Humans will actually react pretty well to news of alien life, scientists believe
The work represents some of the first detailed research on how humans would react to finding out about the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Humans would be “pretty upbeat” if they came into contact with alien life, according to scientists.
Their new research is based on an analysis of the language used in newspaper articles about discoveries that raise hope about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, as well as experiments involving more than 1,000 volunteers.
Michael Varnum, study author and assistant professor at Arizona State University in the US, said: “If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it.
“So far, there’s been a lot of speculation about how we might respond to this kind of news, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research.”
According to the researchers, the language in the coverage of the events showed “significantly more positive than negative emotions”.
They also conducted experiments involving two groups of participants.
In the first scenario, around 500 people were asked to write about their own hypothetical reactions to an announcement that alien microbial life had been discovered, while the second experiment involved an additional sample group of more than 500 people who were presented with past news coverage of scientific discoveries and asked to write about their reactions.
Prof Varnum made similar observations while analysing recent media coverage of the possibility that the interstellar Oumuamua asteroid might actually be an alien spaceship.
He said the findings show that “taken together, this suggests if we find out we’re not alone, we’ll take the news rather well”.
The results are published in the journal Frontiers In Psychology, and analysis of reactions to Oumuamua were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Texas.
