Life After Disclosure
Would You Go In To Work That Day?
Disclosure of alien existence could come in a variety of ways. Are we, as individuals, prepared to deal with a disclosure event where we don’t control the narrative?
Not Your Typical Monday Morning
Here’s the scenario: The pandemic has receded. People are returning to work. In fact, you’re on your way out of your house on the way to work in the morning. You gather your things, get your car keys or transit pass, you step out the door, and to your amazement you see an extremely large cylindrical craft floating silently over your city. It isn’t displaying signs of aggression. It’s just sitting there. It’s clear to you that this craft is not from this Earth.
The question is: do you go to work that day?
How Do You Like Your Disclosure?
Disclosure about the existence of alien life isn’t one size fits all. On the spectrum of possibilities, there are literally hundreds of alternatives for how this might go down. All of them, however, seem to fall into two distinct categories: soft disclosure and hard disclosure.
Soft Disclosure
Imagine one or some of the world governments announce that aliens are real and photos and/or video exist to definitively prove it. Or it could be something like NASA announces they have detected radio signals from an intelligent species thousands of light years away, or they’ve found something on Mars ranging from microbes to artifacts of an ancient civilization on Mars.
Either way, it’s a cushy way to gently let the public know that we are not alone in the Universe. The narrative will be controlled by whichever government agency makes the announcement, and it will most like come in the form of “trickle-down” disclosure: where one soft piece of evidence is presented — the public is given time to process and forget about it, then another piece of soft evidence is presented, and so on. Some will argue that this is already happening.
Hard Disclosure
This is where aliens make themselves known to us in a way that’s completely indisputable and the narrative is not controlled by humans. Whether it is aliens landing on the White House lawn and exiting their craft, or like in the movie Arrival (2016) where massive ships arrive in our skies and float there silently.
The In-Between
Come June 25, 2021, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is due to get a report on UAP reality as prepared by the Director of National Intelligence in the U.S. It could be a wishy-washy affair, yes, but it could also be a bombshell, stating that these craft exist, they are far in advance of our own technology and that neither the United States nor any other power on Earth makes them.
Human Nature
Obviously, you aren’t going to ignore a gigantic Mothership over your city Independence Day style and just go about your business — you’re going to stare at it and turn on the news. Maybe some of us are going to panic and gather up our bug-out-bags and head for the hills. But if the craft isn’t acting in a hostile manner, is there a need to panic? How do you think you would accept this new reality? With fear? With welcoming open arms? With curious apprehension?
History does give us a couple of cautionary tales.
The Prank that Got Out of Hand
In 1938, science fiction writer H. G. Wells made a radio broadcast about hostile aliens from Mars landing on Earth and people believed it was real and subsequently panicked! This broadcast has long been used as an example of why governments should not tell us what they know about aliens: because it would cause mass panic. Let’s keep in mind however, that H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast was supposed to scare people. It was a Halloween prank that went a little too far. Had Wells called it “New Friends Come to Visit” and the story was about making first contact, things may have gone differently.
A Nation on Edge
In February 1942, in what has become known as “The Battle of Los Angeles,” a craft appeared in the night sky above Los Angeles and anti-aircraft gunners opened fire on it, firing over 1,400 rounds — yet no aircraft were shot down. America had just been attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and as a result, the country was a bit jittery about unknown things in the sky. I’m not surprised that whatever was in the sky that night triggered fear and panic among the citizens of LA. It was war-time and the West Coast was on edge. Any unknown object in the sky at that time in that area would have probably been assumed to be hostile Japanese aircraft.
Drink the Kool-Aid
Remember the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult that thought the Hale-Bop comet was a spaceship that had come to pick them up so they all collectively killed themselves? If alien craft do show up in our skies, there’s bound to be a few alien/UFO cults that go a bit nutty.
But what about religious people from the mainstream religions? Will they see these UFO’s arrival as a sign of the second-coming of Christ, or as a sign of the apocalypse?
A 2012 international survey, (WIN/Gallup) found that atheism is on the rise, although only approximately 7% of the world’s population identify as atheist. That leaves 93% of us to think aliens arriving might be some sort of religious event. But would religious people panic?
Perhaps some ultra-orthodox believers will panic and try to use their religious beliefs as a way of explaining what they’re seeing. Still, most of them would be able to realize that their god doesn’t fly around in a giant metallic craft and that this is not a religious event unfolding before them. Even if the religious community sees these ships’ arrival as a profound sign from their god, once the occupants of the craft step out, they will probably realize these creatures aren’t angels or demons.
Bills Still Have to Be Paid
During the initial event, many people would probably freak out — but that would eventually pass and cooler heads would prevail. If non-hostile aliens showed up on Friday, the rent/mortgage would still be due on Monday. People are not likely to whip themselves into a panic to the point where society collapses. Most people would gawk at the craft, stay glued to the news, and eventually people would become blasé and numb to it (like we do with every news cycle). By way of example, many of us already have almost forgotten that America was on the brink of civil war just a few months ago. Aliens will show up, it’ll be all over the news, then a pop-star will say something dumb and we’ll all get distracted and go back to our daily routines.
The thing about panic is that it doesn’t last. Once you see that the thing you’re panicking about isn’t going to hurt you, the panic goes away pretty fast.
Once most of us get over our sense of extreme wonderment and awe, we’ll probably try to help those around us who are panicking make sense of our new shared reality.
It really does come down to the type of disclosure we may get. If NASA announces tomorrow that they’ve found actual living microbes in an underground Martian lake, it won’t rattle our cages anywhere near what the coronavirus has already done. It’ll be off-to-work we go. That’s probably the same even if they announce that, yeah, that thing at Roswell, that wasn’t ours.
On the other hand, if those Motherships show up everywhere, and you have a job as an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, you’ll be on your way in to the office as well. That probably applies to most first responders and other essential workers (now that we know who you are thanks to our current crisis). If you’re making sandwiches at the local Subway, you may see things differently. And if you’re managing a grocery store or a Costco, well, say goodbye to the toilet paper and bottled water.
That’s my take but, as they say in America, your mileage may differ.
You might feel that society isn’t quite ready for disclosure yet of any kind, which may be true — so let’s ask ourselves: “What can I do to help prepare myself, and the people around me, for the revelation that we are not alone?”
For more information on issues raised in this essay, here are articles from the Trail of the Saucers archive:
