8 Things That Would Happen If We Made Alien Contact

It seems as though a week doesn't go by these days without us discovering some new planet, star or alien megastructure. Frankly, it feels like it's only a matter of time before spaceships start falling from the skies and we finally get our invitation to the intergalactic party. It would appear that the world's powers also seem to think so and it might surprise you to learn that there are actual, official protocols in place, should we ever make "first contact". These official procedures include everything from first detection to "How to Say Hello In Alien" but, even then, there are some who think that this isn't enough. The discovery that we are not alone in the universe would probably shake humanity to its very core. The greatest thinkers of the age, from scientists to philosophers to theologians, have all tried to predict what this would mean for the human race, with varying degrees of doom, gloom or tentative optimism. And that's just how humans will react, who knows how the little green men will react when they find a planet full of weird, hairless apes, desperately firing out radio signals in the hope of a reply.