Alien Encounter

[Deepwater6]

I watched a movie yesterday called "district 9" for those of you who haven't seen it I'll try not to ruin it. Briefly it's about a group of hundreds of aliens that came to Earth and are now marooned. They have been on Earth for 20yrs. Their huge ship floats in the air above South Africa. They are put into a camp and soon evolve into lower class citizens of the Earth. With all the urban problems that go with it.

 

My questions are, I'm interested in what members of this site would think the US Government would do in a situation like that. How far would our Government go to be the first in contact with hypothetical aliens? What would our Government do if it landed in another country Iran, North Korea, etc. Would they be rejected outright by concerns of the human race and foriegn viruses? If they tried to make contact and we didn't want them to how far would we go to prevent it? Who would be given the job of making contact with them?

 

Any and all thoughts appreciated. thx

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from locating the Higgs Bosun particle what else are we hoping to learn from the Large Haldron Collider? From what I understand they are trying to recreate the conditions of the big bang. Is this huge project just to prove that theory, or are there other dicoveries expected to come from these experiments?

[joekgamer]

They would probably try to make contact, but make sure that there is no risk to humans in doing so. They would try to lean about the technolgy possesed by the aliens. However, their first priority would be to develop a common language, which would take a long time.

[Deepwater6]

I agree comunication would be paramount. Smarter people than me could probably figure out something via mathmatics. If I had the chance to ask one question it would be what is their knowledge of God. If they could confirm there was one or prove there isn't would change so many things in our society. Although I have the suspicion that even if they were to prove that there isn't one some of our religious zealot's would still kill others in their respective higher power.

 

 

They would probably try to make contact, but make sure that there is no risk to humans in doing so. They would try to lean about the technolgy possesed by the aliens. However, their first priority would be to develop a common language, which would take a long time.

[CraigD]

My questions are, I'm interested in what members of this site would think the US Government would do in a situation like that [depicted in District 9].

I don’t think a real meeting of the kind depicted in District 9, or the earlier, similar 1988 film and spinoff TV series Alien Nation – the arrival in a gigantic spaceship of intelligent animals biologically well-suited and desirous of living on Earth – would much resemble these space opera-esque stories.

 

I expect the US and other governments would do what the Aliens asked/told them to do.

 

Animals capable of moving a huge spaceship to Earth from an extra-solar planet would necessarily have huge mechanical power supplies, the ability to move around the solar system, and, as a consequence, the ability to threaten our species with near annihilation, while we could offer little threat to them. The dynamics of the situation would resemble, I think, that of present day technologically advanced people encountering technologically primitive indigenous people living someplace they wanted for themselves. History shows such encounters rarely go well for the governments and culture of the indigenous people.

 

To their credit, stories like District 9 and Alien Nation rely on some plot device to prevent such a scenario – the giant spaceship is somehow broken, it’s passengers are escaped slaves who don’t know how to properly operate it, etc – but I think it far less likely that this would happen than the arrival of an unbroken space full of well-organized passengers who know how to operate it well.

 

I’m hopeful, however, that any people capable of traveling between stars wouldn’t be much interested in living on Earth, but would rather be more interested living in their spaceships or habitats they build in orbit around the Sun and its planets while harvesting solar and other energy and materials more easily accessed than those on Earth. Were their numbers and/or physical size small, we might not even know they were visiting. In a best-case scenario, they’ll not be much interested in Earth resources, but interested in us and our culture, and might help us become a similarly spacefaring species. In a worst case, the might hate us for reasons we never understand, and sadistically exterminate us. Somewhere in between, they might strip-mine Earth for resources, crushing us like bugs if we get in the way, but otherwise doing us no concerted harm, and giving us a chance to learn what we can by studying their technology at a distance.

 

Such speculation must be made humbly, though, as, in the paraphrased words of some SF writer who’s name I can’t recall, if and when we meet them we can likely “count on aliens to be alien”, with ethics and behaviors we’ll find hard to understand, let alone predict.

