Here's How Officials May Tell the Public Aliens Are Real

The February news cycle has largely been dominated by UFOs, all thanks to the United States' rather public campaign against a handful of unidentified crafts flying through North American airspace. While officials have largely cooled on the notion the crafts were piloted by beings not of this Earth, the discourse surrounding alien and extraterrestrial has never been more fervent. In fact, some officials are even discussing how to tell the public about alien life should we ever reach that point.

In a new report from Business Insider, one NASA official revealed the idea of alien life is still quite divisive amongst science professionals, and no one really knows what to do if we ever encounter alien life. That said, there is a light framework in place should we happen to discover the existence of extraterrestrial life.

"You can't overstate just how important that discovery would be. How we're going to confirm that and announce it responsibly, I think is a really, really important question," NASA official Lori Glaze told the outlet. Glaze oversees NASA's planetary science division. "The biggest challenge is trying to keep that communication on an even keel, right? With an excitement, and yet also understanding that we need to set the expectations that we have to follow the scientific process."

In 2021, NASA released a framework on the matter called the "confidence of life detection" (CoLD) scale in support of the agency's extensive Mars research. At the least confident of steps, Level 1, it means scientists have discovered a simple molecule within the Martian dirt. It would then reach Level Two once that molecule was confirmed to not be contaminated, nor was the molecule deposited by any research instruments.

The CoLD Scale goes all the way up to Level Seven, which is irrefutable proof life exists either on a micro life within the dirt, or even plant life on the surface of the planet. At each step of the scale, it's expected some sort of an announcement would be made.

"This is going to be a very, very hard thing to actually get the scientific community, I think, to agree upon – unless we actually see something moving around and waving at us, which is unlikely," Glaze added.

Glaze added the announcement of alien life would almost certainly be an "administration-level affair," saying the current president would likely partake in the announcement alongside NASA officials.

"I'm not sure we even have words to describe it," she said. "The confirmation that we're not alone in the universe is, I think, going to be akin to realizing that the universe doesn't rotate around Earth. It's a very different way of thinking about who we are, where we came from."

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