Human Life after Contact with Extraterrestrial Civilisations

This book discusses the potential reaction of humanity in the face of contact with an alien civilisation, drawing upon interdisciplinary avenues to suggest how this new reality might impact the world.

In recent years, the debate about the imminent revelation of government secrets related to the retrieval of crashed alien craft, reverse-engineering, or even the recovery of alien bodies dead or alive, seems to have dominated the public discussion about intelligent non-human life not of this Earth. This book takes a somewhat different approach. While acknowledging the UAP environment, it explores a point of view based on the traditional Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and for contact from outer space, be it by signal or other, more direct forms of contact. Taking on this mindset, the book seeks to raise and answer questions as to what this would mean for humanity, especially if such contact brought that civilisation in conflict with basic human interests or fundamental legal and ethical values. If human contact with extraterrestrial intelligence is accepted as a possibility, it becomes immediately clear that the consequences of contact for human society could be either catastrophic or present an opportunity for humanity to leap into a new era of self-awareness and to take its place in the cosmos as a planetary species.

The book addresses these questions by using approaches from law, astronomy, military strategy, sociology, theology, philosophy, linguistics, and political science. Offering a thought-provoking and challenging collection of ideas, this book will be of interest to all those interested in the wider ramifications of an encounter with ETI.