What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder.
On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news.
Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉
I've been catching up on my Nova recordings (now that Jeopardy is on summer hiatus). And there was an episode on the cosmos where they talked about the Voyager space probe and how it's now outside the solar system. This made me a little sad, but it also got me thinking...
What if a space probe from a distant alien civilization happened upon our solar system, and we managed to find it?
It would have been blown up by the time we heard of it. Perhaps for the best, we have no idea what might happen if it sent back information on an inhabited planet! It would certainly scare a lot of people, others would think it was a government fake, and perhaps throw some believer's faith that we are alone in the universe in turmoil.
ReplyDeleteI think if alien life made their way here, our government would shoot and ask questions later.
ReplyDeleteDo we trust or shoot? I like the idea of first contact, but I don’t think we are ready
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone else said. It wouldn't be a good outcome.
ReplyDeleteI think that the government of the country where it was found would keep it secret and would try to reverse engineer the probe to make some kind of superweapon. I'm assuming here that the probe was unmanned. If it was manned (aliened?) it wouldn't end well for them - or us.
ReplyDeleteLike in Independence Day! I remember how the President said there was no Area 51, and was shocked there was and even he had been kept in the dark. Well, there IS an Area 51, but not like movies make it out to be.
DeleteThink that be so cool.
ReplyDeletethecotnemplativecat here . I think we will consider it to be interesting, but not safe. When the China's balloon that floated over the entire country, those in power were useless.
ReplyDeleteContemplative Cat is right about them being useless.
ReplyDeleteI think we'd break it.
This would be cool but knowing how fear overtakes us, we would probably shoot it out of the sky. This would bring more who will blow us up because they realize how dumb we truly are for always shooting first and asking questions later.
ReplyDeleteThat would be definitely exciting. But we have to be cautious. It could be harmless or it could be something dangerous to us and our planet.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't survive our atmostphere to make it through to earth, maybe some pieces. If we intercepted it before it fell to earth, or, if its decent was controlled remotely by aliens to reach earth's surface, I'm sure the conspiracy theory folks would be out in force. We've managed to kill off a lot of harmless weather and hobby balloons lately after the Chinese balloon went over the US. I always wondered why they couldn't take that down like with a big needle, popping it, instead of big huge missiles. If we managed to get ahold of an alien space probe it would take forever and ever to figure out what it was and any language barriers likely never would be solved. Best we could do is send out a space walker from a ship, maybe one of Musks, to paint some graffiti on it, then attach a thruster and send it back out the direction it came from.
ReplyDeleteWhat? I have been probed and did not know it...wonder if I enjoyed it and did not know that either?? HMMM......
ReplyDeleteOh, I really like this. Of course, Voyager features famously in one of the Star Trek movies as "V-Ger" wants to hear the whale sounds. I think I'm not mixing up my movies there. It's the reverse of what you asked. But I think we'd panic. I agree with your other commenters that humanity isn't ready for first contact. Too stupid still.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely thrilling to think about! But we’d need to tread carefully. It could be something totally benign or it might pose risks to us and our planet.
ReplyDelete