I forget where I read it, but I remember reading that we can tell some information about E.T.s based on how they approach us. The consensus reported by what I read was that if they stop at some distance like Jupiter or at most the asteroid belt, then they are less likely to be aggressive. It's the equivalent of stopping on the porch and ringing the doorbell vs. just walking into the house, which is what showing up in our planet's orbit would be.

Realistically, fighting them is out of the question. If they have a superluminal drive there's a good chance they could accelerate things to just under the speed of light and steer them to the Earth. The effects of a 5kg steel ball hitting the Earth's atmosphere at 99% the speed of light are debatable [1], but all the opinions agree the devastation would be massive, with probably heavy to total casualties within 300 miles, and possibly massive seismic activity if it drilled into the Earth's crust instead of being converted into X-Rays and a fireball by the atmosphere.

I suspect at some point we will advance enough to get to the Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system, find a beacon warning all ships away from the nascent primitive sentients, and figure out how to turn off the beacon. If we survive as a species that long and then are able to do that it could serve as passing a basic racial intelligence test, and allow us to interact with other species. Until then, only approved researchers agreeing to secrecy would be allowed to visit us and observe. This is all conjecture though, there is no evidence as far as I can tell.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-to-Earth-if-a-5kg-me... [2]https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-to-the-Earth-if-it-w...

There's good logic in each of these ideas but may be based on false premises. e.g. porch distance may be just outside our solar system or a light year. I hardly expect that beacons are set up around uninteresting life forms. It would be like save the x species of insect--who does that? And even then, we're presuming inclinations similar to our own values.

The only thing that does makes sense is that the only time to even consider aggression is if we were closely matched which has negligible likelihood.

Or perhaps we should quickly figure out what constitutes as 'cute' or 'entertaining' to our visitors, if we are to model their behavior to our own.

We'd doubtful be deemed uninteresting after figuring out world-destroying weapons and space-travel. Especially if we were considering mixing the two together. [0]

I'd argue these developments would be most interesting, and justifying of a warning beacon, or even some kind of a barrier, were such behaviour to be detected as originating from an uncontacted species.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119

So this is a weird post, even for me. It is almost entirely speculation and extrapolation from some bizarre assumptions: UFOs are real, UFOs are alien, the aliens are not alien enough to make us unable to reason about their behavior.

The jury is still out for me on UFOs, even with all that's come to light. There's something there..but occam's razor would indicate it's not aliens. Still, IF it was then there's a correlation I find interesting.

The number of recorded UFO sightings (whatever the cause) was minuscule before WW II. Looking at www.ufoevidence.org (not exactly peer reviewed, but it's there), the pre-1940s cases number 12. The 1940s hav 20. The 1950s have 64. The 1960s have 92. 1970s 131. Then it curiously drops in the decade the Soviet Union fell and nuclear war became less likely. 1980s has 58, 90s 59, and only 118 from 2000 to 2020.

If UFOs exist and are aliens, then I don't suspect they are visiting us for some altruistic purpose but for research. After all, if our scientists had the chance to see a pre-industrial race on the verge of collapse or advance, like the Mayans just before meeting Cortez, our scientists would jump at that chance. And there is the Fermi paradox - maybe most species kill themselves off and aliens want to observe to form theories on why.

> assumptions: UFOs are real, UFOs are alien, the aliens are not alien enough to make us unable to reason about their behavior

This is good, to be clear about what assumptions we are making. I see 'UFOs are real/UFOs are alien' as one not two and would call it a premise more than an assumption. If _, then here's our plan...

As for the 'not alien enough to make us unable to reason' cuts both ways. The opposite is the assumption that they are similar enough that we can reason about their behavior. It's important to cover both sides of this one.

The biggest assumption is the degree of their interest in interacting. I would place this at low. It's hard to come up with why this might be low: prime directive, we're an inconsequential species/or one of vastly many, reaching us is costly, etc.

Our context here is: "What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up?".

Assuming they exist is central to exploring this context. This doesn't mean anyone exploring the idea necessarily believes or disbelieves they exist.

There were a bunch of ex-military who testified publicly as to UFO events surrounding nuclear facilities in the US and the former Soviet Union around the cold war. The UFO's were reportedly deactivating missiles on both sides simultaneously.

I don't recall the source exactly but I'm sure it's out there. Anyway, it at least makes some sort of sense (versus other claims about aliens sticking things up peoples butts).

I mention it as if this happened, and was some kind of intervention, and presumably successful, it might make sense they subsequently laid low for a bit, potentially matching your correlation.

Again, I'm not suggesting any of this is real, it's just an interesting idea within the context of this post.

I wonder how far away from Earth could have been detected the atmospherical nukes blowed in the XX century.

And if those nuke produced some currently undiscovered very far (light years), detectable energy / event? Yeah, most close neighbors could have already spotted us in 1950.

That might be a good Ask HN question - surely some here would be able to answer it.

Our extensive radio transmissions would surely already have been received, but the nukes (being secret initially), if detectable at interstellar distances, could certainly give away destructive capability earlier than radio transmissions could reveal.

We should try to talk to them, communication. We should try to survive the first contact, specially if they are pacific.

It could not be inmediately clear that a succesful peaceful first contact could lead to disastrous consequences for us.

We should pay attention to every human instint in existence, but controlling the natural agressive response to the unknown.

But the survival instintc should not be disregarded inmediately and automatically replaced with "moderation". The aftermath of an error could be beyond a point of no return for us as species.

What if we question ET as a pure contemporary myth ? Maybe we would avoid such articles, and start considering ourselve as casual as we are.

> Maybe we would avoid such articles

Speak for yourself. Every one of us is entitled to an opinion. I want to see more informed thought on this subject, not less.

On top of all that, I'm excited to see what comes of this report from the Pentagon this summer: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/01/we-need-ta...

I suspect that's a Rubicon already crossed.

Surrender.

Anyone remember the Fifth Element where Milla Jovovich hits the word "war" in wikipedia?

Any civilized space civ will keep us in box with a lock in the best case.

Any rapacious space civ will enslave us, or just exterminate us.

We are evil. We're trashing our planet. Conflict, murder, war is omnipresent. Our leaders are liars and sociopaths.

Our only saving grace may be our sanity with respect to not nuking ourselves to the stone age.

You have a high opinion about sapiens-sapiens capability to make reasonable actions. but most probably having surviving nuclear extintion till now was just a matter of survival instintc. Something happening almost entirely out of the neo-cortex.