Slightly Harmful
Created | Updated Apr 7, 2002
A great deal has always been made of the fact that the Earth is listed as being m'mostly harmless'. However, behind this seemingly friendly message lies another, darker one: if the Earth is Mostly Harmless, it must also be 'Slightly Harmful'. After much consideration, the following is a list of the ways in which the Earth could cause harm (or at least discomfort) to beings from other planets, formulated after literally minutes of thought.
(1) Unmanned Probes. Every now and then, NASA or ESA send of a remote probe to land on another planet and collect data. These probes are simple data collectors\transmitters, launched on preset course. It is not inconcievable that on of these probes could one day descend onto the surface of Mars(or whatever) and land on some unsuspecting being. If this seems unlikely, think how you would feel if you came home from work one day and found that an alien spacecraft had landed on your home.
(2) Radio\TV Signals. For over 40 years now, mankind has routinely been using electromagnetic signals to transmit information. These EM signals travel out into space and carry on going, waiting to be picked up by anyone with (comparatively) simple recieving equipment. There is no reason why any reasonably advanced alien civilisation could not pick up these signals. If the civilisation in question uses a similar system to transmit and recieve, they will be bombarded with increasing ammounts of human television. The prospect of being constantly bombarded with daytime TV, Australian soaps, American talk shows and a seemingly endless supply of cookery programmes is not a pleasant one.
(3) Space Junk. Ever since the launching of Sputnik, more and more satelites have been sent into orbit. There is now a considerable ammount of junk orbiting the Earth. Communication satelites, spy satelites, weather satelites, dead satelites, discarded parts of rockets and the occasional space station are all currently orbiting our planet. Assuming that our aliens had avoided being flattened, endured our TV and still wanted to visit, they would have to be careful to avoid the debris that litters our orbits. Although there is still plenty of room to move in, if you did not know the orbits of all these objects there is always the possibility of a very nasty accident.
(4) Paranoid Human Defence Systems. Although this is not as much of a danger as it was during the Cold War, there is still the possibility of being shot down. This is because the ammount of firepower availability available to a country is often inversely proportional to its sense of responsibility. Also the bigger the country is, the more paranoid it will be about its borders being violated.
(5) The Sea. Although this may seem a little obvious (well alright, very obvious), it would be important for any visiting aliens to ensure that they landed on solid ground. After all, how do they know that grass is green? Water covers the majority of the planet, and if you were looking for somewhere nice and quiet to land...
(6) Humans. Having successfully landed in one piece, the aliens will presumabely want to make contact with intelligent(?) human life. There are basically 3 problems here:
(a) Greedy Humans. Clearly, the governent of which ever country the aliens land in will see it as their moral duty to take the aliens in and 'protect' them, i.e. study, interrogate and test them in order to gain an advantage over all those barbaric enemy governments.
(b) Frightened Humans. Humans are traditionally afraid of things that are different, and tend to react violently towards them. Many people will see the aliens as being variously dangerous, abominations, invaders, come to take away our jobs etc. These people have a nasty tendency to end up in positions of military or political power(See point 4). None of this will be helped by the fact that humans have a tendency to portray aliens in the media as evil invaders who must be destroyed without question.
(c) Over Expectant Humans. On the other end of the scale, some people will see the aliens in terms of films such as 'ET', and expect them to come bringing peace, love and an end to war, cruelty, disease, famine, natural disasters etc. The aliens will be besieged with hordes of cultists\worshippers\hippies, and will probably feel very bad about having to admit that they in fact can do none of these things.
(1) Unmanned Probes. Every now and then, NASA or ESA send of a remote probe to land on another planet and collect data. These probes are simple data collectors\transmitters, launched on preset course. It is not inconcievable that on of these probes could one day descend onto the surface of Mars(or whatever) and land on some unsuspecting being. If this seems unlikely, think how you would feel if you came home from work one day and found that an alien spacecraft had landed on your home.
(2) Radio\TV Signals. For over 40 years now, mankind has routinely been using electromagnetic signals to transmit information. These EM signals travel out into space and carry on going, waiting to be picked up by anyone with (comparatively) simple recieving equipment. There is no reason why any reasonably advanced alien civilisation could not pick up these signals. If the civilisation in question uses a similar system to transmit and recieve, they will be bombarded with increasing ammounts of human television. The prospect of being constantly bombarded with daytime TV, Australian soaps, American talk shows and a seemingly endless supply of cookery programmes is not a pleasant one.
(3) Space Junk. Ever since the launching of Sputnik, more and more satelites have been sent into orbit. There is now a considerable ammount of junk orbiting the Earth. Communication satelites, spy satelites, weather satelites, dead satelites, discarded parts of rockets and the occasional space station are all currently orbiting our planet. Assuming that our aliens had avoided being flattened, endured our TV and still wanted to visit, they would have to be careful to avoid the debris that litters our orbits. Although there is still plenty of room to move in, if you did not know the orbits of all these objects there is always the possibility of a very nasty accident.
(4) Paranoid Human Defence Systems. Although this is not as much of a danger as it was during the Cold War, there is still the possibility of being shot down. This is because the ammount of firepower availability available to a country is often inversely proportional to its sense of responsibility. Also the bigger the country is, the more paranoid it will be about its borders being violated.
(5) The Sea. Although this may seem a little obvious (well alright, very obvious), it would be important for any visiting aliens to ensure that they landed on solid ground. After all, how do they know that grass is green? Water covers the majority of the planet, and if you were looking for somewhere nice and quiet to land...
(6) Humans. Having successfully landed in one piece, the aliens will presumabely want to make contact with intelligent(?) human life. There are basically 3 problems here:
(a) Greedy Humans. Clearly, the governent of which ever country the aliens land in will see it as their moral duty to take the aliens in and 'protect' them, i.e. study, interrogate and test them in order to gain an advantage over all those barbaric enemy governments.
(b) Frightened Humans. Humans are traditionally afraid of things that are different, and tend to react violently towards them. Many people will see the aliens as being variously dangerous, abominations, invaders, come to take away our jobs etc. These people have a nasty tendency to end up in positions of military or political power(See point 4). None of this will be helped by the fact that humans have a tendency to portray aliens in the media as evil invaders who must be destroyed without question.
(c) Over Expectant Humans. On the other end of the scale, some people will see the aliens in terms of films such as 'ET', and expect them to come bringing peace, love and an end to war, cruelty, disease, famine, natural disasters etc. The aliens will be besieged with hordes of cultists\worshippers\hippies, and will probably feel very bad about having to admit that they in fact can do none of these things.
