How many of you have said, thought, or heard over the past couple of years:
“If aliens landed tomorrow, I swear I wouldn’t be surprised one bit”?
It is such a clichéd but deeply meaningful question — are we alone? The question of Life, the Universe, and Everything — at least for us. And if you are familiar with „The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“ (which famously refers to the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything), you know that it all began with an Earthman who was unaware of the crucial message concerning his home, prominently displayed in the cellar, until it was far too late.
I believe there’s an important message for us on the display — one we really don’t want to miss.
Spoiler:
If they land tomorrow, you will be surprised, overwhelmed, confused, and astonished — at best.
But memes will help you cope.
Photo Credit: Cinesite — © Touchstone Pictures, All rights reserved. Source: IMDb
But let’s get practical
Extraterrestrials. Yes — extraterrestrials.
Do they really exist? When I say “they,” I mean civilizations advanced enough to communicate and travel across vast distances of space. This assumption should not feel far-fetched to us, considering that we ourselves are already capable of communication and exploration on a planetary scale.
If we extrapolate our own technological development over the last 400 years into the next 400, the picture becomes striking. What we take for granted today would have looked like pure magic to people living just a few centuries ago. So if 400 years of progress can turn magic into engineering, what might 4,000 years of progress look like?
Let’s get even more practical
Contact matrix:
This gives us four quadrants, which I will refer to as four possible options.
I promise to keep a practical approach and to examine each option through three guiding questions:
- To what extent is this option consistent with observable reality?
- What are the consequences for us — globally and individually?
- What can we do, or should we do, under this option — collectively and individually?
Options 1 and 3 — which are, beautifully put by Garry Nolan, “arrogant at best and statistically stupid at worst” to believe — are not particularly interesting for our discussion. I am therefore mainly interested in the remaining two options: option 2, and especially option 4.
Option 2: they do exist somewhere in the vast Universe, but they are not here
Things to check on this option:
- Does this align with observable reality?
There is, at present, no contradiction with observable reality.
From the standpoint of general scientific consensus, this option remains fully plausible. - What are the consequences for our everyday lives?
Probably not as immediately dramatic as many people imagine.
The discovery would fundamentally reshape our understanding of the Universe and our place within it. For the first time in human history, we would know that organized technological life has emerged elsewhere.
There would be headlines, breaking news coverage, endless media discussion, documentaries, memes, podcasts, and public debate. Space agencies and scientific institutions would likely see increased attention and potentially larger budgets. New research fields could emerge around the study of extraterrestrial civilizations and long-term cosmic evolution.
Religious communities would also engage with the discovery. Many would reinterpret existing doctrines in light of the new reality, while others would debate its theological implications. The Vatican, for example, has long stated that the existence of extraterrestrial life would not necessarily contradict Christian doctrine.
And yet — the next day, most people would still wake up, go to work, pay their bills, take care of their families, and continue their routines.
Unless you are a scientist, philosopher, theologian, policymaker, or work in a related field, the immediate impact on daily life would likely remain limited.
- What can we do about this option?
In essence, nothing fundamentally new is required.
Everything we would need to do in this scenario is already being done: space exploration, rocket development, SETI and Breakthrough Listen initiatives, life-detection missions, ground- and space-based telescopes, and astrobiology programs searching for exoplanets and biosignatures.
Option 2, in practice, describes a scenario we are already living in: we are actively searching for intelligent life, while so far observing none. The discovery would be transformative intellectually, but would leave most aspects of everyday life largely unchanged.
Option 4: they are there and they are around
The most thrilling and challenging option for humankind.
- How well does this option correspond to observable reality?
This option can be fully consistent with observable reality — provided that we do not ignore the crucial message referred to at the beginning of this presentation, a message we truly do not want to miss.
This includes UAP reports, official investigations, witness testimony, sensor data, and the broader body of related information that has accumulated over decades and become increasingly difficult to dismiss outright, particularly over the past ten years. While none of it settles the matter conclusively, it does make Option 4 something more than mere science fiction — and therefore something worth taking seriously. - What are the consequences for our everyday life?