[joekgamer]

Who's to say that they would even want to be here? So far, there has been no evidence of other Earth-like planets. NASA has found cells that can live only on arsenic. Perhaps to them Earth would be a barren wasteland. In that case, what could they hope to gain from 'threatening us with total anihilation'?

[Deepwater6]

Assuming they would want to be here purely for their own scientific exploration, and they are somewhat similar to us in size shape and means of communication. The dynamics of the situation would greatly upset our order of things. If they were to share information on the cure for Cancer, Diabetes, etc. and if they could solve our energy crisis making all the workers in those industries and others unneecessary would we better off? There has always been the rumor that many of these things could be accomplished now, but we don't use them for fear it would damage our economy too severely. Would we as a people be better off leapfrogging knowledge given to us from them or is it better to slowly discover it for ouselves?

 

 

 

 

Who's to say that they would even want to be here? So far, there has been no evidence of other Earth-like planets. NASA has found cells that can live only on arsenic. Perhaps to them Earth would be a barren wasteland. In that case, what could they hope to gain from 'threatening us with total anihilation'?

[Eclogite]

Animals capable of moving a huge spaceship to Earth from an extra-solar planet would necessarily have huge mechanical power supplies, the ability to move around the solar system, and, as a consequence, the ability to threaten our species with near annihilation, while we could offer little threat to them.

I strongly suspect this is false logic. It is likely that an interstellar voyage is still a technically challenging venture. As such the arriving aliens would have little reserve for planetary domination, unless they had set out with that end in mind. What you would have would be a single expression of advanced technology against an entire planet of more primitive technology. Rorke's Drift was the exception, not the rule. (A small band of Selenites could have ended Armstrong and Aldrin by poking a hole in their fuel tanks. The USA's distant nuclear arsenal and re-runs of I Love Lucy, not withstanding.))

 

NASA has found cells that can live only on arsenic.

This research has been pretty much discredited.

[joekgamer]

This research has been pretty much discredited.

 

Sources:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/scin.5591790104/pdf

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19128047

 

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/66953/title/Bacterium_grows_with_arsenic

 

Among many others.

[CraigD]

Animals capable of moving a huge spaceship to Earth from an extra-solar planet would necessarily have huge mechanical power supplies, the ability to move around the solar system, and, as a consequence, the ability to threaten our species with near annihilation, while we could offer little threat to them.

I strongly suspect this is false logic. It is likely that an interstellar voyage is still a technically challenging venture. As such the arriving aliens would have little reserve for planetary domination, unless they had set out with that end in mind.

Let’s calculate approximately how much energy we’re talking about, so we can have an idea how much a “little reserve” might be.

 

First, an assumption: the ship is self-powered and propelled. If its getting power “beamed” to it from a remote power source, it might really not have “huge mechanical power supplies”, and my claim would be wrong. Let’s assume this isn’t the case, but that the ship carried the energy it needed to travel from some Earth-like extrasolar planet to Earth.

 

From the closing scene of the movie, we are given that the ship is able to leave our planet and solar system, so we can conclude is has at least enough energy reserve to do this.

 

Websurfing some District 9 fansites failed to find me any specs on the big ship in it, but from the “arrived with 1.9 million prawns (humanoid aliens) on board”, and some visual hints, we can guess its mass as about [math]m_{ship}=10^{11} \,\mbox{kg}[/math]. From this, we can make some energy calculations:

 

At a minimum, to leave the solar system, the ship must have [math]G\frac{M_{\odot} m_{ship}}{r_{AU}} \dot= 10^{20} \,\mbox{J}[/math]

 

Let’s assume the ship travels fast enough that it take centuries rather than millennia to get between stars – let’s say a cruising speed of 0.01 c. Assuming it uses some sort of near 100% efficient “space drive” beyond our understanding, this makes its energy 10,000 times greater, at about [math]m_{ship} \left( 1 -\sqrt{1- \left( \frac{v}{c} \right)^2} \right) c^2 \dot= 10^{24} \,\mbox{J}[/math]

 

Let’s assume the ship can only spare 10% of its energy reserves for tasks like exterminating humankind. At a minimum, this means it has [imath]10^{19} \,\mbox{J}[/imath]. If it’s 0.01 c capable, it has [imath]10^{23} \,\mbox{J}[/imath]. Put into more familiar humankind-exterminating terms, this is 1,000 and 10,000,000 megatons TNT, respectively. Using conventional nuclear weapon effects estimates, assuming large 10 megaton warheads, this would be enough to kill by direct heat effects everything in an area of 250,000 to 2,500,000,000 km². The total surface area of the Earth is about 510,000,000 km².

