Are we alone in the Universe? With more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe and at least 500 billion planets in the Milky Way alone, don't you think we should have found something by now? Even if a tiny percentage of those billions of planets hosted intelligent life, there would be tens of thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations out there. Yet, we haven't seen any. We keep wondering what's
taking them so long to come. But what if I told you that even the friendliest of all aliens could wipe out our entire civilization for good? This is WHAT IF, and here's what would happen if aliens visited us tomorrow. We tend to apply our theories
to the rest of the Universe. We expect aliens to come for a visit, even though we ourselves haven't traveled out of our
own neighborhood yet. We just believe that they've had so much more time for
technological progress to make space travel possible. So here they are, with their shiny, alien spaceship roving above our heads. As far as we know, no government on this planet has
any sort of 'alien greeting party' planned if aliens suddenly
showed up on the horizon. Just try to keep cool. Say, the aliens happened to be very polite and sent us a signal before
invading our planet's personal space. You wouldn't know it right away. Not until several observatories,
maintained by different organizations, verified that signal. Yep, that's it. Aliens are here. Now you know. You got this shocking news from your TV. "NASA officially confirmed..." "...alien ship detected in the Solar System..." Agencies and countries around the
world would be working together, quickly trying to assess the level of threat. They'd summon experts in linguistics, psychology, combat and biology, and have them attempt to make
first contact with the aliens. Groups of experts would
record all interactions to analyze simple alien gestures
and auditory reactions. Those would help to decide whether aliens came in peace or they intend to do some serious damage. Some people might believe that religious leaders should do all the talking. Something is telling me aliens didn't
learn our languages in school, so... good luck to anyone trying
to reach out to them. While the world's most intelligent people were busy trying to interpret
the aliens' intentions to the best of their ability, you would be... Wait. Aren't you curious to know
what the aliens look like? Some evolution experts agree that things like proteins and DNA are the same no matter where
in the Universe you're from. If that's true, alien evolution would
be close to that of humans. They'd have binocular vision with
eyes located close to the brain. Just like us, they’d be based on land and have a minimum of two legs for mobility and three fingers so that
they could handle tools. Still, if some of our own
life forms look like this, try to picture something
coming from another planet. Meanwhile, on Earth, while governments were busy
figuring out the action plan, the media would be keeping you informed. You'd be advised to stay indoors,
and wait for further instructions. It'd be hard to filter out what's
legitimate news and what isn’t. But try not to fall for fake
end-of-the-world news on Facebook and keep calm... At least make an effort to give up the urge to pack up your belongings
and head for the hills. At the same time, the governments and scientific experts would be sharing information
about alien interactions. From here, the events could
unfold in a few different ways. First, we might not get any
auditory or visual response. Nothing at all. This could mean anything from: the alien spacecraft doesn't
have any aliens on board; to the aliens are waiting for their
alien backup to fry us up. Another possibility is that aliens responded and tried to communicate with no weapons involved. I can't speak for their possible intentions. For all we know, they
may want to get rid of us and keep the Earth to themselves. Thanks to the language barrier, our
interactions might not be going well. Tensions would begin to rise. We'd be screwed. Considering that these beings
had the technology to travel to Earth, it's likely they also had the capability to develop some very,
very advanced weaponry. Civilians would most likely
be hitting the panic button as hard as possible. Meanwhile, governments would put
their nuclear weapons on standby. That would be our our best and most
destructive weapon against them. Or so we think... It may turn out that the aliens
have adverse reactions to things on Earth that
we are all accustomed to. If, say, their skin melted
upon contact with water, then defending ourselves
against them would be simple. I'm not saying aliens would
necessarily bring doom upon the Earth. They might not mean us any harm at all. But... If some hazardous microorganisms from
outer space hitched a ride with them and made it into our world, we humans might have no natural immunity to those extraterrestrial microbes. And they could slowly wipe
our species off the planet. On the other hand, if aliens weren't
coming here to make friends, we'd be destroyed long before
we got a chance to offer peace between intelligent beings. In any case, we aren't ready for
a visit from interplanetary travelers. We better get prepared for 'first contact.' Or maybe, we should try to invade
alien worlds before they invade us. But that's a topic for another WHAT IF.
On Earth, in the race to control the planet, one species of ape has won (so far).
Look at the runners up: Whales, elephants, octopi and rats. And that's just on Earth, starting from the same DNA.
Any one who thinks that intelligent aliens would look like anything on Earth just isn't thinking clearly.