The first interaction with Aliens might be via the Internet

We all dreamt of the day we finally get to meet some aliens. That weird-shaped alien reaching out their long fingernails to us. And we slowly extending our hands.

But, the chances of our first interaction happening that way is pretty low, and more chances are that you might end up meeting them online first.

Would there be life on another planet?

An article published in The Astronomical Journal estimates that around 300 million potentially habitable planets are in Milkyway. and Milkyway is just one of more than 200 Billion estimated galaxies present in the universe.

So looking at this staggering number of potentially habitable planets, it's very unlikely that we are the only living species in this entire universe.

Would we find them or will they find us?

The search for alien life elsewhere is largely conducted by checking out nearby star systems for either narrow-band radio signals or brief flashes of laser light. But these are done assuming that the aliens also use a similar technology as earth.

Radio wave itself was first predicted by mathematical work done in 1867 by James Clark Maxwell. And this was 3.5 billion years after life first originated on earth. Would radio waves be used for communication 1000 years later by humans, that is very doubtful.

So unless there is a far developed civilization nearby that left some visible clues for others to find, it's very doubtful that we will find any aliens soon.

But the chance that we might get a visit from a highly developed alien race is far higher.

Some planets in inhabitable spaces might be very older than the earth, which means intelligent life could have sustained in those planets millions of years before humans evolved. Increasing the probability that technology is also far advanced than ones created by humans.

Advanced technology would mean that they would have mastered the ability to probe the universe and do near-light speed travel across the universe.

What would happen once aliens find earth:

The first thing aliens would notice when viewing earth would be the thousands of satellites that revolve around the earth.

Based on the United Nations office for outer space affairs, there are 7389 satellites in space with 1832 purely meant for communication purposes. These numbers are going to triple in the next few years because of the constellations that SpaceX, Amazon, etc are launching to make internet connections.

So if an alien probe vehicle decides to visit the earth the first thing they would try to inspect would be one of these satellites. With advanced AI or whatever the alien technology, they would be able to decrypt all signals from the satellite and they would eventually find the ‘Internet’

What would happen when aliens find the internet?

Aliens will have systems that are smart enough to scan the internet and extract all required data. The Internet contains almost all the data humans know of earth. They will understand more about humans, than a single one of us know ourselves.

After reading through the internet and seeing the things that happened on earth, will they bother to visit earth is a very different question, but let's assume they will?

After discovering the internet and seeing the fear people have for aliens, the chances that aliens would directly visit earth is very low. So they would most probably try communicating to us via the internet itself.

Places like Reddit, social media, or even dating sites like Tinder or Match.com might end up being places where aliens first make contact with us.

Maybe they have already made contacts with us! The strange accounts which post on social media or the strange date on Tinder that never turned up for the coffee might be an alien. Maybe they are asking their doubts about humans via reditt in r/ask, maybe they are the ones who are sending you friend requests via fake profiles having beautiful models as DP.

So keep your eyes open when online, and you might end up being the lucky person who came in contact with an alien! (Just make sure you don't end up going for dates with these aliens to some remote places).