Advice from a Harvard professor in case the aliens arrive

That there is other life in the Universe beyond ours, even as intelligent as and perhaps more than us, is now a belief shared by most of the people and scholars concerned. That we may, at least in the short term, be able to come into contact with these aliens, or that they are able to visit us, is instead an idea that presents many doubts and objections.

Doubts that definitely don't belong to Avi Loeb, theoretical physicist and Harvard lecturer, who even thinks aliens have already visited us in 2017! Loeb, who thanks to his theories on possible visits by extraterrestrials has become "viral" both inside and outside the scientific community, recently published in Scientific American, an essay on what we, understood as Mankind, would be better than we did when (and not if…) these interstellar visitors finally decided to arrive en masse and without hiding.



The first thing to do, perhaps not too obvious, is to decide how to act. For obvious reasons, an official protocol in the event of First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization is not exactly at the top of the agenda of Governments and International Institutions right now, so it is reasonable to think that each nation should decide for itself how to behave. It would be questionable, continues Loeb, to have global guidelines, however, for the whole planet.

When the United Nations Council also drew up a world protocol for the first attempts at communication with aliens, huge amounts of money would have to be allocated to research to better understand extraterrestrial life forms and maintain a proactive attitude about. The physicist also adds that allocating large taxpayer funds in this direction is not a gamble, since the possible implications of such a discovery would have a far greater impact on society than that of the discovery of gravitational waves.

These hypothetical funds should be invested in particular in understanding the technology of our visitors. Loeb doesn't seem to dwell too much on the ways in which we came into possession of it, but we all sincerely hope that it is thanks to their gift, rather than following a direct confrontation! Also because, in all likelihood, alien technological superiority would be truly overwhelming, and therefore the clash should really be our last, desperate, resource.



The article continues by pointing out the a fact that in any case we should always be ready for anything, given that the research on this technology and its creators could easily question our beliefs not only in the technical field, but also in the philosophical and perhaps even theological field. The resulting culture shock would forever change our culture and society, completely revising what we believed was our place in the Universe.

If in the meantime, you would like to deepen the subject, we recommend UFO. The contact factor. Aliens, intelligence and exopolitics, by Roberto Pinotti, which you can buy at this link. Always hoping that they will come in peace…