Will COVID-19 help to prepare us for contact with real UFOs?
The question “Will COVID-19 help to prepare us for contact with real UFOs?” seems absurd at first. How could a worldwide pandemic help humanity prepare for potential contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life? However, the longer you sit and think about it the more it kind of makes sense.
While the two events in question are very different, some of their outcomes would be similar. Astronomy.com points out that the social, economic, scientific, and political upheaval we’re currently seeing wouldn’t be entirely unlike what might happen if Earth finally made contact with aliens.
The concept tickled our brains so we decided to take a further look at it.
First things first
Before there could be a fallout of a confirmed real contact, the most relevant question is how the contact is made.
If it’s a UFO coming to Earth, touching down, and aliens walking out, then the situation would play out wildly differently than if we received a signal from a distant far-off solar system.
If a UFO came to Earth there wouldn’t really be much time for planning, arguing about the best possible course of action, or other hem hawings – they’d already be here and possibly asking to be “taken to our leader”. The UFO situation would be stickier than gum stuck in hair.
On the other hand, if we received a signal similar to the ones we’ve sent out into the galaxy, querying whether other life forms are out there, we’d have a lot more time to strategize the next move. Albeit, the amount of time it would take such a signal to travel for lightyears upon lightyears, would beg the question of whether the civilization that sent it is still alive or if they’re even aware a signal was once sent our direction.
Turmoil is inevitable
One of the great things about humanity is how we all have different perspectives and opinions. Our strong feelings on a subject can also be one of our less productive attributes. An unwillingness to compromise or even understand other people’s perspectives can cause a lot of problems. We’re seeing this in the world today.
Astronomy.com believes we’d also see an awful lot of arguments and scrutiny should we ever receive a real message from an alien planet.
Who should be the person or people allowed to write the message responding? How does this affect the relationship between scientists and politicians? Who is fear-mongering and who is putting forth logical concerns? These are all questions we’re asking today & they’d also be asked when talking to real aliens.
How it’s useful
Looking at the mess we’re in today with COVID-19 and how people respond to it, while it isn’t a fun thing to live through, could be useful for creating preparation plans in the event we make real first contact.
In preparing for a potential pandemic, social scientists looked at anything they could get their hands on to understand what was likely to happen & better understand human nature for the future. They looked at everything from historical documents to a video game’s glitch which accidentally simulated a pandemic rather well.
This moment in time will one day be a historical record people can use to inform their knowledge of how people face a situation affecting the world as a whole – a situation that’s scary, brings forth existential questions, and changes the world as we know it.
