Agreed. And of course they wouldn’t “engage” the ship in any way. I think while there were unsure whether it was an ET they would try to get within visual range to try to figure out what it is. But as soon the chance of it being an ET becomes high, they would want to back off.
Any decision beyond that would be taken much higher up and there would not be a standard pilots’ protocol, or mention in the USAF manual.
All my WAG.
Jimmy Carter also said he once had a UFO experience: LINK.
The OP needs to clarify if the spaceship is in orbit or not. If it’s in orbit and there’s sweet fuck all we can do. The US currently has nothing that could get close to it for a rendezvous to examine it in less than a few weeks. Even when the US had the space shuttle, prepping one for launch took weeks. And depending on the orbit the space shuttle might not have been able to reach it anyway.
Sad reality is, that if any unidentified object did appear in orbit and just sat there ignoring radio signals, Russia would reach it far sooner than the US.
Especially if it’s nuclear-capable. They’re sure to be able to wipe us out then…
There actually have been objects that have seemingly suddenly appeared in Earth orbit. 2006 RH[sub]120[/sub] is a rock that fell into a temporary orbit and will leave in a few years. J002E3 is some space hardware that apparently has left orbit but will probably return. In neither case could even the Russians reach the objects while they are in orbit.
You missed one, the INS would turn it over to DHS and DHS would escort them to California, Texas and New Mexico, give them drivers licenses and jobs picking fruit and vegetables.
Maybe we’d find out what the X-37B is really for…
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/air-force-spy-space-drone-lands-safely-after-record-675-1647832535
Wouldn’t that be difficult when flying faster than the speed of light?
Interestingly the amount of crazy on the internet under the subject heading “UFOs” makes this pretty much ungooglable. But I thought there were actual real non-conspiracy theory based international agreements (from the post war period) about how such things would be handled.
Doesn’t answer the question exactly but there are certain readings of theOuter Space Treaty that would allow/oblige the USAF to destroy it avoid “contamination”:
I would have thought that spending time and resources on such things would require some valid evidence that the threat actually existed. (Does the US Army have a plan in place to deal with the case where all soldiers whose last names start with ‘P’ or ‘T’ suddenly sprout horns from their heads?)
But against this is the fact that even without evidence lots of silly people may believe in this, so it may make sense to be able to reassure them.
That’s when your force certification saves the day.
Serious Reply
Any species capable of interstellar flight would be capable of receiving all the radio, television and other signals we send out. They would be capable of sending signals of their own, announcing their peaceful intentions. Entering our territory at a high rate of speed and without warning of any kind could only be a hostile act. Something that is presumed hostile, moves very quickly and has unknown offensive capabilities would be attacked.
This is SPOILERS one reason why Independence Day sucked. The alien ships move quickly over major cities without responding to any of the myriad of signals sent to them. Rather than just blasting away at them, the President launches special helicopters armed with signal lights.
I feel like I maybe missed something: regardless of whether there’s a by-the-book military response to an extraterrestrial craft flying around up there, there’s kinda sorta gotta be standing orders about what to do if a mundane aircraft is unresponsively causing a panic in the sky and we don’t know where it’s from, right?
I mean, yeah, sure, call it an Unidentified Flying Object, but without the smirk.
I doubt it. Would you seriously want to be the first one to attack a presumed extra terrestrial craft that has so far done nothing directly hostile and is just sitting there?
For one thing they might well be waiting to see how we respond as a kind of test.
Fighter jets from several different countries have been scrambled at different times to intercept what are still technically UFO’s in the strict sense of the term because their origin or very nature were never conclusively identified. If it is a smaller craft, it is initially treated just like any other aircraft invading an nation’s airspace. The fighters try to make visualize contact with it to see if it is a civilian aircraft in distress or a foreign military aircraft and then act accordingly. I don’t think that is what this question is really about though. What if the craft in question wasn’t just some unidentified blip that couldn’t be easily identified but instead, something that was obviously of alien origin like a gigantic craft that decided to hover about a major metropolitan area or a legion of smaller craft that vastly exceeded the performance and design characteristics of any known aircraft and stuck around for an extended period?
As I explained, entering our territory unannounced IS a hostile act.
Yes. There are standard ROE for dealing with seemingly ordinary aircraft acting strangely.
In a lot of cases we know where it came from since we tracked it from takeoff & can replay the radar records once it does something strange to attract DoD attention.
But if something entered our airspace from way out over the ocean we’d not necessarily know where it entered the high seas from. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
That’s quite a non sequitur. Of course it doesn’t follow that if you don’t first explicitly announce that you are not hostile then you are implicitly hostile.
Also, how do you know they didn’t announce themselves already and you just haven’t got the memo from China yet?
No, what the movies get wrong is just how one-sided a war with an advanced ET species would be. It would be Mutual Assured Destruction minus the ‘Mutual’.
Firstly, given the age of the universe, the chance of us encountering a species whose technology is mere centuries ahead of us is very slim. They are much more likely to be millions of years ahead. It’s unlikely we have anything that could scratch them.
Secondly, even if their technology was only slightly more advanced than our own, that “slightly” would include interstellar travel. Earth sits at the bottom of its own gravity well, and is thus incredibly vulnerable to a space-faring species. All they need to do is nudge a few rocks towards us to wipe out virtually all humans.
So I would certainly hope that if we really were to have contact with ETs, then “Attack!” is option 999 or lower.
As pointed out this just doesn’t follow. A interstellar species hopefully would have found a way to communicate FTL which would mean that radio is a obsolete technology (by evidence that we don’t pick up their signals) which they would have little use for carrying such equipment.
Could Only be 
Shoot first ask questions later I guess. But no, that does not follow either, especially when dealing with a alien species who may not have a concept of ownership or sovereignty.
I’m sure there would be military jet escorts in pretty short order, but they would keep a safe distance. Beyond that who knows, everyone might just be winging it because even if there are plans in place an alien ship encounter, things probably won’t go like anyone had imagined or planned for.