What would happen to our planet, humanity, you, if Alien life exists?

First I want to touch on what I will define life in the post, for clarity.
-Microbial
-Creature
-Intelligent
-Sentient
I'm defining Microbial life as bacteria and other microorganisms. Creature life, dinosaurs, early mammals and etc. I would classify Intelligent from early caveman to us today. For Sentient I will use a wiki definition "sentience - The state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness."

What if We Discover Them VS. What if They Discover Us?
Let's start with what if we discover some form of microbial, creature or even intelligent life? How would that impact us as a planet, race, and as an individual? This definitely depends on the stage in which we find life. If we find Microbial or Creature, the ego of the human race is most likely going to skyrocket. We are going to feel evolved, accomplished and 'better' than whatever we find. Finding intelligent life would differ depending on what stage of intelligent the 'beings' were at. If they in a sense had the intelligence of a Earth caveman we would probably view them as inferior but relate-able. If the intelligent life was more on par with our intelligence a multitude of outcome could occur. Everything from living in harmony to destroying each other. With Sentient the topic switches to Discovering Us, A sentient being would undoubtedly be more advanced than us at this time, meaning that odds are they would have found us, long before we even began to look for them. What happens then, if we are discovered and we are inferior as a caveman is to us today? The fact of the matter is, we won't know until we ourselves discover them because by us knowing that they exist we are in turn discovering them regardless of if they have discovered us...sorry if that was confusing.

How Would We Deal with Valuable Resources? Trading? Stealing?
If we were to discover a planet with life equivalent to our Prehistoric earth and this planet was teeming with valuable natural resources. Would we take what we need even if in turn we were harming the creatures on the planet? What if we discovered a planet with intelligent being similar to the Native Americans? Would we take what we need, even going as far to set up trading? How about beings similar to us in intelligence we the stronger of the two fight it out for everything, importing? exporting? coexisting in peace?

What if We Were To Discover Technology? Civilizations?
What would happen if someday, while probing the sky's we find an alien 'satellite' lost from orbit from some far away planet? Would it be worse having a confirmation that life existed and not know the location, intelligence, current state of being? This theory sounds pretty scary to me. What if we find an ancient civilization destroyed on a desolate planet? We would have proof that life existed outside our planet but no idea what happened to them, if they left, died, or something else we have yet to understand. Think about spending the existence of humanity finding nothing but ruins and signs of life but never find life itself. Would we eventually stop looking if we never find life or evidence of life outside our planet?

Thanks for taking the time to read all of that. I'm hoping to hear what you think about all of this. Your opinions about the theories and what you think is possibility, everything. All I can say is that I hope we learn from our past.

Originally posted by fasteronfire
What if we discovered a planet with intelligent being similar to the Native Americans? Would we take what we need, even going as far to set up trading?

No. We would probably kill as many of them as possible, rape the land of what we need, then eventually feel guilty and give them reservations.

We are a very aggressive animal. It's probably for this reason other intelligent lifeforms don't drop in for coffee. Would you jump into a pit of snakes?




[edit on 6-9-2010 by FOXMULDER147]

Microbial = Yes we are not alone an life is possible outside the earth.
Intelligent ? Sentient ? A Dolphin is sentient Elephants and chimps are to. But we probably think a caveman is more intelligent.

Anyways. Direct exposure with other life forms above microbial could wipe us all from existence. Both alien and Human alike.

War of the worlds ? Its the germs that get to you.

I guess it all boils down to which of "US" finds them. If it is a scientific community hopefully they would make it public, so this would give the "found" a better chance of living. If the government found them...Well you have seen what happens to people who disagree with them on earth, so just imagine what would have to ones that we are not even related to.

Alien life exists , no question , the Universe is so vast and full of stuff the odds of us being the only life baring Planet are [ forgive the pun ] astronomical .
The question should be what would happen if its proved Alien life is visiting Earth.

I think it all comes down to aesthetics. If this alien life were visually pleasing to us, we'd be more apt to proceed with "humanitarian" agendas, even if those agendas were to build a McDonalds on every corner of the aliens world and then to sell them all the crack and liquor they could handle.

