Let’s imagine an alien spaceship parked itself in orbit within view of the International Space Station. Let’s also assume the aliens announce themselves by transmitting television signals to every nation on Earth. We’ll also assume they have the technology to use the appropriate Earth language for each nation.

How soon would everyone on Earth know about the alien visitors? I’d guess 99.9% of Earthlings would know within an hour with our current technology.

How would you react? Like the Moon landing or 9/11, I picture everyone glued to their TVs for days. But in the days following the big event, how would you really react? Do you think alien visitors would drastically change our global society?

If the alien spaceship never lands because they worry about our microbes infecting them, or they worry about their microbes infecting Earth, will the event ever feel that real? We’ve consumed countless stories about alien visitors. Have science fiction books and movies prepared us for every possibility?

Let’s rule out alien invasions. Let’s assume the space visitors stay for a year and leave, but they hook us up with the galactic internet that uses an advanced protocol we’d never discover on our own. So now we get video feeds from several alien planets, and we’re allowed to broadcast video feeds from Earth. Of course, transmissions are at the speed of light, so news from elsewhere is no faster than starlight.

It turns out there is very little intergalactic travel. Our visitors were AIs that maintain an existence for thousands of years. It’s just not practical for biological beings to travel interstellar distances, nor is it practical for them to visit alien ecosystems.

Would humanity stop fighting wars, polluting the environment, or change in any significant way? Would people give up their religion? Would people become addicted to watching video feeds from other planets? Would they embrace religions, philosophies, or fads from other planets? Would academics study the history and arts from other worlds?

Would people stop reading science fiction? Except for alternate histories, science fiction writers stopped writing stories about the first missions to the Moon.

I would be tremendously excited if an alien spaceship visited us. I might stay glued to the television for days. But eventually, I’d go back to my old interests. I might pick a planet and watch its feeds every night for an hour. I could watch feeds from every country on Earth now, but I don’t.

I’m pretty sure I’d stop reading science fiction, although I might enjoy sampling alien science fiction for a while. In my old age, I tend to like stories and shows set in the 19th and 20th centuries. Right now, my wife and I are watching a 1968 miniseries based on Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. I do like watching short YouTube videos after my morning walk. I assume I’d subscribe to some feeds from the stars, but I like short videos.

My attention span isn’t that great. I assume watching aliens and their worlds would be like watching PBS Nature. I used to find that show compelling, but after a few seasons, I had enough of watching animals in their habitats.

I tend to doubt that aliens would reveal any big secrets of existence. I believe technology has limits. I expect different aliens will perceive different aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum, and we’d learn a lot more about the spacetime, but it too will have limits.

People have little ability to control their human nature now. I don’t expect we’ll change. I’ll even predict that our current technological civilization will eventually collapse, and humanity will revert to an earlier stage. We’ll forget how to maintain the intergalactic feeds, and eventually aliens will become myths.

If I had a talent for writing fiction, I’d make this post into a science fiction novel.

JWH