How would we react if we discovered extraterrestrial life?

The image of a dazzling flying object descending from the sky and displaying an army of green beings is the first thing we imagine when reading the news about extraterrestrial life, hitherto hypothetical.

However, the recent headlines about the sighting of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) in the United States, has reignited the debate on the possibility that intelligent beings exist outside of planet Earth. Although Pentagon sources came out to explain to different media that there is no indication that the objects shot down are of alien origin, many continue to ask the same question.

How would we react if we discovered extraterrestrial life?

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is chaos or destruction, but a study presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science ensures that human beings have a much more positive reaction to the possible invasion of aliens.

Fourth object shot down in the United States had “potential surveillance capabilities”

The author of the studyMichael Varnum, of Arizona State University, acknowledges that “if a hostile army appeared near Jupiter, we would not be very happy.” But he and other colleagues found that most descriptions of or reactions to extraterrestrial beings are generally positive.

“The truth is that I was not at all sure what we would discover,” Varnum told National Geographic. “In fiction, the discovery of extraterrestrial life is often depicted with negative social or psychological consequences.”

The study consisted in the analysis of a series of news on the subject of extraterrestrial life, through a linguistic recognition program. Some of the positive words that accompanied the texts were: “happy”, “nice”, “good”; while the words associated with the negative emotion were: “worried”, “nervous”, “angry”.

Why talking about UFOs does not mean referring to aliens

According to the team’s information, in these cases the words they used were more positive than negative. That result was corroborated by surveys of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, who also described their hypothetical reaction to news about aliens in a positive tone.

It should be noted that most of the news items analyzed in the study referred to microbial fossils possibly found on a nearby planet and not to a intelligent and technologically advanced alien race. (YO)