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How will we react to the discovery of alien life? In 1953, the Robertson Panel warned of the danger of mass hysteria (Durant, 1953), and a recent national poll found that 25% of American respondents anticipated people would panic (Harrison, 2011). Depictions of contact with extraterrestrial life in fiction for over a century have highlighted potential downsides of alien contact, from H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” (Wells, 1898/2003), to the television series “The X-Files” (Carter, 1993–2002), and films such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (Blaustein and Wise, 1951), “Independence Day” (Devlin and Emmerich, 1996), and “Edge of Tomorrow” (Hoffs et al., 2014). However, most speculations regarding humanity’s reactions to extraterrestrial life, both in fiction and otherwise, have focused on discovering evidence of intelligent life from elsewhere, while less consideration has been given to how we may react to the discovery of extraterrestrial life that is not intelligent, even though we are more likely to encounter microbial life in our solar system (Race and Randolph, 2002; Race, 2008; Gronstal, 2013). Some scientists, including Ramin Skibba, have suggested that the discovery of any extraterrestrial life, even in microbial forms, may be “earth-shattering” (Skibba, 2017). Other experts, including scientists such as Christof Koch, Guy Consolmagno, and Aaron Gronstal, have suggested that the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life will have little in the way of societal or psychological impact (Gronstal, 2013; Levine, 2016). To date, though, the only empirical work of which we are aware that assessed potential psychological reactions to extraterrestrial life has done so by positing hypothetical contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species (Vakoch and Lee, 2000).

Thus, although the question of how we will react to extraterrestrial microbial life has spawned much speculation, it has sparked scant empirical work, and none that we are aware of which addressed reactions to actual announcements of such a discovery. In the present series of studies, we sought to provide an initial, yet systematic, test of psychological reactions to the discovery of extraterrestrial life. To do so, we conducted quantitative analyses of media coverage of past reactions to announcements of this nature (Pilot Study); individuals’ predictions regarding their own reactions, and those of humanity as a whole, to a hypothetical discovery of extraterrestrial life (Study 1); and, lastly, individuals’ reactions to media coverage of a past announcement of the discovery of evidence that suggested there was once life on Mars (Study 2). In these studies, we focused on reactions to extraterrestrial microbial life, as opposed to intelligent life, as the Drake Equation¹, suggests it is far more probable that we discover evidence of this type of life, considering direct exploration of our solar system has so far ruled out the possibility that we share it with intelligent extraterrestrial beings. Potential remains for the discovery of microbial life in our solar system, which is why extraterrestrial microbes are the focus of our study.

In the present set of studies we focused on affective reactions (positive vs. negative) to discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, as well as whether announcements of such discoveries, or the prospect of them, produced a greater orientation to reward vs. risk. To do so, we primarily conducted quantitative analyses of natural language use in response to such discoveries, a method that has been used to assess affective states, drives, personality, and mental health in a large body of prior research (for a review, see Pennebaker et al., 2003). More recently, this approach has been used to assess a variety of novel questions including the affective states of people facing death (Hirschmüller and Egloff, 2016; Goranson et al., 2017), and cultural shifts in gender equality (Varnum and Grossmann, 2016). In the present work, we used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015) text analysis software to analyze media accounts, government statements, and press releases regarding discoveries potentially indicative of extraterrestrial life, with a particular focus on the 1996 announcement of evidence for extraterrestrial microbial life (Pilot Study). We generated predictions for Studies 1 and 2 based on the results of this pilot study, and proceeded to assess affective and risk vs. reward oriented reactions to a hypothetical announcement of the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life (Study 1), as well as reactions to media coverage of the 1996 announcement (Study 2), as a way to assess people’s actual reactions to such information.

In a pilot study, we sought to provide an initial assessment of past societal responses to announcements of the discovery of extraterrestrial life, or discoveries that might suggest this possibility. Analysis of language in news coverage and other cultural products has been used in a number of previous studies to assess affective states, values, and attitudes at the cultural level (e.g., Greenfield, 2013; Grossmann and Varnum, 2015; Iliev et al., 2016; Varnum and Grossmann, 2016), as well as at the individual level (e.g., Danner et al., 2001; Pennebaker et al., 2003; Goranson et al., 2017). We analyzed the language used in past news articles about discoveries of evidence for extraterrestrial life to examine whether such events are portrayed in a generally positive or negative light.

Given that it is more likely we will discover evidence of microbial extraterrestrial life than intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations, in Studies 1 and 2 we assessed reactions to the discovery of extraterrestrial microbes. In Study 1, we assessed people’s beliefs regarding how both they and humanity as a whole might react to such a discovery. To do so, we asked participants to imagine a scenario in which such an announcement was made and to describe how they would react in a free response format. As an exploratory question, we also asked whether individuals’ forecasts of their reactions might differ from their forecasts for how humanity as a whole would react. Participants were thus asked to describe how humanity would react to the same announcement.

