obviously humans who'd been around many thousands of centuries longer than our species. That would mean they'd be good looking. Maybe aliens are from Scandinavia...

[RobH]

Fred Hoyle played with the idea of a highly intelligent cloud.

Olly

I read that book 'The Black Cloud' when I was a nipper and loved it...it's out of print now but I managed to get an old copy and reread it again last year....still a fine book with excellent concepts.

Rob

[Sam]

The best that we can hope for is that we are regarded as an endangered species and they make the earth a reserve - a bit like on the movie Lilo and Stitch. On that movie though it was Mosquitos that were seen as endangered and we were regarded as irrelevant.

[spaceboy]

One word "Racism" There have been many wars all around the world for centuries just because one group of people cant get on with another. Be it colour, religion, where they were born, stature or even to a lesser degree what football team you support. One thing that remains the same in all these wars is us. We are all the same no matter what our differences, we are all human beings yet we can't help but fight amongst our selves over some thing at the end of the day is quite trivial. If ET were to ever visit........ well it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen. If they are of a higher intelligence enabling them to traverse the vast distances of the universe then I'm thinking they would have some common sense not to come visiting us.

[foundaplanet]

One word "Racism" There have been many wars all around the world for centuries just because one group of people cant get on with another. Be it colour, religion, where they were born, stature or even to a lesser degree what football team you support. One thing that remains the same in all these wars is us. We are all the same no matter what our differences, we are all human beings yet we can't help but fight amongst our selves over some thing at the end of the day is quite trivial. If ET were to ever visit........ well it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen. If they are of a higher intelligence enabling them to traverse the vast distances of the universe then I'm thinking they would have some common sense not to come visiting us.

So true.. The first thing our lot would want is all their technology.

There are probably aliens all over the place telling each other to avoid that selfish, paranoid, barbaric bunch on that pale blue dot.

[Disco]

The nice thing about sci fi is that mankind always seems to have a fighting chance, however if aliens have the technology to reach us and wanted to kill us then i'm sure knocking an asteroid into our orbit would be an easy way to wipe us out.

The only thing "rare" this planet has to offer is life (and a few of the heavier elements). I think we would be seen as a curiosity and observed, (maybe be part of a collection), so their children could be taught how bad and in some cases good, an early society is. I doubt any "alien" would want to contact us directly at this moment in time and share information with us.

Worst case, Earth is seen as the local cluster tuck shop, which might be a good incentive to lose some excess weight and get eaten last.

Happy jogging!

[ollypenrice]

But come on, this whole thread is so anthropomorphic! Concepts like aggression, technology, colonization, war, nature reserves, race... these are human constructs.

There is no reason that I can see to imagine that they have to be inherent to life.

The Darwinian idea of the survival of the most appropriate ('fittest' meant just that in Darwin's day and had no connotations whatever of fittest as in strongest) might be universal. Might be. But even if that is the case the appropriateness which drives the selection process might be entirely different elsewhere. It might produce instinctively co-operative creatures, for instance. One can imagine an environment in which this might arise.

We really have to lose this image of humans with pointy ears or reptillian skin! Maybe there are intelligent clouds out there wondering what kind of people our clouds are...

Olly

[foundaplanet]

You are no doubt correct Olly.

There is of course the obvious problem here, we can not even recognize that we have other intelligent life on our own planet. The rest of it just gets on with the life it has and doesn't need the whole escapism part.. What would a crocodile want with a BMW and a TV, they've been doing fine for a few million years.

The way we relate to intelligent life is by being able to identify with it, if it is not of the same nature as ourselves, it must not be of the same superior intelligence.

One of our biggest flaws must be our belief that we are the whole complete answer to what an ideal earthling is (we believe we can control everything), and that it is for something to show us that it has sensory and techno abilities that are greater than our own. In other words we have a big problem climbing out of our own man made box.

[Orion_the_Hunter]

You should watch 'District 9'. It's a pretty good movie about an alien invasion in South Africa. It's good because it's not too Sci-Fi if that makes sense.

District 9 (2009) - IMDb

[Astro_Baby]

Well first off the neo cons and so forth would demand they be not allowed to claim benefits and questions would be asked about whether to deprt them back to their point of origin. It would all take months of course and the ECHR would have to rule on whether sending them back was humane etc etc.

In the interim they would start setting up their own restuarants I expect. Vegan take away perhaps .....come to think of it Vegan....they are already here I wondered why veggies always look so pasty and seldom seem very human. That Hitler bloke was a vegetarian.....ahhhhhhhhhh it all makes sense now.

Anyway first generation would set up restuarants and be model citizens. Taking on all the jobs others dont want. Later on second generation would start an Alien religion and become all fundamental or possibly laze around claiming benefits. There would be calls for deportation and so forth. Chavs would go on TV to say how aliens had stolen their jobs. Jeremy Kyle would have a new class of people to be on the show so chavs might even lose the Kyle show as a source of income.

Thered be issues of mixed marriages.....no daughter of mine is going to marry a blob of slime. We'd have to think up insulting names to call them I suppose. Like Bug Eyes or Slimeballs or something.

Dawkins would see it as final proof the is no God and then the Aliens would turn out to have theor own religion and who knows maybe have proof there is a God. Wouldnt that be fun ?

The red top papers would run daily horror stories, An Alien Ate my Poodle, Alien in Sex Swap Scam etc etc. plus the kiss and tells My Nights of Sex with an Insectoid from Betelgeuse 5.

In the end it would all settle down until the next species arrives when we could run through the whole saga all over again.

[foundaplanet]

Well first off the neo cons and so forth would demand they be not allowed to claim benefits and questions would be asked about whether to deprt them back to their point of origin. It would all take months of course and the ECHR would have to rule on whether sending them back was humane etc etc.

In the interim they would start setting up their own restuarants I expect. Vegan take away perhaps .....come to think of it Vegan....they are already here I wondered why veggies always look so pasty and seldom seem very human. That Hitler bloke was a vegetarian.....ahhhhhhhhhh it all makes sense now.

Anyway first generation would set up restuarants and be model citizens. Taking on all the jobs others dont want. Later on second generation would start an Alien religion and become all fundamental or possibly laze around claiming benefits. There would be calls for deportation and so forth. Chavs would go on TV to say how aliens had stolen their jobs. Jeremy Kyle would have a new class of people to be on the show so chavs might even lose the Kyle show as a source of income.

Thered be issues of mixed marriages.....no daughter of mine is going to marry a blob of slime. We'd have to think up insulting names to call them I suppose. Like Bug Eyes or Slimeballs or something.

Dawkins would see it as final proof the is no God and then the Aliens would turn out to have theor own religion and who knows maybe have proof there is a God. Wouldnt that be fun ?

The red top papers would run daily horror stories, An Alien Ate my Poodle, Alien in Sex Swap Scam etc etc. plus the kiss and tells My Nights of Sex with an Insectoid from Betelgeuse 5.

In the end it would all settle down until the next species arrives when we could run through the whole saga all over again.

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