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3 months ago
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Given the immense age of the universe and staggering number of potential habitats, it is possible, if not probable, that the universe is teeming with intelligent lifeforms. First contact with one of them would be a profound and pivotal moment for our species.
How might we react? Would there be panic? Would we feel relieved to finally know that we are not alone? Would most people embrace these aliens as neighbors, fear them, worship them as gods, or lose interest in a week?
Peter Cawdron, a bestselling author who lives in Australia, has given serious thought to the possible processes and consequences of such an event. He specializes in plausible science fiction and has written 30 novels exploring many aspects of the "first contact" theme. Although fiction, his stories are remarkable thought experiments that intelligently explore how an extraterrestrial encounter might play out in real life.
Do you think there is life in outer space?
PC: This is a scientific question for which we already know the answer, and the answer is an unequivocal yes. It’s easy to forget that we are in outer space. All of us grew up seeing Earth as this vast open expanse of rolling hills and forests and mountains sprawling around us, and the sun, moon, and stars as something separate up in the sky. And this perspective dominated every religion on Earth for thousands of years.
We saw our planet as overwhelmingly huge and the stars as tiny pinpricks of light, but science has shown us that the reverse is true. Earth is a rather unassuming small planet orbiting a common G-type star roughly halfway along a spiral arm in a galaxy containing hundreds of billions of other stars, floating among hundreds of billions of other galaxies. We may only have one example of life in outer space, but what an utterly stunning and spectacular example it is! Earth is proof that life can thrive for billions of years in the harsh vacuum of space.
What is likely to happen if we ever meet intelligent extraterrestrials?
PC: When it comes to first contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species, the social, political, and religious implications need to be considered. First contact would be unsettling for some. In 1997, the approach of Comet Hale-Bopp led to speculation about an alien UFO and resulted in the mass suicide of members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, so we need to prepare the public for the actual ramifications of first contact.
Looking at our own history here on Earth, we should see first contact with another intelligent species as a starting point, not an end. We can draw upon the first contact between various cultures on Earth to understand the dynamics at play. When indigenous people were exposed to explorers, there was a bidirectional flow of culture, technology, and biology.
As an example, Europeans introduced smallpox to the Americas and brought syphilis back to Spain. Although technologically inferior, indigenous people were often more advanced in other fields, such as the Mayans in their cultivation of plants. Today, five hundred years after Columbus first discovered the Americas, maize (corn) is still the most popular crop on Earth, closely followed by rice, which came from first contact with Asia.
European civilization and technology have been shaped by first contact with other cultures, although this is rarely acknowledged. The compass, paper, printing, porcelain, and gunpowder all originated in China.
Western intellectual thought has been shaped by first contact. To this day, we still use Arabic numerals and the adoption of zero as a concept in math. Philosophers such as Leibniz and Voltaire were openly influenced by Buddhist writings and those of Confucius, which allowed them to challenge the religious beliefs of their age.
Given our experience on Earth, we can expect first contact to form a melting pot of ideas and technologies that will shape our future. Some may fear first contact because we imagine our own brutal colonial past being replayed upon us, but there are a lot of reasons to think it will enrich rather than harm humanity. And what will they make of Shakespeare, Bach, and Picasso? I suspect we’ll enrich them as well.
What are your thoughts about the popularity of UFO belief?
PC: There’s no reason to think aliens are here now. The key to understanding UFOs and UAPs is in the first letter of the acronym—U—unidentified. Unfortunately, the human mind loves leaps of logic, and the unidentified quickly becomes alien. In "The X-Files," FBI agent Mulder had a poster of a UFO on the wall of his office with the caption “I want to believe.” If I’d been able to sneak on set, I would have grabbed a Sharpie and written over the bottom of the caption so it read, “I want to believe, but I need real evidence.”
What is your best guess of how first contact would happen?
PC: I think the most likely form of first contact will be at a distance. We’re already detecting molecules in the atmosphere of exoplanets that could be the product of biological life. Perhaps one day, we’ll detect not only biological life at a distance, but technological life in the form of pollution in the air of an exoplanet, or radio signals from another planet. Any conversation we start will require patience, as talking to an intelligent species 15 light years from us would mean we’d need to wait 30 years for a response.
How likely is it that aliens will just turn up on our doorstep?
PC: Most astrophysicists think this will not happen because of the absurd distances involved, but I disagree. In my novel Xenophobia, I highlight the one reason aliens would make the trek to Earth, and it’s not to enslave us or to steal our water; it’s because we have the most precious stuff in the whole universe—life itself. I suspect aliens willing to invest in such a long-term project would be motivated by the possibility of exploring our world, so if aliens do turn up, expect the extraterrestrial equivalent of Charles Darwin on the voyage of the HMS Beagle.
Facebook/LinkedIn image: Andrei David Stock/Shutterstock
