With new probes, telescopes, and radio antennae, scientists are intensifying their search for alien civilizations. But itâs possible human civilization isnât ready to meet extraterrestrials.
Thereâs no global plan (at least, that the public knows of). No consensus among spacefaring countries on how we should follow up on first contact with an alien civilization. No treaty compelling Earth governments to behave properly toward our new extraterrestrial neighbors.
Thatâs a problem, according to John Gertz, who once sat on the board of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California. Heâs mostly worried about what happens after the search is successful. âOne way or another, contact with aliens may be imminent,â he wrote in a new paper slated to be published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, but which has already inspired a serious debate among experts.
âThere has been no planning among nations for the aftermath of a first detection,â Gertz told The Daily Beast. âIf nations and private parties do not act in concert, the worst-case scenarios are potentially catastrophic.â War could break out on Earth as countries scramble to monopolize the technological spoils of interstellar relations with an advanced alien civilization. Or worse, war could break out between humanity and E.T. after one country or another, acting alone, botches interstellar negotiations.
âThis is why we should all be in this together,â Gertz wrote, âand make these tough choices through representative bodies and codify those decisions within an international treaty.â
He even proposed a basic outline for a prospective agreement. This âTreaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in Humankindâs Relations with Robotic or Biological Extraterrestrial Intelligenceâ gives all signatories the right to search for aliens, but requires that âall such SETI searches shall be conducted for the benefit of all humankind.â And if someone makes first contact, they must immediately report it to the United Nations.
If the aliens seem hostile, the U.N. would have the power to lock down communications from Earth to E.T.âs home world. If they seem friendly, the U.N. would give whichever probe or alien institution made contact with Earth the same legal rights as a human ambassador. All communications with the aliens would be vetted by a U.N. committee then approved by the full U.N. General Assembly.
A panel of SETI experts agreed a treaty is a good ideaâeven imperative. The stakes are too high not to start thinking about Earth-alien relations, they said. Without a treaty, we risk the âextinction of humanityâ in the event we or the aliens botch first contact, John Traphagan, a religious-studies professor at the University of Texas who studies first contact, told The Daily Beast. He believes the likeliest bad outcome is that an international race to capitalize on first contact escalates into a nuclear or biological war.
Traphagan stressed that any first-contact treaty should be co-written by representatives of all 195 countries on Earth, âand not be simply driven by Western powers and particularly the U.S.â After all, it would be especially tempting for the U.S., as the worldâs leading space power, to take control of the treaty-writing process.
Jason Wright, a Penn State astronomer, told The Daily Beast a treaty should discourage âactiveâ SETI and encourage âpassiveâ SETI. In other words, it should nudge countries toward listening for aliens rather than actively broadcasting welcome messages across the cosmos.
âIf there are predatory aliens, it would be easy for them to set honey trapsâseemingly innocent signals [or] messages whose actual intent is to get species to reveal themselves,â Ken Wisian, a University of Texas geophysicist who studies first contact, told The Daily Beast. With passive SETI, weâd know about aliens before they knew about us. And that would give us an opportunity to decide whether E.T. is hostile before we respond.
Above all, a treaty should be flexible. Our search for alien life is expanding, and fast. At the same time, aliens exist only in our imaginations at present. Sure, they could be hostileâbut maybe theyâd be friendly. Or maybe the words âhostileâ and âfriendlyâ wouldnât apply to whatever they are.
Maybe theyâre unknowable until we know them. When it comes to negotiating with aliens, âthe details of the right decision will depend in large part on facts about extraterrestrial others of which we are currently unaware,â Chelsea Haramia, a philosopher at Spring Hill College in Alabama, told The Daily Beast.
âHowever, our potential inability to predict the worst of the worst should not prevent us from recognizing what we can anticipate here and now,â Haramia added. Writing a SETI treaty would compel us to think about homo sapiens as one species with a shared destiny and a single, fragile planet we call home. Weâd be more encouraged to appreciate our shared humanity. âWe can seize on this cosmically-motivated opportunity to rally productive discussion,â Haramia said.
A global philosophical readjustment might be the only thing to come out of any effort to write a SETI treaty. An actual globally ratified SETI treaty might be too much to ask of a world where the major powers canât even agree to caps on nuclear weapons. âI am somewhat skeptical that it would be agreed to,â Wisian said.
Give it time, Gertz said. It took decades for most of the world to agree, however half-heartedly, to do anything about climate change. It might take just as long, or longer, to get the worldâs governments to hammer out a legal framework for talking to E.T. âLetâs face it, until quite recently, encounters with aliens were the stuff of tabloid newspapers.â