But let them be some kind of giant slug creature and that changes the whole equation. We'd nuke without a second thought.

Think of Star Trek... Green women - good. Anything that looked like a bad Giger painting - dead.

Originally posted by Hefficide
I think it all comes down to aesthetics.

Good point. If aliens looked like Megan Fox I think disclosure would have happened already.

[edit on 6-9-2010 by FOXMULDER147]

Originally posted by Hefficide

I think it all comes down to aesthetics. If this alien life were visually pleasing to us, we'd be more apt to proceed with "humanitarian" agendas...

I don't know bud.We don't have a very good record on how we treat even other races of humans let alone some alien race. If I were a betting man I'd say we'd be hostile if the opportunity showed itself. Sad to say...

What if We Discover Them VS. What if They Discover Us?

If we discover ET microbes, it will not really upset the apple cart that much. Why? Because technically, it was already announced, and it didn't...even though later the findings were laced with much doubt. We've all but proven water flowed (and may still in some areas) on Mars, yet it hardly made a ripple in public opinion.

Chances are, if any other intelligent beings (and by intelligent, I mean sentient, i.e. they are self-aware, can communicate with us, etc.) are capable of visiting us, then they likely already have. The bigger question is "if they are visiting, why are they keeping secret"? That's the real kicker. Conquest doesn't seem to be the key, or we'd likely already be enslaved or served up on a dinner platter by now. My theory is "containment and observation", but it's only that....a theory.

If we discovered other intelligent beings (we found them), then the result would depend on who was more advanced. If they were less, we'd likely exploit them quite a bit before society as a whole reigned in those doing so. If more advanced, we would try to find a bargaining chip, and seek out an exchange for technology.

How Would We Deal with Valuable Resources? Trading? Stealing?

See above, all depends on who is perceived to have the power.

What if We Were To Discover Technology? Civilizations?

We'd still look for others (and with even more zeal). We'd exploit what we found, no doubt, and look for both live civilizations, and dead ones. For me, I'd actually PREFER this result, as it would support that we aren't alone, while not having the threat of "evil" aliens out to get us.

If we were to meet aliens more intelligent than us, and they were out to get us, I'd imagine it would be similar to V....(they'd use our own cultural expectations, and conventions, etc. to undo us).

Originally posted by Gazrok
If we discover ET microbes, it will not really upset the apple cart that much. Why? Because technically, it was already announced, and it didn't...even though later the findings were laced with much doubt. We've all but proven water flowed (and may still in some areas) on Mars, yet it hardly made a ripple in public opinion.

What? When?

And proving water flowed on Mars doesn't mean one goddamn thing unless you can prove there was once life in that water.

If we were to meet aliens more intelligent than us, and they were out to get us, I'd imagine it would be similar to V....(they'd use our own cultural expectations, and conventions, etc. to undo us).

I love V : )

I agree that if the case is they are more intelligent and were out to get they would exploit our weaknesses as a whole species.

i wold like to think that the human population has evolved enough to handle such a obvious concept

The jungle is full of sheep's, their is no other animal in the jungle, other than us sheep's, who ever said their is some snakes, reptiles and lions among us sheep's? who ever thinks other wise is crazy, you know? a fruit loop or a conspiracy theorist.

Yep! that GALAXI is all ours and no body els cant fit in it cause our planet is square, they might fall into heavens and probably die.

I heard a story once that a sheep saw an original wolf "and I was like" this guy must be crazy, stupid conspiracy theorist.

However interesting of a subject this might be, its been portrayed in countless sci-fi movies, and each of the scenarios you've layed out has been discussed by the scientific community.

But in the end, the outcome is dependant on the human imagination. Another thought would be; what scenario would we be representing to E.T.?

This as well as been a part of a sci-fi novel in H.G. Wells' ' War of the Worlds'. Human bacterias would probably be very lethal to ETs as much as they would be to us.

Whatever meteorite hitting earth, makes a part of earth going to the cosmos, if that part of the earth hit another planet... it would probably be as much lethal to the planet as their bacteria would be to us.