Posted on 02/16/2018 12:18:24 PM PST by Red Badger
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
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As humans reach out technologically to see if there are other life forms in the universe, one important question needs to be answered: When we make contact, how are we going to handle it? Will we feel threatened and react in horror? Will we embrace it? Will we even understand it? Or, will we shrug it off as another thing we have to deal with in our increasingly fast-paced world?
"If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it," said Arizona State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Varnum. "So far, there's been a lot of speculation about how we might respond to this kind of news, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research."
Varnum presented his findings during a press briefing Feb. 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas.
In a pilot study, Varnum and his colleagues analyzed language in newspaper articles about past potential extraterrestrial life discoveries. Through the work, Varnum aimed to address the nature of reactions to extraterrestrial life by analyzing reactions using a software program that quantifies emotions, feelings, drives and other psychological states in written texts.
The articles in the pilot study focused on the 1996 discovery of possibly fossilized extraterrestrial Martian microbes; the 2015 discovery of periodic dimming around Tabby's Star, thought to indicate the presence of an artificially constructed "Dyson sphere;" and the 2017 discovery of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of a star. The pilot study found that language in the coverage of these events showed significantly more positive than negative emotions.
In a separate study, the team asked more than 500 different participants to write about their own hypothetical reactions and humanity's hypothetical reaction to an announcement that extraterrestrial microbial life had been discovered. Participants' responses also showed significantly more positive than negative emotions, both when contemplating their own reactions and those of humanity as a whole.
"I would have some excitement about the news," one participant said. "It would be exciting even if it was a primitive form."
In another study, Varnum's group presented an additional sample of more than 500 people with past news coverage of scientific discoveries and asked them to write about their reactions. The participants were divided into two groups. In one group, participants read a past article from The New York Times describing possible evidence of ancient microbial life on a Mars meteorite. The second group of participants read an article from the Times describing the claimed creation of synthetic human made life created in the lab. Here too, the team found evidence of significantly more positive than negative emotions in responses to the claimed discovery of extraterrestrial life, and this effect was stronger in response to reading about extraterrestrial life than human made synthetic life.
"This discovery shows that other planets have the ability to have life on them," a participant said. "It's a very interesting and exciting finding that could be only the beginning."
In unpublished results presented at the conference, Varnum analyzed recent media coverage of the possibility that the interstellar Oumuamua asteroid might actually be a spaceship. Here too, he found evidence of more positive than negative emotions, suggesting that we may also react positively to the news of the discovery of evidence of intelligent life from elsewhere in the universe.
Varnum said the studies show that "taken together, this suggests if we find out we're not alone, we'll take the news rather well."
The results of the first three studies were published Jan. 10 in Frontiers in Psychology and analysis of reactions to Oumuamua were presented at AAAS for the first time. ASU doctoral students Hannah Bercovici and Jung Yul Kwon, and ASU alumna Katja Cunningham, assisted Varnum in the research.
Varnum will formally present this research in his presentation, "What Happens When Everyone Finds Out?" The presentation will be given at the "Is There a Future for Humanity in Space?" session on Feb. 17.
Explore further: No alien 'signals' from cigar-shaped asteroid: researchers
More information: Jung Yul Kwon et al, How Will We React to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life?, Frontiers in Psychology (2018). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02308
Journal reference: Frontiers in Psychology
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-humans-react-pretty-news-alien.html#jCp
It will be interesting to see when our Annunaki overlords return.
Humans will actually react pretty well to news of alien life but only on Saturday night.
there fixed it
Radio is ancient technology. We can’t think that way and SETI radio programs are a waste.
On the fundamental level, all is connected in the Universe beyond space/time. We are only beginning to grasp these concepts but they are becoming clear in the physics community. Engineering of quantum computers and communication satellites is already in progress.
No doubt a more advanced intelligence would figure out how to use the underlying quantum mechanics to communicate and travel instantaneously. No doubt they would look at us intelligently and always do whatever is in their own best interest. If they perceive our intelligence/culture to be a future threat, they’ll kill us like we would a baby rattlesnake...
Yeah, hostile people will probably treat the aliens terribly!
That’s what they want you to think. It’s really at Area 52.
That would DEPEND on a list of variables.
Dr Jacques Vallee and Dr J Allen Hynek both essentially asserted that the critters are evil spiritual entities that come from an evil DIMENSION, not distant galaxies.
Bit of ST trivia.
When the first episode that had a green alien woman was being shot the woman was painted green from head to toe.
The next day Roddenberry watched the previous days film and the woman was pink as a newborn baby.
The put a double coat of green on the lady and reshot the scene.
Next day, pink again!
They put a triple coat of green on an shot the scene again.
Next day, PINK!
Shooting the scene yet again Roddenberry hand delivered the can of film to the shop for development.
While there he heard someone fussing about having to fix film color all week.
The development shop didn’t know the woman was supposed to be green and had been “fixing” the mistake.
Thereafter notes about skin colors accompanied the film to the developers.
One episode they had to redo all the scenes with alien women because the costume allowed the bottom of each womans breasts (below the nipple) to be seen.
The studio said no way, redo the costumes.
Roddenberry supposedly quipped “what, do they think moss grows there?”
We know that they:
--rape men and women abductees;
--force egg and sperm harvesting;
--mutilate humans exactly the same way they do cattle--without anesthetic;
--lie;
--blow airliners and military craft out of the air--particularly in earlier decades;
--foster cult creation;
--are in league with the satanic oligarchy.
etc. Even when they seem nice, they are treating humans as though a farmer was treating the calf he was going to butcher for the freezer.
Understanding of what they are even seeing? No.
Sail it in on the surface would they even realize it can travel underwater? No.
Ability to manufacture a copy? Not even close.
Not a chance.
--to pretend to be ET's from distant galaxies;
--to command a one world government and a one world religion;
--initially "to prevent extinction of mankind and earth becoming a dead planet due to pollution etc. etc."
--eventually, to demand worship of satan under a government of global tyranny.
They've been manifesting on earth in various guises for thousands of years. Read Dr Jacques Vallee's books.
Guess they’ve not been to CA lately.
You made an absolutist-all-encompassing set of assumptions as though they were absolutely applicable in all cases, including all factors in all situations for all time.
It would depend on how different the levels of technology were.
It would depend on how different in type the different technologies were.
It would depend on what the goals of the 'ET's' were when 'allowing' or 'inserting' their 'crashed' craft into our reality.
It would depend on the level of scientific curiosity of our culture.
It would depend on the level of scientific creativity of our culture's scientists.
It would depend on the values, motivations and priorities of the receiving culture.
As it turned out . . .
The craft were not sooooooo different as to be utterly incomprehensible.
Some puzzles took longer to ferret out but most all of them were eventually understandable.
There is some evidence that the sorts of craft and technologies disclosed to us were tailored for this time period in our history.
Not only have we been tasked with 'back engineering,' some of the critters have been embedded in our top secret locations leading and assisting in the transfer of technology.
This was begun before the Roswell crashes.
I have yet one more important question, O Wise One: When our universities start studying what IS instead of what ISN'T, what will the collective shock-face of America look like?
People are hostile, so it won’t go well.
NSA has decoded a signal of ET origin. It is a Periodic Table of the Elements.
Do you actually think the people who built Columbus’ ships could build a modern nuclear submarine? Not a chance.
Quit talking about RATs like that. Heh
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