What will our first alien encounter be like?

[Inverse Icarus]

for the sake of a good argument, let's assume a few things.

1. aliens exist
2. we have never been conteacted before, there's no government conspiracy etc.
3. we may be the ones to find the aliens
4. the aliens arent necessarialy more advanced than us
5. universal translation devices are not feasible

[Gangerolf]

a meteorite with some alien bactheria inside or something

[Edan]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
a meteorite with some alien bactheria inside or something

Hasn't this already happened? (Though I haven't heard much of it recently, so it might have just been a false finding, or they might still have to be doing tests on it to find out.)

[Aeson]

I think the odds are that the aliens wouldn't be sentient, at least not moreso than the average terrestrial species.

I'd think an 'oh look, something new for our zoo!' to 'what's causing this terrible disease?' would be the norm.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Probably meet the alien in a bar, buy him/her/it a drink... then offer to show him/her/it our etchings...

[Traianvs]

I think it's a theory...


Someone explained to me that it's possible that there was life on Mars before there was life on earth or something, a long long time ago, anyway some rocks from mars get a bit loose, land on earth, containing organic material, and cos our athmosphere is sweet it starts to develop more... later Mars gets more inhabitable or so and life died there..


one of the 1001 possible (though not likely in my opinion) explanations of how life started on our planet..

[Lord Merciless]

If we find them first, it means that we are far more advanced than they are.

The fate of the Aliens depends on whether a group of scientists find them, or a bunch of land-hungry colonists. They better hope it's not the latter.

[Gatekeeper]

^^^Conversely, we might find ourselves looking up into the night skies as a massive Alien battlefleet orbits our world, threatening to rain death upon our cities and lands.

Isn't that such a romantic possibility?

Gatekeeper

[Boris Godunov]

Should we also assume that, given all your initial conditions, the incredible improbability of actually contacting such a species is somehow remedied?

[Az]

If we find primitive life on a planet somewhere, I say we should study it, try to find anything useful, and if we don't destroy it all, and plant terran life instead.

Because that's exactly what's going to happen if more advanced aliens find us. ((((((((

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
If we find them first, it means that we are far more advanced than they are.

That's not necessarily true. It is very possible that they may not be interested in travelling beyond their homeworld, perhaps for cultural/historical reasons. Not having a moon or other planets within their originating star system would be that much LESS encouragement to explore. Conversely, they could be very advanced and are experiancing BTDT Syndrome (Been There, Done That) and have simply returned home. In some scenarios, a significantly advanced civilization will turn back the clock to enjoy a simplier life free of their own overwhelming technological power.

The fate of the Aliens depends on whether a group of scientists find them, or a bunch of land-hungry colonists. They better hope it's not the latter.

True 'dat.

[Lorizael]

That all really depends on the nature of the aliens. You find such diversity in humans alone that we can't possibly hope to guess the personality of an alien species.

Think about it... if we run into a world controlled by the Hitler of a species, it's going to be very different than a world controlled by their Gandhi.

Being human, it's very difficult for us to imagine a personality type outside of our own. I bet first encounter will filled with many, many misunderstandings.

[Thrawn05]

Re: What will our first alien encounter be like?

Just like before, but this time everyone will be **** probed at the same time.

[General Ludd]

1. they are more advaned then us, we try to kill them but they kill us. (or just laugh and leave us alone, or enslave us, or whatever the hell they want to do)

2. they are less advanced, we kill/enslave/domesticate them.

3. It's alien bacteria and it kills us all. Or, it's harmless and the military figures out a way to make it kill us all.

[axi]

Perhaps they have found us, but lay low and wait for us to find them. Then perhaps they will judge that we are advanced enough to make contact.

Or perhaps we are in a backwater system with no economical or military interest and they haven't bothered with us. If aliens have warp drives, they will definitely have many better travel destinations than the solar system.