What on Earth would change if we acknowledged the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence around our planet?
I can only think of one thing. And that one thing is everything.
A lot to figure out. First of all — wow, are you for real? Is this really it — the long-awaited contact with non-human intelligence?
Who are they? Where are they coming from, and how is this even possible? Why now, why here — of all places, of all times?
How long have they been here? What have they seen, witnessed, or learned about us along the way?
And then comes the question that fractures everything: who speaks for humanity now? Who gets to stand at the microphone when an entire species is suddenly part of the conversation?
Are we ready to respond — or are we already responding without realizing it? Are we even capable of interacting with them — or are we already out of our depth? What does this change for everything we thought was stable, permanent, self-evident?
And perhaps the hardest question of all: who are we now, when we are no longer alone?
Can we still bury our heads in the sand — or is that option already gone?
Then comes the storm beneath the storm: technological surprise, ontological shock, an identity crisis at a scale we can barely even name.
Individuals, stripped of cosmic solitude.
A collective, suddenly no longer the only thinking system on the stage.
A species — forced, in real time, to rewrite the definition of “human” while still being human.
Forgive the momentary lapse into grandiosity. But if the premise is true, the implications really are that large. A lot to process before one would be able to return to everyday life. The most challenging option for us indeed.
- What can we do? What should we undertake under that scenario?
By now, a perfectly reasonable question might be: where is the evidence that would convince us that Option 4 reflects reality?
There is a substantial body of data on this subject — compelling to some, inconclusive to others. I am not trying to convince you of any particular conclusion. The point is different: there has been very little structured, open, collective work on Option 4 — at least not at an official level.
Another question follows: why act at all if we do not even know whether such a scenario is real?
The answer is simple. We do not know — just as we do not know whether non-human intelligence exists in any form. Yet we already invest enormous resources into Option 2: searching for it. Billions of dollars, decades of coordinated scientific effort, and global observation systems.
For Option 4, however — the scenario of actual interaction — there is no comparable framework. Very little has been done to prepare for it, at least in any formal or coordinated way.
One might object that Option 4 is highly unlikely and therefore does not warrant attention. And indeed, it could easily be excluded from consideration — were it not for the striking imbalance between its potential impact and our level of preparedness to face it.
Paradoxically, humanity may be scientifically prepared to detect extraterrestrial intelligence, yet institutionally unprepared to engage with it. If Open Contact were to occur tomorrow, we would be forced to improvise.
So, returning to the third question: what can we do — and what should we do — if we take Option 4 seriously?
I believe this requires us to recognize a broader responsibility: to move from being passive observers of a hypothetical possibility to becoming potential participants in an interaction we have not yet structured for.
Humanity should begin addressing the preparedness gap for Open Contact. This means developing practical frameworks: shared definitions, communication protocols, decision-making procedures, and governance structures. Not only for states and institutions, but also to help us navigate the deeper ontological implications of contact as individuals and as a species.
Open Contact would force humanity to confront fundamental questions of authority, responsibility, identity, and meaning — both collectively and individually.
The question is not whether these questions will matter. The question is whether we will have thought about them in advance.
Alina
Open Contact enthusiast
You may still feel sceptical. That is understandable.
Option 4 challenges assumptions so deeply embedded in our worldview that resisting it is almost inevitable. Humanity has experienced such shifts before. We once believed that the cosmos revolved around Earth, only to discover that, in the bigger picture, reality was far larger and more complex than we had imagined. Like the Copernican revolution, the transition from Option 2 to Option 4 would not simply replace one belief with another — it would reveal a bigger picture. A picture in which the question is no longer whether intelligent life exists somewhere in the Universe, but whether we have been part of a shared reality all along.
If that sounds unsettling, it probably should. Such a realization would raise scientific, political, legal, philosophical, and deeply personal questions all at once. And if Open Contact were ever to happen, feeling lost and overwhelmed would be a perfectly natural reaction. But we’d still be better off having a plan.