h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok, it's 10:30pm, and this article has been at the top of the front page now for a while, and nobody has said anything.

So I'll weigh in with this..

Many h2g2 researchers claim to be from another planet. A quick search around user pages reveals, among others:
U183331 - SPRIKSPROK(F), from Sprogron
U28092 - Antipop, doesn't say, hasn't posted for a while, and has presumably left for home
U116974 - Radioactive Manboy, from who knows where, orbiting around Salem, Oregon, USA. (Which to many of us in the UK definitely IS another planet.. )
(Post below any others you may find, by all means)

Anyhow, back to the plot, which is this.

If you are a resident alien, or indeed were a resident human on an alien planet not unlike this one, how would you go about making contact? Bearing in mind the amount of xenophobic pictures we beam into space every day (think films like Alien, Star trek, and all of the other 'Go where no man has gone before and shoot things' films, xenophobic possibly from the point of view of a visiting alien), would you still want to make contact? How would you approach a planet like earth with a view to making contact?

I suspect 'Really Carefully' would be one answer, but which nation or nations would you approach first? Would you go public, or work behind the scenes with military personell (as many Roswell conspiracy theorists would have us beleive), or choose another first contact?

If you would approach a named individual, who?, and why? What makes you think that the world wouldn't think that individual had gone completely insane when he appears on TV inviting people to dinner with Grvnigpthpht from the planet Rk!pngg.

Anouth questions, now you say something

Hi , I am only visiting planet Earth.

well, jim, we don't even know what the alien's viewpoint of 'important persons' is. for all you know, the telephone sansitizer could be the most important person on their planet. and i don't think they go to the movies much... or maybe they do, that's where they get all their ideas for their uniforms seriously though, i've always wondered about the joke where the alien approaches the gas pump and says, 'take me to your leader'. in the first place, they might not necessarily see humans as the dominant sentient species on this planet... i could name you a number of persons who don't *act* like they're sentient beings, mind you and then, yep, you'd have a bit of a problem telling who's the 'important person' you should speak to (try talking to some trigger-happy hunter and boom, you're back to the elements) and when you identify the person, how on earth are you going to express themselves? what if the aliens communicate by pheromones, because their atmosphere is too dense for sound to travel through efficiently? do they send floods of the stuff up the guys nostrils, hoping it will evoke mutual feelings of curiosity and friendliness, or will that be viewed by the government as a hostile action or an assassination attempt?

me, i'd say the aliens'll come here, be thoroughly confounded by the hash of sound and sight, and then die of the madness plague...

Well, my only ID here carries the title "Alien Resident Certificate". Do I qualify ?

That would explain why some people look at me the way they look at me, and some parents send their kids in my way telling them to "go, speak with the foreigner"...

A French guy in Taiwan

Surely a good sign that there is intelligent life forms out there is that they haven't made themselves known to us. I mean to say our usual policy to the unknown is shoot first and ask questions later(thats if we can be bothered)

An alien started this thread. You men! Your all 's

Emmily

ooooopppppppsss

I meant the first to reply, not who started it. eeeeeekkkk

Emmily

I'm not the type to bear a grudge.

Ok, I lied. I'm a sysadmin, it goes with the job description. (See my journal for examples).

Anyway, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as I'm sure they say, so I guess I qualify as an alien somewhere in the universe.

i always thought that aliens were ourselves traveling back in time to see ourselves, if we can certify this we wolud have proof of a time machine being created, some times i think that in the future all earthlink will left the earth and travel into the outspace and in one trick of this space-time universe we came back to earth in the past, well, this is the explanation i give to mi little nice every time she sees my resident alien card and ask me if i'm a real alien and i say "ofcourse i am, don't you see my green skin, the big eyes and the piggy ears?"

thank you, when it comes to the concept proven or unproven of an alien race we must first realize it doesn't matter what kind or how many thier are as we have potrayed our selves as the red necks of space, our techknowledgy and my spelling are subpar why would they ta;k to us. were canables, just look at how a parana acts whith a drop of blood in the water thats how we look.

to dragonisaac, under no cercumstances would i travel back in time as i believe in free will, i could negate my existance by killing or changing the path of an ancestor directly or indirectly, or worse, like the episode of futurama where fry became his own grandfather, he screwed his grandma and his father was the result. i would observe the past but be noncorporial in it, so you will probably never see a future human cus it could scew the space time dialation and never mind free will the shifting of matter would be a real bitch.

I was born May 23rd 1921 and lived in the countryside of Lincolnshire now at the age of 84 I remember going out at night as a lad with my Dad looking for wild rabbits and I saw the odd shooting star but never a space ship or alien.
If one looks at the stars and suns and other planets that stud our heavens and study the books produced by people who are a lot more clued in than us one does not need another half a brain to determine
that if there was another sun near enough to light up our night if only dimly being so far away the possibility of other beings from outer space is impossible.
Assuming there are other galaxies in space, (space meaning no bounderies)that we are not aware of as yet, they would be so far away or cold that nothing could exsist there.
It is my opinion we would be better employed cleaning up our own mess on our own world and making sure the hungry on it were better fed and housed instead of chasing rainbows in the sky.
But if it keeps you from starting another war please carry on, after all it is your time to do with as you so wish.
Good luck with your venture. Slainte. T :0)

Hello, let me be the first to introduce my specoes to you Earthlings. My name is Janista Benszisnad. Haschpit! I've run out of time. Our life expectancy is very short. Bye. It was a joy.

I have, on occasion, been accused of being from another planet; but the truth is that I was purchased from Marks and Spencer and have just hitchhiked around a couple of dozen planets.

far to many lol