Why we earthlings will give aliens a warm welcome

SCIENCE fiction films about alien encounters often suggest the little green men should be feared.

But research shows we would welcome extra-terrestrial life when – of if – we make contact.

Humans would be ‘pretty upbeat’ on discovering we weren’t alone in the universe, it was claimed.

To test how humanity would react to aliens visiting Earth, scientists from Arizona State University analysed newspaper reports about the potential for alien life in our solar system. Arizona’s assistant professor of psychology Michael Varnum said: ‘If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it.’

Presenting his work at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Austin, Texas yesterday, he added: ‘So far, there’s been a lot of speculation about how we might respond, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research.’

Professor Varnum and colleagues used a computer programme to analyse language in the Press about potential extraterrestrial life discoveries.

Examples included reports in 1996 of finds of microbes on Mars and in 2015 reports of periodic dimming around a star which might indicate alien life, as well as a 2017 report on Earth-like planets.

The study found that language in the coverage of these events showed significantly more positive than negative emotions. In a separate study, the team asked more than 500 people to write about their own hypothetical reactions – and humanity’s as a whole – to an announcement that alien life had been discovered.

Their responses also showed far more positive than negative emotions, both when contemplating their own reactions and those of humanity as a whole.

One participant said: ‘I would have some excitement about the news. It would be exciting even if it was a primitive form.’