Maybe I'm missing something, but this is a sort of scientific research:

NASA: Aliens might destroy us

I think we can all work for NASA, coming up with various end-of-the-world scenarios involving aliens.

If I had to vote for one of the scenarios outlined in the article, I think we'd be bureaucratized to death. The aliens, with colonies all over the galaxy, have the worst redtape ever. This is the possibility least likely to be turned into a movie, and hence most likely to be reality.

Da Bing

Either they're already here, trying to do that to us, or else when they come we will conquer them with our superior red tape technology.

"Alien Invasion Thwarted: Mother Ship Unable to Acquire Permit for Parking During Business Hours"

For anyone not aware of the situation, this is not an official NASA report. It's something that an intern at NASA did on his free time with a couple buddies. Unfortunately, he put down his NASA affiliation on it and now everyone thinks NASA is wasting their taxpayer dollars on this. You can read the guy's own words about this paper here.

Its the down right sexy female alien space vampires you've got to worry about. Thank goodness its the British SAS that save the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyAksMkKJNI&feature=related

According to the link, he is a postdoc (he has a doctorate degree, probably in some sort of science or engineering, and most post-doctoral positions are paid positions that last a year to three years, with little or to no chance of renewal). But it sounds like he did this on his spare time, as a fun project with his buddies. We should definitely encourage such hobbies. They're more productive than spectator sports for sure.

Da Bing

If I were an alien I surely would try to wipe out the human race. We are rude, crude and socially unacceptable, and we dress funny.

But how? We are amazingly resilient to plagues, famines, fires, floods, earthquakes and invasions. Just release the British hooligans - never mind the SAS - and we'd kick some alien boo-tay right smartly.

Ok, wipe out MTV, all reality TV shows and kidnap and hold for ransom one of the Kardashian sisters (which is the one with the large boo-tay?) Maybe that would work for Gen whichever letter they are using now.

As for me, I have a .357 and a shovel, send em.

Expert economist and Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman of course sees the space alien threat as a way to re-invigorate the US economy (er I mean the military industrial complex)

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppa...-massive-defens

So I wouldn't be too surprised if one day we all wake up to find out the Federal Reserve building was destroyed by a Space Alien terrorist organisation while the surrounding protesters singing 'Huffity, Puffity, Ringstone Round' became vapors. And everyone thought ET was a friendly little fellow.

Dude, the Kardashians, along with Snooki, "The Situation," etc. are our answer to alien invasion. We just have to export this culture and soon their civilization will fall apart. They have no defenses against earthling sleaze. A Vulcan will bleed from both pointy ears and fall in violent seizure as he attempts to reconcile anything uttered by these people to the rules of logic. As for Klingons? No good death or honor is to be found on Jersey shore.

Da Bing

I agree, reality TV stars and late night infomercials are our best defense.

As I read more about this from various news sources, I am gradually coming to realize that this hubbub is really a case of bad news reporting. It seems that some news articles misrepresent the funding and the institutional provenance of the paper, and I am also getting the sense that they also misrepresent the content of the paper. Some journalists have magnified one small aspect of the paper (the hypothetical scenario involving aliens and climate change) in order to exploit the controversy. In other words, twist the truth to sell the story and make a big splash.

I'm sorry I brought such junk news to your attention. I just thought it might be helpful and fun to see that scientists are also thinking about (and therefore prepare for) end-of-the-world scenarios.

Da Bing

Stop prepping for earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes! The sky is falling! Uh, I mean, the aliens are coming!

As if aliens would care what we did with our isolated planet.

HJ

What about another Carrington Event. The powers that be, know about the potential for it and they know how to harden the Electrical Grid to counter it. With Black starts and nuclear reactors popping all over the US, they may conclude to tell the public, 'it was the Space Aliens what did it. We need to re-arm now!!!'

If there are space aliens out there, they're probably sitting around filing their talons or farting cyanide gas or something.

They don't have to do anything to us, we're well on our way to killing ourselves off. Then, all they have to do is vaporize what's left of the dead bodies (the count will depend on how fast we die off), and move in.

Of course, the alternative is if the zombies kill us off first, then the aliens will have to deal with them. But it shouldn't be too much trouble, I've heard they don't move very fast.

Sue

Everyone grab *all* your camp stoves! We'll light them simultaneously as the alien invasion fleet enters the solar system. The aliens will see the massive heat signature and think we've finally gone and nuked ourselves into oblivion. No point in invading a radioactive cinder. Invasion averted! Saved by ... wait for it... hydrocarbons! Huzzah!

HJ

I believe the chance of us being contacted intentionally by any intelligent extraterrestrial lifeform is zilch, zippo, nada, way less than none. In comparison to the rest of the cosmos, we en masse are probably way tinier than even the tiniest spec of insignificant sub-atomic particle currently known to nuclear physics. IMHO, of course. ;-)

i like the story where the first person the aliens meet is a kid out hunting rabbits,when the fearsome guys from Xg 1000 open fire their weapon does nothing more than burn a hole in his polyfluff hoodie,he shoots back with his 22 and the round goes thru not only the aliens armor but thru their "tank" and the space ship.in the end we become Masters Of The Universe!!

That would work if everyone had as many camp stoves as you :-).

I think this option then leads us to catch the atmosphere on fire, burning everything on the surface to a crisp and thus doing to ourselves what we were trying to avoid from the alien invasion. Then, a million years later, larger, intelligent descendants of ants take over the earth. Charlton Heston would be a logical lead to do the movie version, or his computer animated avatar. But who would play the head of the ant civillization? Hmmm, perhaps Hugo Weaving, but should the ants have an Australian, British, or American accent? Decisions, decisions...

I find it funny, that since the 1950s, in bith SF and Govt studies, Aliens always care about whatever is the current pet worry of Mainstream Govt scientists

The worry never is something 'odd' like say "green paint causes alien cancer" or something totally non fathomable to us - Heck. maybe the aliens will be highly religious and attack us because we're not going to church

Oh, I hope they're not religious fanatics! We've got enough of those in the here and now.

What I visualize is them keeping an eye on us like humans with stick bugs in an aquarium, except we're meaner.

Sue

This can be generalized to our entire culture. The way we imagine aliens has a lot more to do with us than with "actual aliens." Look at the Alien movie series. Each one is really more about some deep anxiety of our society. The first one addresses our worries about the unholy alliance between the corporate sector and the military-industrial complex. The second one is about single motherhood. The third one is about the penal system. The final one is about Walmart (or rather, the takeover of our lives by multinational corporations). Others like Predator seem more primal, speaking to our ancestral fears as prey animals on the plains of Africa. Men in Black is about illegal immigration and the changing demography of the United States (remember the start of the movie, where the MIBs take over an INS operation, let go the (presumably) illegal immigrants, and bust a space alien disguised as a Latin American man.

Nothing wrong with any of this. Besides, the only ones concerned with green paint that causes alien cancer will be... you guessed it, kids, the aliens. It won't be us.

Da Bing

"Hey, Zorg, 100 denuks says you don't dare shove the probe up there!"

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"

If they've got ion power, we're probably just a hop-skip-jump from anywhere (if they've got Scotty).

Earth is probably the poster child of the universe. Since we can't set a good example, we might as well serve as a horrible warning.

Sue

If aliens are visiting us, it is probably just to observe our bizarre behavior - somewhat in the manner in which we gather in crowds to watch the bad flights at night from the mouth of Carlsbad Caverns.

The aliens hover above us at sunrise and sunset to watch our behavior as we swarm onto the freeways at morning and evening rush hours. Maybe we are part of an Intergalactic Nature Preserve.....