Let's pretend that all of a sudden we had physical and undeniable proof that a civilization other than our own once existed.

For example we picked up a signal from a probe, upon further investigation it's a machine that is thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years old, but contains technology similar, or slightly more advanced than out own bearing some kind of stored information about it's senders (similar to Voyager's golden record).

What would humanity's reaction be?

I'm sure depending on what sector of humanity you were talking about, the reaction would be different, for example there would be those who declare it a hoax, or refuse to accept it at all, and there would be those who say it a sign that "the end" may be near.

I'm sure over all it would be ground shaking and would all at once answer some of our most long standing questions, but over all how would it change things? What would be "the church's" stance, the government's, the average Joe?

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I think there would be a great number of different reactions to list. For me, I would react with great trepidation and wonder, yet I would still be critical being ready to accept that the given culture found within that civilization may be incompatible with ours. Thus, I would be eager but cautious with further contact.

-- Bridget

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"Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of "equilibrium" that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man." -- Ayn Rand

Utter chaos, there would be riots, protests, religious shock....it would be just crazy.

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I doubt that. People have become so inured to the idea of extraterrestrial contact that most would probably take it in their stride. Given the number of people who are convinced we have already been contacted and that the government has been covering it up for years, I think there's not much of a gulf to jump. I honestly think the most realistic depiction of human-ET contact was in Independence Day; people would either watch the event on TV, or use it as an excuse to get drunk, party and fire guns in the air.

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

I disagree, I mean, people protest us collecting dust from a commit and you think everything would be hunky dory? Just imagine the governments reaction due to national security, and all of the people that believe they were abducted by Ailiens...

... things would be super crazy for a long time. Just about everyone here would be excited as we strive to know the unknown, out there it is a LOT different.

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I think it would be big news for a while, Hollywood would make movies, but then it would all die down as people realized that nothing has really changed here and the aliens are too far away to visit.

Very very few people are protesting that -- or anything else having to do with space, for that matter. Vast majority do not care; a sizable majority is not even aware Stardust mission happened.

To answer OP -- it would dominate the news for a week or two, and then everyone's attention would go back to their 401K, Iraq, and Superbowl. For some it would become their life -- either trying to contact the aliens, to claim a government cover-up, to worship them, to claim they are Devils, etc. All of the above together would comprise a small minority.

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That just furthers my point, unless you live under a rock, you would certainly know about Alien Intelligence was contacting us, increasing the amount of WooWoo's exponentially.

But I guess I agree to disagree with everyone on the subject.

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Never underestimate the short-term memory loss rate which makes our species so cute. Give it about 2 weeks from the moment people rush out and pick up their shiney new zeta-fm radios for only $29.95. Then poof it's back to chasing bigfoot.

I think the reactions would be varied. The scientifically minded would be excited, curious to find out more. The woo woo fringe would go bonkers, they'd say they were *right* all along, all sorts of nonsense would proliferate, if only for awhile. The majority of people would only be interested in how this information would affect them personally, when it became clear that it wasn't going affect their daily lives...they would cease to think much about it at all. As for various religions, I guess they'd either say the aliens were created by God, or that they were Satan's minions, perhaps? Then again, I find it hard to predict the actions of the religious, anything could happen there, I guess.

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Not to mention the people who would shout "Conspiracy, Conspiracy!"

I am sure that if we did find Intelligence that the gov. would do everything within it's power to keep it away from the public to prevent any craziness, that is if I am correct and people would freak, otherwise it wouldn't make a difference.

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With the advent of the internet, almost everybody hails from Missouri. "Until I see a martian with my own eyes......" Signals even oked by the government rate right up there with audio tapes of Bigfoot.

I wonder what would break out on the other end. What about the first intelligent lifeform, not from our planet, that deciphers our "golden record"?
Would they be excited, like a scientist and initiate further research of our primitive (but promising) attempts at becoming an intergalactic player?
Would they feel very important and special, like by "finding" us they sort of brought us into existance?
Or would they just read our data with idle curiousity, like the magazines one reads while waiting to see the dentist?


I think our reaction would greatly depend on their chosen way of presentation and how "we" are viewed by "them".

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I think sales of tinfoil hats would increase for a while.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

It all depends on the level of curiosity the life form has, obv. to reach the point of space exploration it must have a great deal of curiosity as we do, if we didn't we would have been a totally different organism ourselves. Our traits and thoughts and imagination shaped who we are, and that must be the case with other intelligent life forms as well.

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Well...historically speaking our exploration of our own planet was more motivated by pillage and plunder than curiousity.
As far as we know our space exploration has a kinder gentler agenda... (?) ...but we do still love to plant our flags where ever we go, don't we? Hmmmm

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Teri berry...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Width, silver, bells, cockle, shells, and prithe made all in aureole

There would not be chaos, it would be like many science breakthroughs in our past, they did not cause wide chaos. I think there would finally be more interest in the space program. Then the conspiracy theorists would say that the message is a hoax, it is an excuse to tax us for more space exploration!

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i think the response would be kind of a combination of Contact and Independence Day...
all the religious wackos would be out in full force- i wonder what Pat Robertson would have to say about that?- along with all the woowoos and conspiracy nuts.
everyone else would just use it as an excuse to get drunk and shoot stuff.

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I'm with Ilya et al.: it would be big news for a while, but barring some truly dramatic revelation from the message, it would be business as usual in a year or so. However, there would be people who would apply themselves toward studying it and formulating a response (if warranted) full-time, as well as looking for the planet or part of space it came from, and so forth. It's just not human nature for lots of people to be over-the-top about something indefinitely, IMO.

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"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot."

--The State

In the initial post, snabald stated: "Let's pretend" we had "physical proof" and that we "picked up a signal". This implies that we got a signal and then intercepted and retrieved actual alien hardware from space, presumably within our solar system.

This opens up some possibilities beyond receiving only an alien radio signal from far away in time and space. If an actual alien probe or device of some kind could make it all the way here through enormous distances, it would not matter that the aliens were alive or extinct. The fact that actual hardware came to us would raise questions ranging from enormous scientific interest to concerns for national and planet-wide security. It might seem hokey and sound like an old movie, but an actual alien object might be dangerous or hostile, (perhaps unintentionally hostile) to us – or not at all. We wouldn't know at first.

If it's still giving out a signal, that would be the first aspect that would likely be studied.

Even if it was small enough, we probably would not retrieve it and bring it back to Earth. What if it was 50 kilometers in diameter and caught in Earth orbit? That would freak people out as we don't have the ability to physically retrieve it and everyone on Earth could spot it going over on a daily basis. The bottom line is, we would have to study it. As we hopefully understand more about it, people would calm down over time.

The WooWoos would claim they knew it was coming all along, but most of the popular ones would simply see it as another opportunity to make a buck. Larry King would interview them. Meanwhile, universities, individual scientists, NASA, the Russian and European Space Agencies and numerous scientific organizations around the world would be clamoring to get in on studying it.

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