 

In short, using hard physics and some engineering and weapon assumptions, it’s reasonable to guess that the ship in District 9 has anywere from about the same destructive potential as the current US nuclear arsenal, to several thousand times it.

 

It’s not unreasonable to reject our assumption of the ship having a “near 100% efficient space drive”, and instead assume it’s much less efficient, in which case its energy reserves would be tens, hundreds, a few thousand times (at about 10,000 times, the ship would become too inefficient to be anything but fuel), or, if it’s a sub 0.01 c “slow ship”, more time greater – in which case its destructive potential could be many times greater.

 

In the above, I’ve considered only the scenario of a giant interstellar spaceship bombing the earth. A more ruthless, and potentially less costly scenario, though one requiring more patience, would involve using the ship’s auxiliary vehicles (according to the film’s writer, the District 9 ship is intended to be a central facility for mining, so presumably would be good for this sort of activity) to steer comets and asteroid to collide with the earth, which could be many times more destructive.

 

What you would have would be a single expression of advanced technology against an entire planet of more primitive technology. Rorke's Drift was the exception, not the rule. (A small band of Selenites could have ended Armstrong and Aldrin by poking a hole in their fuel tanks. The USA's distant nuclear arsenal and re-runs of I Love Lucy, not withstanding.))

It’s a mistake, I think, to apply the example of a 19th century infantry battles between 12 shot/minute firearm-equipped soldiers (the British at the Battle of Rorke's Drift) and spear and shield-wielding soldiers (the Zulu warriors) too closely to combat between combatants who can move freely in interstellar space (them), and ones who’s best spacecraft take months to years to reach nearby planets (us).

 

The key disadvantage we present-day earthlings would be at if few million hostile human-like aliens arrived in an interstellar spaceship would be that, assuming they stayed high above the Earth, they could hit us with ease, while we would have difficulty hitting them at all. Only a stupendous tactical blunder by them (such as, to synopsize the movie, parking their gigantic ship barely above the ground and moving everyone into a fenced-in shanty town) would give us any chance of winning (though wargame and astromechanics buffs like myself can spend lots of fun time testing this claim :)).

 

I hope that, if interstellar spaceships, giant or otherwise, visit Earth, they’re controlled by intelligences with an ethical code that prohibits them doing us intentional harm. But, as celebrity scientists like Steven Hawking, and uncounted SF writers like Greg Bear (ie in his 1987-92 Forge of God duology) have speculated, this may not necessarily be the case. Given that all observation to date leads to the conclusion that such a visit is very unlikely (ie: Fermi’s paradox seems the rule), though, I don’t think such speculation is any cause for worry.

[Deepwater6]

The figures don't favor a craft that can make the journey realistically. It is more likely they would move away from their planet in a succesion of outposts. Much like we plan to do with Mars and the moon. Eventually they would get into range of our planet. They may have no other choice if they overpopulated their own planet, but have the technology to move out and survive. They may also have knowledge of their planets future demise.

 

If the discovery was made to prove our sun would die out in a hundred years or so would we not be working to build an interplanetary ark to assure the species survived? There unlimited reasons why they would come. With all the possible reasons and all the possible habitable planets out there I have the same question Fermi did "where is everbody?"

[Eclogite]

Sources:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/scin.5591790104/pdf

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19128047

 

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/66953/title/Bacterium_grows_with_arsenic

 

Among many others.

