Aliens May Already Be Among Us—But Are We Ready for First Contact?

It's one of the most popular themes in science fiction—top secret government experts are ready to spring into action if a UFO appears. For example, in the novella-based 2016 film Arrival, the government quickly assembles a team of military and scientific experts to learn how to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors and decipher their intentions.

In real life, humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life has only intensified since we first looked to the stars and wondered who else was out there. Today, technological advancements like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is searching for signs of life on other worlds. Scientists think it’s only a matter of time before we find evidence of alien life among the billions of stars in our galaxy.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is taking UFOs more seriously. In April 2021, the government created a program within the Office of Naval Intelligence meant to “standardize collection and reporting” of UAPs, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. In November 2024, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office reported that it had received 757 UAP reports since 2021.

But what happens if—or when—we make actual contact with alien life? Do governments have a plan in place? Based on the picture popular media paints, we might expect that either an alien incursion or discovery of alien life on another planet might spur the government to sweep in, scoop up the best scientists, and simply press-gang them into action. The U.S. has an astronomical defense budget—$840 billion. Surely the U.S. and other major world governments have drawn up preliminary to-do lists in case we encounter extraterrestrial life.

Either the answer is no, or governments aren’t publicizing their plans.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI) Director Seth Shostak, Ph.D., says he doesn’t think that U.S. government agencies or the military have a plan for possible first contact. And most military spokespeople did not respond to emailed questions about potential responses to extraterrestrial contact. The U.S. Army’s Defense Press Operations commented only briefly on the topic: spokeperson Sue Gough says it is not part of the army’s mission to seek evidence of aliens.

Media commentator and former British Ministry of Defence UFO researcher Nick Pope worries that none of our current, science-driven protocols clearly say what to do if aliens actually arrive—or how to protect ourselves from any risk. “I think you’d need something far more expansive than current protocols. Most of them are only essentially concerned with verifying the signal is alien,” Pope says.

From a scientist’s perspective, the potential detection of extraterrestrial biosignatures comes first, and it would follow the same scientific process as any other research. “How to respond to such a discovery is an important discussion involving a broad cross-section of the global community,” says NASA spokesperson Charles Blue in an email. In other words, the world at large would need to be involved in the response, not just scientists.

For now, any existing protocols seem to lie entirely within the realms of scientific foundations like SETI and other research-based organizations that have knowledge of relevant fields like astrobiology and astrophysics. This approach makes sense to Carol Oliver, Ph.D., a leading expert on the science of astrobiology at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Governments haven’t dedicated energy to creating a first-contact plan, because they would turn first to science advisors anyway, she says.

Within the scientific community, first contact protocols do exist, though they are more a set of guidelines than an action plan. SETI itself established a set of protocols in 1989, which it updated in 2010. Aside from the recommendation to form a Post Detection Task Group offering “guidance, interpretation, and discussion of the wider implications of the detection,” these early protocols were mostly concerned with how researchers would confirm proof of a signal from another civilization.

However, scientific activity surrounding the possibility of first contact has only expanded. Researchers at Cornell University released a 2022 paper on the preprint server ArXiv about the geopolitical implications of proof of alien life, recommending that transparency and data sharing should rule communications between nations, in case of first contact. The paper also recommends developing post-detection protocols and educating policymakers about how to handle first contact. In the same year, SETI updated its protocols to reflect changes in communication thanks to social media, particularly the consequences of the rapid spread of false information. The updated document also discusses the ever-more sophisticated search for alien technosignatures using new, powerful telescopes.

In 2023, SETI conducted a global simulation of how first contact might work, transmitting a sample coded message from Mars such as aliens might send. Citizen scientists were able to crack the code and decipher the message.

NASA has worked on its own first contact protocols, conducting a 2024 workshop event about how best to communicate the discovery of alien life. The space agency also oversees the Office of Planetary Protection, whose missions include safeguarding Earth against extraterrestrial contamination.

Despite all this progress, existing protocols aren’t much more than recommendations, and they’re not legally binding, Pope says. He believes there should be some sort of overall government-sanctioned plan in place, at least for the sake of biohazard awareness, in case an alien life form lands on Earth. For example, scientists know that space missions, such as those that bring back material from asteroids, can pose chemical hazards, because the material could contain certain harmful organic compounds.

If an alien civilization could reach Earth, the sheer ability to travel light years would mean the aliens would already be vastly superior to us technologically. These aliens would be so advanced that our missiles and fighter jets would be like “neanderthals taking on the U.S. military,” says Shostak. If their technology vastly outclasses our own, then an alien visit would immediately become an urgent matter of national security.

In that case, Pope thinks the powers that be would refer first to existing war or defense plans, rather than academic guidelines on how to say “hello” to aliens. “When I’ve engaged with political figures, [safety] is what gets them concerned, not the more esoteric factors [such as proof of extraterrestrial life],” he says.

Realistically though, the first extraterrestrial life we discover is probably going to be a microbe on an asteroid or in the primordial seas of Saturn’s moon, Titan, or Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Even if superintelligent aliens exist, we’re far likelier to detect their technosignatures, such as radio waves, than to actually meet them, simply because they are probably many light-years away, and the timescales of the universe are vast. “If we’re talking about a civilization on a nearby world outside of the solar system, the chances are it’d be long dead [when we detect it],” says Oliver.

On the other hand, if we discover that Earth doesn’t harbor the only life in the universe—especially if we consider the aliens to be intelligent—we’ll probably handle first contact the same way we’ve handled almost every other cultural, philosophical, political, or scientific milestone in our species’ 300,000-year history.

We’ll make it up as we go along.