The US government has been a little cagey lately about the existence of UFO’s which leads me to believe that there may be some evidence to suggest that they exist and we share the universe with other intelligent life.

Do we know what we are going to do if we find it? 

If we discover intelligent life that is less technologically advance than us, how do we proceed? Given our history, my fear is that we would use this technology to conquer the planet, strip the planet of their mineral resources and bring back the intelligent life in chains to display in zoos.  Is that what we want to do? 

Once we arrive on a planet, we change it. Should we be travelling the universe, reordering the worlds of other intelligent life just so we can have more iron ore?  Wouldn’t the temptation to bring back this intelligent life be too great for any explorer to ignore? Do we give the life a choice to return with us to earth or do we bring them back in chains? We discover that their meat is tasty, do we use them as a new source of protein – herding them into pens for their eventual slaughter? Do we leave them alone and let them evolve in their own time? Do we keep contact with them, trading our technology for their resources? Letting them evolve on their own time would seem like the most neutral answer to the questions but we are altering the environment of this planet without intending to do so.

I fear if the intelligent life doesn’t have a human like look that they would be doomed to subjugation and life in a zoo.

Or what happens if intelligent life finds us? These beings bring a more advance technology that could wipe us out quickly if we don’t co-operate with them? Do we fight? Or do we live to fight another day? What if this intelligent life wants to drag a million or so bodies to perform some manual labor.  Could we stop them?  Do we give them people in order to save the rest of the world?  How do we decide which humans to give them?

Intergalactic travel is all good and well but actually finding the life is probably a bad idea for both the human race and the intelligent life we find.