How people would respond to finding they're not alone in the universe is a perennial question, but one that has been the subject of far more speculation than study, Varnum said. He could find only one study that asked people how they thought they'd react to the announcement of extraterrestrial life, and it was a decade old.
People reacted to the idea of alien life with more positivity than negativity, Varnum found. They tended to focus on the rewards over the risks. Individuals in the first study felt they, personally, would respond to the announcement of microbial E.T.s with a little more positivism than the public at large, but they still thought humanity as a whole would be enthused.
"I think there might be something sort of comforting about knowing that life wasn't an accident that happened once here," he said. "Maybe it makes us feel a little less fragile or a little less lonely in the expanse of space." (Remember what Jodie Foster said in the movie Contact: "If there are no other intelligent beings out there then the universe is a terrific waste of space!")
The way I see it anyway!
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