Meet the humanoid be ready!

 Meeting with aliens. This beaten plot is shown in hundreds of feature films. Depending  on the genre of the picture and the storyline, the earthlings flee in  fear from unfamiliar life forms, they fight with them until the last  patron, and sometimes they make contact and even make friends. I wonder how everything will happen in reality, if someday it happens?

Technologies of human civilization allow us to explore the cosmos in  search of life more and more widely and the day is near when traces of  biological objects outside the Earth will be found, unless of course we  live in someone's virtual reality where the other life is not foreseen  by the creators ;-)

If suddenly an ordinary Earthman sees an arriving humanoid, what will he feel, how will he behave in this situation? Will this be regarded as a threat or a fantastic success? Will he throw a stone at him or stretch out his hand? Or maybe just pass by, deciding that this is a sick imagination or someone's rally?

American  psychologists from the University of Arizona conducted a study of this  funny question, perhaps it will never be useful to anyone, but at least  they pleased the readers ;-) Scientists concluded that in general,  people refer to potential newcomers and extraterrestrial life positively  and news about such discoveries will be received favorably, with optimism. It was a unique psychological experience - before these experiments no one studied this issue.

One  of the co-authors, Michael Varnum, said that before they started to  work, there were many assumptions and fears - in fact films like  "Aliens" and "War of the Worlds" could develop fear in people before  extraterrestrial life, but it turned out all much kinder. They presented their results on February 16 at the annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Science. 

 During  the experiments, Varnum and his assistants analyzed the lexical forms  used in media reports about the possible detection of extraterrestrial  life. They  sought to consider the nature of reactions to reports of biological  objects outside our planet, analyzing the words of articles and  comments. Special software determined the number of different emotions and feelings experienced by those who wrote texts on this topic.

The main objects of the study were several reports:

- in 1996, it was announced the possible detection of fossilized microorganisms on Mars

- In 2015, was discovered a large anomalous chaotic obscuration of  light from the Star of Tabby in the constellation Cygnus, which,  according to one version, points to the man-made "sphere of Dyson" - an  object of extraterrestrial civilization to collect energy from the star  of its system

- In 2017, were discovered exoplanets, reminiscent of the Earth in several star systems, there is theoretically possible life 

 Experimental research by psychologists showed that the language in the  coverage and commenting of all these news stories used positive, not  negative emotions.

The  continuation of this work was a survey of five hundred randomly  selected respondents, where they described their hypothetical reactions  to the news of the discovery of microorganisms of extraterrestrial  origin. Also, the participants evaluated the way the mankind as a whole reacts to this. The answers also showed a significant superiority of positive emotions  over negative emotions, both in person and in the discussion of the  whole Earth.

"It would be great, even if it were a primitive life," "this proves  the existence of life and maybe we are not the only intelligent beings  in the universe" - that's how people talked.

In  the course of their work the group of Varnum conducted an experiment  comparing the reactions of people to two scientific discoveries - one  about microorganisms on Mars, and the second about the creation by  scientists of artificial life forms in laboratories. Both reports evoked more positive emotions, but the news of extraterrestrial life was met with much greater enthusiasm.

Another object of the study was the recent information that the asteroid Ouhuamua can be a space ship. This is the first object discovered by scientists, flying through the solar system at a speed of tens of kilometers per second. American scientists have also documented the predominance of positive people here.

Varnum summed up the work of his team, saying that humanity is psychologically ready to meet with the aliens - let them fly! ;-)