Humanity has an inferiority complex when it comes to aliens. It only takes a look at our science fiction films and literature to see that we’re afraid. They’re portrayed as heartless conquerors that see nothing to learn from us, or creepy observers that use us as test subjects. Even Stephen Hawking warned against contacting extraterrestrials, stating in a Discovery Channel documentary that, “The outcome would be… as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans” (“Stephen Hawking,” 2010). This perspective has led humanity to conveniently ignore preparing for the possibility of contact, despite its likelihood consistently increasing. Humankind is unprepared, but there is still hope. Last week, the Search …show more content…
Even if that was the best option, it’s too late. We didn’t wait for it to ring; we dialed it. In 1974, we beamed the Arecibo message, a list of semi-prime numbers which detail information about humanity, towards the N-13 star cluster, set to arrive in about 25,000 years. More notably, there are several spacecrafts currently set to go beyond our solar system with similar data; the Pioneers, launched in 1972, contain the Pioneer Plaques, which detail human anatomy and our location. The 1977 Voyagers, which have already left our solar system and will pass within 2 light years of other stars in 40,000 years, contain Golden Discs which contain the same map, as well as many of Earth’s sights and sounds. Lastly, after its Pluto flyby in July, a message similar to the Golden Discs was streamed onto New …show more content…
No government on Earth has officially adopted a post-detection policy. Even the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, when asked about the response to a confirmed message from extraterrestrials, simply replied that their job does not include any issues regarding it. So what do we do if we find something by KIC 8462852? The first place government officials may go to is the Declaration of Principles, created by the SETI Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics, which lists nine post-detection protocols. In addition, Paul Davies, chairman of SETI’s Post-Detection Taskforce and Mazlan Othman, director of UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, would become official ambassadors for Earth. However, Othman denies such a role, yet more evidence of our unpreparedness. Overall, these plans are sparse at best, and we can’t expect to rely on them much if contact does