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Would The Government Hide Aliens From Us?
Topic Started: Feb 21 2016, 06:43 PM (1,047 Views)
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Mr Mysterio
Feb 24 2016, 02:56 PM
Well, to be fair, we're not talking about whether or not an alien conspiracy is actually possible. We're speaking entirely in hypotheticals here. So, hypothetically, as unlikely a situation as it is, if a sapient alien species either equally or far more technologically advanced than us were to make private contact with, say, the American government, would the government keep first contact secret? If so, how, and why, and how long would it take for the truth to leak?
It's a hell of a lot of ifs, to be sure, and 90% of this scenario is extremely unlikely (like I've said, I personally think America would love the idea of announcing that they, not anyone else, were the first to make contact), but nonetheless, it's a pretty fun thought experiment.
I wouldn't call a crash landing with all passengers dead a "first contact". (Though I guess technically, it was their first -and last- contact with earth/Earth.)

Also if you find a bunch of valuable technology you might want to use to reverse engineer useful alloys, weapons, computer systems etc. you're not going to announce to the world "Hey guys we have this REALLY awesome technology here that we don't want to share, because we kinda want to stay ahead of you technologically, so if you don't mind please leave us alone and don't send any secret agents stealing this very valuable technology? Kthxbai." Point is you don't want anyone to know that you a) found very advanced technology and b) that you're trying to reverse engineer it. It's the same reason why literally all military research projects are secret.

Really, if there was a crash then the lack of an official first contact kind of means that this vessel was just some unfortunate spaceship that never meant to contact people. It's like some guy going hitchhiking in the mountains, failling to his death on an ant hill and then all ants going "If it really was a human why haven't they made first contact yet? Mmhhh?!"
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lamna
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I imagine if aliens did crash they technology would be far more advanced than our own.

Which would make it pretty useless for a nation keeping in secret. Because then there are two possible scenarios.

1. It's so advanced we don't have the tech to build the tech to understand the tech, and while it might guide us towards something we know is possible, won't speed development up my a noticeable amount.
2. It is something that is relatively easy to reverse engineer, which means you won't get much of an advantage out of using it. Once people know about it, other nations and companies try to develop their own and within a decade everyone will have it.

Plus, what you going to do with your super tech? Conquer the world? Nations don't do that anymore.

I'm not naive enough to think there aren't secrets. Just that something this big and complicated couldn't come out. If there was contact with aliens, or a crashed ship or something, for to to still be secret it probably would have just been locked up in a warehouse, nobody working on it.
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It'd take a long time to figure out how reverse engineer it, if we ever did, but if the alien technology is present and usable and we figure out how to use it, then that still puts you a little more ahead of the other guys.
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Plus, what you going to do with your super tech?
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The world already has many espresso machines, Myo.
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Rodlox
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Feb 25 2016, 11:43 PM
The world already has many espresso machines, Myo.
never enough.

or they could make something better than an expresso.
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