All of of which are popular accounts of the paper. The objections are to the sloppy methodolyg employed by the researchers. This itemby Carl Zimmer does a good job of summarising the objections.

[Deepwater6]

I did hear an interview on NPR with a science editor from the Washington post. He stated that they have identified life forms in a mine shaft 2 miles down. The mines were located in South Africa. He stated that these life forms gained energy from radioactive decay. They were sustained completely devoid of any energy from the sun.

 

If they were to find live microbes on another planet how would that effect the probability of life being prevalent in the universe? if it's 1 in million without anything else discovered, what would it be reduced to if something was found? Someone with better math skills than I would have to figure that out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of of which are popular accounts of the paper. The objections are to the sloppy methodolyg employed by the researchers. This itemby Carl Zimmer does a good job of summarising the objections.

[Boerseun]

There are quite a few scenarios:

 

• 
   
  
• They arrive, and they kill us intentionally (they need resources and we are in their way)
  
• They arrive, and they study us peacefully from a distance (implying a species committed to science - which would be a requirement if they were to traverse interstellar space in the first place. It also implies them NOT making contact, so as not to "spoil" the sample. They might try to hide on the moon's surface, for instance, with a few recon ships landing on remote places on Earth for sample gathering, etc.)
  
• They arrive, and attempt to integrate into human society, Alien Nation-style (implying that that either was their intention from the get-go, or their ship broke down and their body-chemistry just happened to be perfectly suited to Earth's temperature, atmospheric pressure and chemical make-up, etc. This is highly unlikely under any circumstances.)
  
• They arrive, and completely ignore us as their ship stays in orbit while smaller cargo vessels drop down to the surface to suck deuterium out of the sea in order to fuel the next leg of their journey. As far as they're concerned, there is life on Earth, but so what - there's life EVERYWHERE. It's nothing to get excited about - why bother with such a primitive species?
  
• They arrive, and whilst there might be a couple of alien anthropologists amongst them who might be interested in Earthlife, their primary goal is to fortify Earth as a resource outpost before the K'lath attack in this sector and use Earth as a base for their final push towards G'yunthrp in this epic Third Galactic War. Think of the primitive tribes in the Pacific who's first contact with civilization was in the struggle between the Japanese and Americans. Wiki "Cargo Cults" to see how that turned out for them. The humans just happen to be a convenient source of labour to get things going, dig holes, carry stuff, clean stuff, etc. Once the war is over (or this sector secure, at least), the anthropologists might interview a few humans, take a few photos of the Louvre (or what's left of it after a pretty nasty K'lath attack destroyed most of Paris), and get in their ship and be on their way again.
  

 

But be that as it may, with space being so big and stars so remote, I think if any alien ship arrive here, it will NOT be by accident. And I doubt it'll be for resources to carry on - the asteroid belt is a much cheaper and easier source of primary resources. It will also NOT be to eat us - our chemistries will be so alien that the chances of them to metabolize any form of Earthlife would be close to zero. That leaves Earth as a destination for colonists - which is, once again, remote - having evolved on such different worlds by necessity, chances are small that Earth will offer them anything close to what they would want. Which means they would have to terraform, which they could just as easily do on any other real estate in the solar system, like Mars, for instance. They wouldn't have any resistance in colonising Mars.

 

I don't think they will come down and introduce their awesome technology to us. Imagine the US going to one of those primitive Pacific islands in the 1940s and willingly give them nuclear power. Why would you trust a primitive race with such power?

 

So, to cut a long story short, I don't see them visiting us for any reason other than scientific curiosity - and even then, they will go out of their way for us not to notice them, so as to keep the sample pure and uncontaminated.

[Moontanman]

Of course there is the idea that "they" are already here, utilizing the resources of the solar system, the asteroids, minor planets, and the Oort cloud, and have no interest in planets at all. WISE, if used correctly, could determine if they are here.... Even with our current technology, if we really applied ourselves to nothing else, we could occupy the entire Galaxy in just a few hundred thousand years, millions at most, a blink of the cosmic eye.

 

WHERE ARE THEY?!