Aliens. (Image credit: Image via Shutterstock)
It is conceivable that humans could someday discover aliens. We scour the cosmos looking for their radio signals, and though we’re not capable of interstellar space travel, it is remotely possible that we could find what we’re looking for right here in our solar system.
Life could theoretically exist on Mars, or on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, which appears to have an underground ocean. It’s even possible (though highly unlikely) that these nearby life forms could be sentient. “It is consistent with current human exploration of the solar system that intelligent beings could have evolved in the deep oceans of Europa,” said Jacob Haqq-Misra, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University.
Another possibility, Haqq-Misra said, is that “intelligent extraterrestrial beings have traveled from a distant star system and taken up residence in the solar system. They might be living in an underground base on Mars or the moon, or they could be residing in the asteroid belt (or any number of other plausible, albeit unlikely, options).”
Considering these scenarios, what would we do if we encountered an alien race? As it turns out, the question has garnered considerable academic thought since the first reported flying saucer sighting in 1947, not just as an inquiry in human psychology, but also as a way of contemplating what aliens might do if they ever found us. From astronomers to ufologists to anthropologists, scholars who have contemplated the various “contact scenarios” believe our course of action would strongly depend on the relative intelligence level of the newfound beings. Here, we outline what would happen if we encountered primitive, humanlike, and godlike aliens.
Voyage of discovery
According to Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., the most likely contact scenario is that the alien race we discover will be extremely primitive. This assumption is based on reality, given that the habitable worlds we’re capable of exploring — such as Mars and Europa — show no signs of harboring advanced beings. But it also makes sense philosophically: Judging by how long inhabitants of Earth spent in the insectlike trilobite stage compared with how long humans have been around, there’s a better chance that life found anywhere in the universe will be primitive.
Furthermore, in light of the immense difficulty of space exploration, it is thought that explorers will typically be far more advanced than the creatures they discover. This makes it easy to set the protocol for a first encounter: If we landed on Mars or Europa and discovered the alien equivalents of trilobites, “you would do what Darwin did — collect samples and take them back home,” Shostak told Life’s Little Mysteries.
Read More – If We Discover Aliens, What’s Our Protocol for Making Contact?
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