In Study 2, we investigated whether the same effects would be observed when people read and responded to an actual past announcement of the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life. Given previous work suggesting that people are not particularly accurate at affective forecasting (e.g., Gilbert et al., 1998; Gilbert and Ebert, 2002; Kushlev and Dunn, 2012), it may be the case that people’s beliefs regarding how they would feel when confronted with such news may not be good predictors of how they would actually react. Thus, in Study 2 we presented an independent sample with a New York Times article from 1996 describing the announcement of fossilized extraterrestrial microbes in a Martian meteorite, in order to assess whether a similar positivity bias might emerge as observed when people were asked to imagine their responses (or humanity’s) to such a discovery (Study 1), or as observed in contemporaneous media coverage of that discovery (Pilot). We also wanted to test whether the positivity bias observed in Study 1 was perhaps unique to the discovery of extraterrestrial life, as opposed to scientific discoveries in general, or to the creation of anthropogenic life. To do so, we conducted a between-subjects experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to read one of two New York Times articles describing either the 1996 Mars meteorite extraterrestrial microbial life announcement or the 2010 announcement of the creation of life by Craig Venter’s lab.

As our focus was on people’s reactions to announcements regarding the discovery of evidence for extraterrestrial microbial life, we compared the effect sizes of the differences in language used in independent samples across the three studies. Hedge’s g effect size estimates, correcting for bias (Hedges, 1981), were calculated for positive vs. negative affect language comparisons of the seven Mars-related articles in the Pilot Study, g = 1.31, p = 0.019, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.213, 2.400], participants’ own predicted reactions in Study 1, g = 1.07, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.932, 1.197], and reactions by those assigned to the Mars meteorite article in Study 2, g = 0.80, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.624, 0.983]. The effect size estimate for reward vs. risk language comparisons in the Pilot Study was g = 1.10, p = 0.042, 95% CI = [0.039, 2.163]; in Study 1, for participants’ own predicted reactions, g = 0.80, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.667, 0.925]; in Study 2, for those in the Mars meteorite article condition, g = 0.83, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.647, 1.008]. The overall Hedge’s g was calculated separately for positive vs. negative affect, g = 0.98, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.870, 1.082], and reward vs. risk language, g = 0.81, p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.705, 0.914] (Figures 2, 3, respectively). As defined by Cohen (1992) all of these effect sizes can be considered large.

In a series of studies, we sought to systematically assess how people may react to the discovery of life that is extraterrestrial in origin. Although this topic has generated a great deal of speculation over the years both within and outside academia, it has received scant empirical attention. Across a pilot study assessing media coverage and two well-powered studies assessing individual reactions, we find fairly consistent evidence that past reactions have been positive, that people believe future reactions will be positive, and that people actually react in a positive fashion to announcements of the discovery of extraterrestrial life. This pattern was observed both when people were asked to forecast their own reactions and those of humanity (Study 1), and was stronger in response to actual announcements of the discovery of novel extraterrestrial life vs. novel man-made forms of life (Study 2). The mini-meta analysis suggests that effects sizes were large and fairly comparable across studies, and that the overall effect sizes for positive vs. negative affect and reward vs. risk orientation in language use were large. Taken together, we believe this work strongly suggests that if we do discover life of non-earthly origin, on the whole, human beings and human societies are likely to respond positively.

We observed one exception to this otherwise consistent pattern in Study 1. On two Likert-scale items intended to assess perceived reward and risk of a hypothetical discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, participants indicated that they would perceive such a discovery as presenting more potential risks vs. rewards. This may be due to the fact that we assessed this question in a fairly simplistic way using two novel items. However, it may reflect a real difference in people’s spontaneous open-ended responses to such a discovery vs. reactions that may be somewhat more calculated or focused on the dimension of reward vs. risk. Although both questions captured responses in the span of a few minutes, potentially, this opens up a question for future research, namely, whether initial reactions to extraterrestrial life are similar to those after some time has passed. Thus, future research might investigate the stability of such reactions over time. The discrepancy between Likert responses and LIWC results for reward vs. risk in Study 1 may also reflect a limitation of LIWC, as, although LIWC is used to assess underlying feelings and other psychological states based on word use, the relationship between the two is not perfect. That said the two methods despite having little shared variance largely tell a similar story in present studies.

