Should the Government take the possible threat from Aliens seriously?

Question

The history of cultures meeting is one of warfare and genocide. No species becomes the top dog of its world by being wimpy and peaceful. Alien life must exist. As surely as life appeared on this planet it must have appeared on others. It is only a matter of time before either we are visited or we go visit our nearest neighbours first. I think if we wait for them to come to us then we will be finished as an apex predator. The new arrivals will wipe us out along with any other 'problems' they encounter. Our planet is ripe for colonisation by bolder more aggressive colonists.

http://www.alienlife.info

Practical engineering is reaching it's limitations. Increases in rocket performance for example have only been incremental since the moon landings. We haven't fully explored nuclear rocketry but that seems to be the most practical and simple form of star travel that would be available for Starships and early explorers will probably rely on it.

I don't think visitors will be much more advanced than us. But the fact that they have the high ground will make them unbeatable if do not have a strong presence in space ourselves. Currently we have no rockets capable of reaching deep space and anything we hobbled together would be easy to pick off during ascent.

The visitors wouldn't even need to bother with an invasion. They could simply nudge a near earth asteroid into the earth and watch humanity either become extinct or its remnants revert to a stone age existance. Then they can move in.

Sure they could live in the asteroid belt but like us I'm sure they prefer a real planet.

Remember there are likely many species out there and most of them probably aren't friendly. The reason they might not have reached us yet is possibly because wars slow down exploration and if two spacefaring species met they could be at war for millenia.

Answer 1

In the back of our minds I think we are all concerned by potential alien invasion. We are advancing technology as fast as possible to meet the threat. For more reading on this, go to my question about what George Bush would do if we were invaded.

Answer 2

So far we've seen no verifiable evidence of other sentient species. That said, I believe with some certainty that somewhere in our galaxy at some past, present, or future time, a sentient species did/does/will exist.

Why haven't we heard from them?

Perhaps they are not technologically advanced enough to be heard. They may be mastering stone knives right now, or experiencing their own Rennaisance.

Perhaps they are here right now. Any species sufficiently advanced to travel interstellar distances would be able to hide or masquerade with ease. That Boeing 737 that just flew by may be a surveillance craft.

Perhaps they are so far away they will never notice us and vice versa.

Perhaps they existed a million years ago and died out.

Perhaps they will exist a million years from now.

It is really impossible to know for sure.

The Drake Equation suggests that there is sentient life out there. The Fermi Paradox casts doubt. Play around with the calculation form at the second link and see what you think.

Answer 3

The odds of aliens finding earth are pretty small. Big universe out there. We are sending out signals but those signals have a long way to go before they get anywhere there might be aliens. Even at the speed of light, it takes a long time to get there. I am thinking that any alien civilizations out there are a long way off, or else we would have found some sort of signal.

We are not even sure that travelling faster than the speed of light is possible. Some say it is not. Aliens may be stuck at that wimpy 299,792,458 m / s. That is pretty slow if you are wanting to get from one star to another. If your star is 100's of lightyears away from Earth then you will probably never see Earth.

Finally, what do you suggest we do? If the aliens had sufficient technology to get here, they will have sufficient technology to wage war much better than we do.

Answer 4

Even if aliens do exist and they are a credible threat, no.

1) If e.g. the Democrats wanted to spend funding on defense from aliens, they would be laughed out of Congress by the next elections. Just imagine what the political cartoons would be...what Stephen Colbert would say...how easy it would be for the Republicans to make campaign ads... It is in no party's interest to carry out anything that seems silly to most of the citizens. (This is an intended feature of democracy. The government can't do anything that the people think are stupid.)

2) We don't know what the aliens' technology is, what their weapons are, even how big they are. If the tallest aliens are a quarter of an inch tall, it's impossible to aim at them. If their bodies are loose meshes, not solid masses, you can't fire bullets at them. If they survive off nuclear energy, you better not use any nukes. And so forth. Until we encounter them, we don't know what they are and it's useless to plan a strategy against them.

Answer 5

You, of all people, should be aware that the nearest star is almost 5 light- years away. SETI is searching the skies constantly for alien radio signals. Assuming that these aliens cannot violate the laws of physics, It would take them a minimum of 5 years (and probably much, much longer) to get to Earth. We will have plenty of warning if they decide to invade. Finally, an invading force will also be defeated by a determined, native foe. Don't worry. At this rate, if they do invade, we'll all vote you ambassador.

Answer 6

Please...if there are life forms out there (and I believe that there are) they likely could have destroyed the earth long ago if they wanted to. I like to believe that they are far more highly evolved than humans and have no use for violence or taking over the earth. And even if they did want to, what could we really do about it?? Nothing! So what the hell is the sense in worrying about it! Again, NOTHING! Go do something useful with your time. The aliens will be impressed!

Answer 7

Aliens have little interest in invading Earth. All they would have to do it direct an Earth killing asteroid at Earth and come back to pick at the bones later. It is unlikely that Aliens could meet us face to face anyway. Our microbes would probably destroy them and vise versa.

Answer 8

WELL, DUH!!!!
I just saw them park their little rover outside Wal-Mart and purchased weapons of mass destruction from a sign of George W. Bush saying, "We will eliminate the terrorists from Al-Queida that have weapons of mass-destruction." Little does he know...
IT'S FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT HAVE BOMBED US!!


No, seriously, most likely they will come in peace and want to be our allies realizing that we could become a very advanced civilization if we got our priorities straight. Inter-galactic travel is only a couple of centuries away, if we could learn to set our goals straight and work for something else in life if only we would work on peace in all the universe.

Answer 9

yeah i'm no longer paying for that Earth is the only planet which could sustain existence. it only seems incredibly no longer likely. greater of a difficulty is what we are actually not doing some meteor bathe that's coming in 30 years and is extremely probably to hit us distinctive circumstances...stressful;)

Answer 10

Any civilisation advanced enough to visit Earth is so far ahead of us. What reason would they have to invade a planet of inferior animals, us?