---
title: "Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact"
chunk: 3/12
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"
---

Any person or organization detecting a signal should try to verify that it is likely to be of intelligent origin before announcing it.
The discoverer of a signal should, for the purposes of independent verification, communicate with other signatories of the Declaration before making a public announcement, and should also inform their national authorities.
Once a given astronomical observation has been determined to be a credible extraterrestrial signal, the astronomical community should be informed through the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the IAU. The Secretary-General of the United Nations and various other global scientific unions should also be informed.
Following confirmation of an observation's extraterrestrial origin, news of the discovery should be made public. The discoverer has the right to make the first public announcement.
All data confirming the discovery should be published to the international scientific community and stored in an accessible form as permanently as possible.
Should evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence take the form of electromagnetic signals, the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) should be contacted, and may request in the next ITU Weekly Circular to minimize terrestrial use of the electromagnetic frequency bands in which the signal was detected.
Neither the discoverer nor anyone else should respond to an observed extraterrestrial intelligence; doing so requires international agreement under separate procedures.
The SETI Permanent Committee of the IAA and Commission 51 of the IAU should continually review procedures regarding detection of extraterrestrial intelligence and management of data related to such discoveries. A committee comprising members from various international scientific unions, and other bodies designated by the committee, should regulate continued SETI research.
A separate "Proposed Agreement on the Sending of Communications to Extraterrestrial Intelligence" was subsequently created. It proposes an international commission, membership of which would be open to all interested nations, to be constituted on detection of extraterrestrial intelligence. This commission would decide whether to send a message to the extraterrestrial intelligence, and if so, would determine the contents of the message on the basis of principles such as justice, respect for cultural diversity, honesty, and respect for property and territory. The draft proposes to forbid the sending of any message by an individual nation or organization without the permission of the commission, and suggests that, if the detected intelligence poses a danger to human civilization, the United Nations Security Council should authorize any message to extraterrestrial intelligence. However, this proposal, like all others, has not been incorporated into national or international law.
Paul Davies, a member of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, has stated that post-detection protocols, calling for international consultation before taking any major steps regarding the detection, are unlikely to be followed by astronomers, who would put the advancement of their careers over the word of a protocol that is not part of national or international law.

== Contact scenarios and considerations ==
Scientific literature and science fiction have put forward various models of the ways in which extraterrestrial and human civilizations might interact. Their predictions range widely, from sophisticated civilizations that could advance human civilization in many areas to imperial powers that might draw upon the forces necessary to subjugate humanity. Some theories suggest that an extraterrestrial civilization could be advanced enough to dispense with biology, living instead inside of advanced computers.
The implications of discovery depend heavily on the level of aggressiveness of the civilization interacting with humanity, its ethics, and how much human and extraterrestrial biologies have in common. These factors may govern the quantity and type of dialogue that can take place.
The question of whether contact is via signals from distant places or via probes or extraterrestrials in Earth's vicinity (or both) will also govern the magnitude of the long-term implications of contact.
In the case of communication using electromagnetic signals, the long silence between the reception of one message and another would mean that the content of any message would particularly affect the consequences of contact (see also #Scientific and technological and #Political below), as would the extent of mutual comprehension.
Concerning probes, a study suggested the first interstellar probe to transit between two civilizations is not likely to be the civilization's earliest (e.g. the ones sent first) but a more advanced one as (at least) the departure speed is thought to (likely) improve for at least some duration per each civilization, which e.g. may have implications for the type of probes to expect and the impacts of any probes sent earlier.

=== Friendly civilizations ===
Many writers have speculated on the ways in which a friendly civilization might interact with humankind. Albert Harrison, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Davis, thought that a highly advanced civilization might teach humanity such things as a physical theory of everything, how to use zero-point energy, or how to travel faster than light. They suggest that collaboration with such a civilization could initially be in the arts and humanities before moving to the hard sciences, and even that artists may spearhead collaboration. Seth D. Baum, of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, and others consider that the greater longevity of cooperative civilizations in comparison to uncooperative and aggressive ones might render extraterrestrial civilizations in general more likely to aid humanity. In contrast to these views, Paolo Musso, a member of the SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, took the view that extraterrestrial civilizations possess, like humans, a morality driven not entirely by altruism but for individual benefit as well, thus leaving open the possibility that at least some extraterrestrial civilizations are hostile.