---
title: "Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact"
chunk: 12/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_contact"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:33:45.687876+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Ethics ===
Astroethics refers to the contemplation and development of ethical standards for a variety of outer space issues, including questions of how to interact remotely or in close encounters and concerns not only humans' ethics but also ethics of non-human intelligences, including whether they all afford us rights (and which each or overall).
Lewis White Beck notes that an analysis of the evolution of philosophical thought from ancient times into the modern era suggests that humanity is often comforted during periods of intense cultural transition by subtle archetypal ideas which are derived from firmly held religious, philosophical, ethical and existential belief systems. He includes mankind's search for extraterrestrial life as a manifestation of such beliefs and argues that even if humanity's search for extraterrestrial life proves to be unsuccessful in the short term, it may have longer term beneficial consequences by inspiring humanity to embrace a superior ethical paradigm.

=== Ecological and biological-warfare impacts ===

An extraterrestrial civilization might bring to Earth pathogens or invasive life forms that do not harm its own biosphere. Alien pathogens could decimate the human population, which would have no immunity to them, or they might use terrestrial livestock or plants as hosts, causing indirect harm to humans. Invasive organisms brought by extraterrestrial civilizations could cause great ecological harm because of the terrestrial biosphere's lack of defenses against them.
On the other hand, pathogens and invasive species of extraterrestrial origin might differ enough from terrestrial organisms in their biology to have no adverse effects. Furthermore, pathogens and parasites on Earth are generally suited to only a small and exclusive set of environments, to which extraterrestrial pathogens would have had no opportunity to adapt.
If an extraterrestrial civilization bearing malice towards humanity gained sufficient knowledge of terrestrial biology and weaknesses in the immune systems of terrestrial biota, it might be able to create extremely potent biological weapons. Even a civilization without malicious intent could inadvertently cause harm to humanity by not taking account of all the risks of their actions.
According to Baum, even if an extraterrestrial civilization were to communicate using electromagnetic signals alone, it could send humanity information with which humans themselves could create lethal biological weapons.

== See also ==

Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication
Relative species abundance

== Notes ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==
Dick, Steven J. (2015). The impact of discovering life beyond earth. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-10998-8.
Ashkenazi, Michael (2016). What We Know About Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-44455-0.
Vakoch, Douglas (2013). Astrobiology, History, and Society — Life Beyond Earth and the Impact of Discovery. Springer. ISBN 978-3-642-43540-9.

== External links ==
SETI Institute
Cultural Aspects of SETI
Introduction to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence