Say out of nowhere alien space craft come down into our planet and settle above a city or cities. What now? Who would be in charge the military? FEMA? I am sure we would make attemps at communicating in varies ways but what if we get no response back like in District 9? How long would we wait to go in? If they are in mulitple cities would the UN get involved and be in charge? Say a few scouting craft launch from it and take out a few houses then what? I doubt we would shoot at it. I know our government may not want to admitt it but how likely is it that we have plans for this?We have plans for invaiding every single county (and probably us state) in the world, why not this?
Since preparing a plan for this would require the Gov’t to acknowledge the potential existence of aliens I’d say we’ll never see any plan for this.
If the Gov’t planned for the possible alien invasion…then imagine the field day the press and the Area 51 whackos would have…:eek:
I’d be surprised if the US Government did not have some sort of preliminary protocol for extraterrestrial contact.
They may not admit it for political reasons, but they probably have some sort of plan. Hopefully it revolves around extreme politeness and caution since any ship advanced enough for interstellar travel could likely kill Earth with little effort.
The military takes the lead, make sure it’s not imediately hostile and secures a perimeter around the vessel. Probably the nest teams come in to assertain if the local geography is now hot, radioactive and such.
After that, beyond the INS showing up to check green cards, anything else would be a result of the crisis team, in what ever bunker they convene in, deciding on the next step.
I would see this being duplicated in most of the world, should our new arrivals eschew the USA.
Declan
Actually, I think NASA would take the lead, although they’d probably have the Air Force watching very closely over their shoulder. To the extent that there are any relevant experts in the world, they work for NASA.
why should there be any special “now what” in this case? When an “act of God” type of event causes massive economic damage or casualties, government works to mitigate it. And this will happen regardless of whether the cause is an earthquake, tsunami or (allegedly) a flying saucer. On the other hand, when a weird forteana type event (allegedly) happens without any major damage, nobody really cares except for a few cranks who then discuss it ad nauseaum.
Incidentally, I’m not sure if that’s true.
The FAA would cite them for violating flight rules, entangle them in endless bureaucratic processes and paperwork, effectively convincing them that it’s not worth the effort to conquer us.
Damnit, Mr. President. We have been invaded by Liechtenstein. Now what?
Look under Grand Fenwick and copy.
If there were contingency plans, a lot of people would have to know (unless there was only one planner) and it would come out. Since it hasn’t, I infer that there are no more plans for this, than, say, for a massive unstoppable oil spill in the Gulf. Or, more to the point, for the second coming. Or if 20% of the population disappeared in a rapture.
All the cops for miles around would be required to walk around saying “Nothing to see here. Move along!”
The President of the United States would be in charge of any response from the United States, save that of a few rogue agents who decide that they want to do something right now. HOWEVER, it is likely that the Military would draw up some rather immediate recommendations, the President would be very very immediately withdrawn to a safe place, and a commission of Military, Scientists and Diplomats would be assembled to try to make contact and figure things out from there.
It’s actually true for a limited set of events. We (the GOV) have plans for evacuation of non-combatants (US civilians, both embassy/consular staff and families; and tourists) in the event of civil unrest in countries around the world. The plans take into account whether our evacuation forces will be landing and operating in a friendly, hostile, or neutral environment.
Some of these plans are way outdated especially for very unlikely candidates like Canada and Bermuda but they do exist as a starting point (hey, anybody got a tourist map of Grenada?)
Ask them politely to leave?
The Federal government caught off guard by semi-anticipated events? Unpossible! I have no idea why people think the U.S. government would be capable at all of handling such a thing. I personally think an oil volcano COULD happen sometime in our lifetime but there are bigger things to worry about and plan for like a major U.S. city being devastated by a massive hurricane so they have to use their expert resources and planning skills in the most efficient way possible.
The alien spacecraft problem is easy to address though and was worked out years ago. Hackers can just break into their computer systems and upload a virus that makes them all crash and go away. Teaching schoolchildren duck and cover drills like in the 1960’s would take care of the rest.
Look at that. The Sunday paper has some good deals on ammo, water, and Band-Aids this week at Wal-Mart. Got to run.
It seems to me that there was some protocol requiring the general secretary of the UN to be informed in case of contact (receiving radio emission or whatever) with possible ETs.
Am I completely off base?
Winifred Ames: Why Albania?
Conrad Brean: Why not?
Winifred Ames: What have they done to us?
Conrad Brean: What have they done FOR us? What do you know about them?
Winifred Ames: Nothing.
Conrad Brean: See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.
[RIGHT]–Wag the Dog[/RIGHT]
Seriously, if there any plans drafted up for an alien invasion, they’re probably sixty years old and buried in an unlabeled Mosler security cabinet to which no one has the codes in the bottom of an abandoned ammo bunker underneath a disused cafeteria somewhere in the upper northwest corner of Nevada. And they probably deal with the kind of aliens imagined by Ray Harryhausen than anything we would meet. Any race of beings capable of traversing interstellar space are by default going to have at their disposal such energy and technology that there is no effective way we could resist them. Fortunately, they’re also likely to have such little interest in us as a species that we will at best be lab specimens and at worst not even recognized as intelligence. The biggest risk is that they’ll dispose of us as incidentally as a horse swatting a fly.
As for the experts, I think even NASA doesn’t have any serious research effort into intelligent exobiology. The experts, such as they are, are likely to be the sort of educated dreamers that staff the SETI Institute or the Planetary Society. I suspect the NSA and other cryptographic organization would be put to work trying to decypher any attempt at communications, but lacking even a fundamental basis for translation I suspect that would be an exercise in futility unless the aliens were intentionally trying to communicate with us.
Rendevous With Rama is probably the most likely interaction with an alien species, or rather, its artifacts.
Stranger
There’s only two of them, but they’re fifty storeys tall, indestructible, and marching towards Wisconsin! We have to do something!
If they’re headed for Wisconsin, they can only be interested in one thing. Cheese.
We can deal with that.