Scientists Are Forming ‘Alien Contact Protocol’ For When Humans Encounter ET

While some people can hardly believe aliens exist, others feel it’s only time before another life form contacts us here on Earth. To prepare for that eventuality, scientists from a new international research hub at the University of St Andrews plan to create an official “alien contact protocol” for how humanity should respond. 

The SETI Post-Detection Hub, part of the Center for Exoplanet Science and the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the university, will act as a base for international researchers across the myriad sciences and humanities. 

Together, they will meet to discuss impact assessments, protocol, procedures, and treaties that could be enacted should alien life forms from far out in the cosmos finally reach out to us. 

Dr John Elliott, Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science, says that it is time to broaden the scope of thinking from just assessing the evidence for alien life, but also considering how humans would socially respond to such a situation. 

“Scanning signals of assumed extra-terrestrial origin for structures of language and attaching meaning is an elaborate and time-consuming process during which our knowledge will be advanced in many steps as we learn ‘Extra-Terrestrial’,” he explains. 

At the moment, while the United Nations has plans to deal with potential asteroid hits, there isn’t a global agreement on what should happen should Earth pick up a radio signal from extra-terrestrial life. 

The only existing “contact” protocols were created in 1989, last revised in 2010, and only focused on general scientific conduct, with no guidelines on how the whole process—including searching, handling of evidence, confirmation, analysis, and potential response—should go. 

As such, for the first time, scientists now have a permanent “home” at the SETI Post-Detection Hub to debate and develop such a framework, which will range from how to decipher alien messages to data analytics, regulatory protocols, societal impact strategies, and even space law. 

“Will we ever get a message from E.T.? We don’t know. We also don’t know when this is going to happen. But we do know that we cannot afford to be ill-prepared—scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless—for an event that could turn into reality as early as tomorrow and which we cannot afford to mismanage,” concludes Dr Elliott. 

[via Live Science and University of St Andrews, cover image via Fernando Gregory | Dreamstime.com]