ANON OPINES
if an extraterrestrial civilization wanted to announce their presence on earth, they might rightly expect a certain percentage of humans to be violently opposed to that presence, a larger percent to be vocally and politically opposed, and a still larger percentage to be deeply suspicious of their presence on earth. this begs the question, what could the extraterrestrials do to instantly dispel suspicion, mollify opposition, and quell violence? one scenario would be arrange some sort of demonstration of their benevolent or at least friendly intentions. what form might that demonstration take? several possibilities come to mind.
1) appear in the nick of time to avert an impending cataclysmic natural disaster that would threaten the existence of humanity, and which human technology would be powerless to prevent.
a) something cosmic… eg, an asteroid or comet on a direct collision course with earth. this has the advantages of a long lead time. discovery could anything from yrs to months to weeks to days before impact. this affords ample time for knowledge of the threat to spread to 99% of the entire human population. not too much time, tho, so as to minimize chaos from the breakdown of order sure to ensue once impending global annihilation was believed, but long enough for humans to exhaust their inadequate resources to avert it. plans to deal with the crisis would be announced, but with every failed attempt, desperation would grow, and the reality of obliteration would become less abstract and more tangible. when hope is all but lost, and the disaster nears, in step the friendly cosmic neighbors to save us, using their advanced tech. bingo. instant friends and instant trust. the disadvantages are that they either must wait for an actual impending impact, or somehow manufacture one, bcs the threat needs to be verifiable by amateur observers around the world to confirm that is is not just MSM hype. creating the threat poses the risk that their meddling would be discovered. other cosmic events might well be imagined, eg, something to do with the stability of the sun, etc.
b) some natural terrestrial event… eg, a massive undersea quake that sends mega tsunamis toward the most densely populated costal regions. this makes it more difficult to imagine what form the intervention might take, and how it could be implemented quickly enough. quakes release a staggering amount of energy, and the energy needed to intervene might also need to be staggering. some other terrestrial event, eg, a supervolcano, once unleashed, presents the same logistical problems for intervention. 1b) therefore seem far less likely than 1a).
2) appear in the nick of time to avert some man-made catastrophic event which would likewise threaten the survival of humanity.
a) a plague. this again has the advantages of longer lead time, which ensures the majority of humanity are aware of the existence of the threat. the disadvantage is that millions or even hundreds of millions would have to die for the threat to be perceived as real. this is not only practical from a logistics point of view, it may in fact already be underway, and the ETs will arrive in time to save the jabbed from the great die-off caused by the clotshot.
b) a nuclear war. this is trickier to pull off, bcs of the extremely short lead time. there would need to be an appropriate build up of tensions between blocks of nuclear capable military allies. then, a large portion of humanity would need to be aware that a nuclear exchange had been initiated, and that within an hour, life would be largely obliterated. then miraculously a fleet of ET craft appear and neutralize the ICBMs in mid-flight. again, bingo, instant trust. looking around, it's not hard to imagine that someone is leading us into WWIII.
in summation, 1a), 2a), and 2b) seem to pose no great technical challenges. a further possibility exists, that ETs are NOT here and are NOT coming, at least not to save us, but that any of the scenarios above, or another not yet imagined, are faked by humans commanding suppressed technology, who wish to exploit the illusion of ETs rescuing us, for their own very human agenda. global unification comes to mind.
the backstory of ETs arriving to save humanity from itself or the random cruelty of blind natural forces is just one more nuance in the staged production. this scenario would benefit greatly from a human messianic figure who calms and guides the masses and appears to act as liaison between humanity and the supposed ETs, who conveniently do not need to appear to walk among us, for any number of plausible reasons. such a messianic figure would probably want to pre-position themself as a populist leader, the only one among the crowd of corrupt elites, who espouses concern for the welfare of the great unwashed masses.
anyone come to mind?