IT has been the subject of movies for decades – but what would REALLY happen if aliens visited earth?

This may sound like a topic for conspiracy theorists or mad UFO obsessives yet this week science’s finest minds gathered in London to debate that very question.

Worryingly, it was suggested that if aliens did come calling, the result would be more Mars Attacks than ET.

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The conference – The Detection Of Extraterrestrial Life And The Consequences For Science And Society – was held at the high-brow Royal Society HQ in central London.

Founded in 1660, the Society’s members have included legendary scientific figures Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. This event, which I attended, included representatives of NASA, the European Space Agency and the UN Office For Outer Space Affairs. Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal and president of The Royal Society, chaired several sessions. A few years ago we had no evidence of any planets other than those in our solar system. Now we have discovered more than 400.

Radio telescopes scan the skies, listening for signals from extraterrestrial civilisation. We are looking and listening further into the universe than ever before, striving for the answer to the ultimate question: Is the universe teeming with life?

To find out the big issues the event addressed, see the headings below.

Friend or foe?

IF we find life, will they be friendly or here to exterminate us? Views are split.

It has been suggested that civilisations might willingly broadcast information – a sort of cosmic Facebook. Might we tap in and learn something helpful? Other experts pointed out it could be like our own history when a technologically advanced society has encountered a more primitive one – ending in violence.

Professor Simon Conway Morris, a Cambridge University palaeontologist, said if the cosmic phone rings, don’t answer.

With TV signals already in space, it could be too late.

Biohazard

IN the movie The War Of The Worlds, the invading aliens were wiped out by terrestrial bacteria.

If we encounter extraterrestrial life, even if it is just microbes, might we share the same fate? Some delegates thought this was a real risk and said it was vital that strict controls are put in place to deal with any potentially biological material brought back from space missions.

There is the related ethical issue, even on uninhabited worlds, of whether terrestrial microbes from an unsterilised spacecraft might contaminate other planets.

What right do we have to do this?

Don’t panic

IF we discover alien life, many people think there will be mass panic.

If we faced an invasion, clearly that would be true. But delegates suggested just an announcement of evidence of life would have little effect. Opinion polls already show large numbers of people believe in alien life. Add to this sci-fi movies embedding the idea of aliens in our minds and there isn’t a problem. In 1996 NASA announced they had found a Martian meteorite with evidence of life.

President Clinton made a speech, David Bowie’s Life On Mars got a lot of airplay, but life just went on.

Religion

IT is often said the discovery of other civilisations would shatter world religions. Delegates were not so sure.

Professor Ted Peters, a theologian, briefed the meeting on some survey results that suggested that rather than undermine religious beliefs – whatever the faith – it would strengthen them, by making God’s creation seem even bigger and more wonderful.

Not everyone agreed. British physicist Paul Davies thought Christians would have a problem, given the central belief that Jesus died to save us.

If we discover other civilisations it would raise the awkward question – why just us?

Who speaks for planet Earth?

WHO would take the lead when it comes to dealing with a visit from alien life?

One proposal was that it should be the United Nations.

There is an intriguing precedent. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently on its way to the stars after its launch in 1977, contained a message from the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Austrian Kurt Waldheim.

In part, this read: “I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship.”

UFOs

THIS was discussed more openly over coffee and biscuits.

UFOs were the “elephants in the room”. As ufologists point out, why search for life “out there” if it is already “down here”? The irony of an event like this when UFO sightings are at record levels was not lost on attendees. Someone pointed out how unscientific it was for the MoD to cut its UFO project when there were many cases where there was evidence something strange had been seen, such as sightings tracked on radar.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, Lord Rees responded, before swiftly moving on.

Conspiracy theories

WHEN people interested in UFOs found out about The Royal Society event they were shocked and intrigued.

But their mood soon turned to suspicion and anger.

Conspiracy theories started almost immediately and the event is being widely discussed on various websites, blogs and forums.

The feeling in the “UFO community” is that this proves the powers that be know we are being visited by alien life.

They think this meeting was preparing the way for official confirmation of an alien presence among us.

Conference conclusions

SCI-FI writer Arthur C. Clarke once said: “Two possibilities exist – either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

And I agree.

The question of whether there is other life in the universe is probably the biggest and most profound we can ask.

With the rate of our discoveries, we may soon get an answer.

In a field where there are so many uncertainties, only one thing is certain.

The day we make first contact will change our world forever.