It is also noteworthy that we did not observe much variation in responses as a function of personality traits, disease avoidance, political orientation, or demographic factors such as income or ethnicity. One potential interpretation is that there may be a fair amount of homogeneity in reactions to extraterrestrial life, and that the findings of the current study may be broadly generalizable. However, it is worth noting that our samples were restricted to United States respondents, and, given the fact that Americans differ from many other populations on a slew of psychological tendencies (Henrich et al., 2010), we suggest caution in generalizing the present findings beyond the United States. Thus, we hope to eventually replicate this work cross-culturally in order to assess the degree to which our findings generalize and to explore the possibility that how people react to extraterrestrial life may vary as a function of cultural differences (i.e., differences in values, or socio-ecological conditions). Future studies could also explore whether reactions can be predicted by other individual difference measures related to attitudes toward science in general, such as attitude toward paranormal beliefs or conspiracy mentality. Additionally, religiousness, or particular religious beliefs, may affect how people respond to the discovery of extraterrestrial life. We did not assess these traits in the present work, although we think it may be informative to do so in the future as these may potentially provide boundary conditions for the effects observed in the present research.

We also observed that people’s forecasts regarding their own reactions to a hypothetical discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life showed a stronger positivity bias than their forecasts regarding humanity’s reactions to such a discovery. This may reflect illusory superiority (Brown, 1986), although why positive reactions to alien life would be seen as a desirable trait is a question for future research. However, this discrepancy might in part reflect why some past speculation regarding societal reactions to this type of discovery have been fairly pessimistic. However, it is worth noting that the difference in positivity bias did not reflect a difference in the overall direction of the bias, merely its strength.

In addition, we focused our work on reactions to microbial life, but it may well be that the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life might lead to very different types of reactions, as intelligent beings provide different threats and opportunities than microbes. To what extent results might be similar or different is an empirical question, albeit one which may be somewhat difficult to test short of an extremely convincing and immersive psycho-drama in which access to outside information is severely curtailed. Such work would present many challenges, especially in the context of an online study or a laboratory experiment. In addition, given that the likelihood of our species making contact with, or finding convincing proof of, intelligent extraterrestrial life is far smaller than the likelihood that we encounter evidence of current or extinct extraterrestrial microbial life, it may be wiser to focus our resources on preparing for the potential societal ramifications of the latter. That said, recent polls suggest the majority of Americans, British, and Germans believe that some form of extraterrestrial life exists, and large percentages of Americans believe that not only does intelligent extraterrestrial life exist, but also that it has already visited us (Main, 2016). And yet, in none of these societies have we seen an utter breakdown in social order or panic as a result of these widespread beliefs.

In the Pilot Study, we examined whether reactions in the articles differ for the three events covered, as each event may be linked to different forms of extraterrestrial life with varying degrees of complexity and intelligence. While we found no differences across the events in the proportions of words reflecting positive or negative affect, we did find that the articles about the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets tended to convey more reward than risk, compared to the articles about microbial life on Mars. Although it is unknown what forms of life could potentially inhabit these newly discovered planets, such conditions similar to Earth may suggest life forms more readily associated with benefits for humanity, compared to microbial life for which a dynamic interaction with humanity may be more difficult to imagine. Nevertheless, the Pilot Study was limited in its ability to address the question of whether people would react differently toward various forms of alien life, as it contained just a small sample of media coverage, in which no direct announcements or claims were made of discovering new types of life, and as the results may not generalize to individual reactions. Future research should use more direct, large-scale tests of reactions to different forms of extraterrestrial life.

We also wish to highlight some considerations to be made when using news articles for similar studies in the future. In the Pilot Study, the articles were selected from well-known sources with generally high scientific standards. However, it would be interesting to explore whether other news outlets that have lower standards for scientific reporting, or favor sensationalism, would show the same positivity bias. Another limitation worth noting is that in Study 2 we opted to use real newspaper articles covering scientific discoveries and these articles differed in length (Mars Meteorite article: 1555 words, Synthetic Life article: 1053 words). We did so as this had the benefit of helping us to gauge reactions to a real past announcement of ET life and as it avoiding confounds, biases, and participant suspicion that may have arisen had we generated our own materials. However, it is possible that the difference in positivity bias across these two conditions might have been related to differences in article length, although we are not aware of research suggesting that people respond more positively (vs. negatively) to longer vs. shorter texts, nor are we aware of research suggesting that strength of emotional responses in general should be greater for shorter texts. That said, future researchers who wish to replicate or build upon the present work should attend carefully to the issue regarding the length of experimental stimuli to avoid this potential confound.

Finally, the present work is in many ways a stepping-stone. We know that people appear to respond positively to the discovery of extraterrestrial microbes, but we do not know why. Perhaps such news causes people to take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in the universe. Perhaps it strengthens their worldviews, be they religious or scientific. Perhaps it speaks to their desire for novelty. At present, we do not know the mechanisms by which this effect occurs, and we encourage future researchers to test these and other possibilities.

We began this paper with a question: how will we react when we learn that alien life has been discovered? If our findings provide a reasonable guide, then the answer appears to be that we will take it rather well.

All materials, raw data, coded data, and preregistered predictions are freely available at the Open Science Framework, and can be accessed at osf.io/mgkau.

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Institutional Review Board at Arizona State University with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Arizona State University.

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.