Aliens.  Who isn’t wondering where they are?  Or when they will get here?  And some may wonder… how will the world react?

The COVID-19 global response is not only a template, but a model master plan, of how governments might prepare for an alien arrival.  Let’s be clear – Liam H. Dooley is not proposing that the current COVID-19 pandemic is in any way connected to an impending alien arrival.  But what I am proposing is that the global response to this most unfortunate pandemic is almost exactly how world governments might want to prepare and respond.  I propose that the current COVID-19 global response is a near-perfect blueprint to prepare for an alien arrival.

An alien arrival would compel governments that never agree on anything – think Iran, USA, Russia, China, and France – to agree on one thing.  That thing might look like what we have now: a set of historically restrictive national and global policies with no more sanctions over human rights, no complaints about foreign citizens being confined and/or quarantined in foreign countries, no objections to broad policing powers equivalent to martial law everywhere.

This blog entry will indicate how the COVID-19 Global Response is perfect to prepare for an alien arrival.

In the film Arrival, benevolent aliens arrive to teach us language (Paramount Films)

The Alien Warning

If aliens suddenly appear in our skies like in the film Skyline, or just beyond the moon, like in Independence Day, then there will be no time for a global response plan.  But other films provide an indication of what governments might do with adequate warning.  The classic film Close Encounters shows that the government will welcome benevolent extra-terrestrial visitors, but in order to maintain secrecy they will force people out of their homes near the arrival site and keep out the general public with the cover of a chemical toxic nerve gas spill – showing dead or anesthetized livestock as proof of the agent’s lethality.

So my COVID-19 Global response plan assumes one thing: *warning*.  Warning that the aliens are coming.  While it could be from any number of deep space detection tools such as the James Webb Telescope orbiting earth or the optical Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, my scenario supposes that the aliens would intentionally send signals of their arrival – perhaps years ahead of time.

Loud and Clear

When the government(s) receive this warning of arrival, they need to decide what to do.  The options include: 1) telling everyone in the world; 2) ignoring it; or 3) quietly and deliberately preparing for the arrival in secrecy.  One issue they need to decide is whether the aliens are benevolent – and if they are malevolent, what should they do? Contrary to most alien invasion films, a serious military planner will caution surrender or at least not provoking aliens into a violent response by mobilizing the planet to defend against aliens who, clearly, are technologically superior.  It would be like Native Americans in 1600 trying to decide whether to prepare to confront a large, 21^st century army.  And, for the sake of this discussion, we are assuming that the aliens have signaled a benevolent arrival.

One could come to a reasonable conclusion that governments will not rush to inform the general populace – risking civic unrest and loss of control.  Rather, they would lock down the information while devising laying the groundwork for the arrival.

In Independence Day, aliens arrive suddenly, without warning, and for malevolent reasons (20th Century Fox)

Roles and Scripts

One of my jobs has involved writing “scripts” for exercises – an applied form of creative writing.  They haven’t involved alien invasions, but rather natural disasters, insurgencies, terror attacks, and armed conflict. The usual stuff.  A crazy example of an exercise is the US STRATCOM CONOP 8888 which envisions how to respond to a Zombie apocalypse.  Having written wargaming/tabletop/command-ex exercises; observed, controlled, and/or participated in them, I know what they are like.  Ninety-percent of the work is beforehand – writing the script and “injects” of what players/participants need to consider, decide on, and do.  A global response to an impending arrival would likely follow a complicated, detailed script – similar to an exercise.  But, of course, all too real.

Operation Robotech

One of my favorite alien invasion TV shows is Robotech.  In principle, some global alien arrival operation needs a name – and Robotech is as good as any.  Thus, Operation Robotech unfolds in various phases.

Phase 1 is a bit like dealing with tragedy: Shock and awe.  But after some days or weeks of government officials accepting that the aliens are coming, they will move to a planning phase.  This is Phase 2.

Phase 2 of Operation Robotech involves someone – some senior consortium of government officials presumably, formulating a global plan and strategy.  They will look at lots of options: military mobilization, building earth defenses in space, evacuating people from cities into bunkers, etc… but a number of factors will lead them to this over-arching strategy: wait and hope.  Wait for the arrival, and hope for the best.

During Phase 2 the essence of Operation Robotech will be drafted.  This is the global script of how governments will act and react: policies, movements, statements, etc.  The script will be elaborate, realistic, plausible, believable, and effective in meeting the primary strategic goal: preparing for the arrival.  And it will be accepted and performed by every government – from Pyongyang to Beijing to Moscow to Paris to London to Washington.

The number one objective: Get everyone home in their own countries with their families, and under government control.

This is how the script plays out:

1 – The Crisis

Create a global crisis that is believable.  Realistic (and real) but not too damaging.  So no World War 3, no nuclear war; no fake super-storms (any faked natural disasters will quickly be revealed as fake); no fake accidents (which are too local in any case, and again, will be revealed as fraudulent).

Clearly, something like COVID-19 meets this criteria.  The problem with a realistic, global crisis is that there is not (or was not) a guarantee of controlling its effects.  Let’s imagine that in this scenario Operation Robotech was supposed to develop a pandemic agent that would sicken but not kill.  But biological agents being what they are – they don’t turn out the way we intend.  Then again, the agent might have to kill just enough people to justify extraordinary government controls, but not so many that a large part of the world’s population dies.

2- The Response

Get people to go home.  Back to their home countries, under control of their own governments that they are used to listening to.  Get families back together, so they are comfortable and have emotional support for what is to come.  Shut down international travel so we don’t have planes flying around when alien ships start zipping back and forth.  By getting people back to their home countries the need for international travel drops enormously, and travel bans and border closures become more acceptable.

One of the interesting aspects about the response, in order for it to be more credible, is for governments to a) pretend to disagree about response measures and b) implement them at different times.  If every government on D-Day and H-Hour implemented the exact same border lockdown and home confinement policies it would seem rather suspicious – in an era during which suspicion of authority and news is the norm, not the exception.  So countries follow their script of who locks down their country when, and why; and they pretend to have little arguments with one another.  Of course as the semi-coordinated and directed crisis evolves, there will have to be changes to the script.  But writ large – the world gets to the point where they need to get.

3 – The Arrival

Everything is in place.  The militaries are on standby, with some level of mobilization (but mostly non-combat units so as not to scare our visitors).  People are home, safe, secure.  Essential services are still running, so people can eat.  But no one is going to be running for the gates at Disneyland or Lalapalooza when they see some big dark cylinder in the sky.  There won’t be sackings of Walmart and Tiffany’s like the planet is on a fire sale.  With everything under control, the aliens can land.  We will all watch, comfortably with our families, enthralled and bewildered.  No mass panic, no riots, no food shortages.  Just the future and proof of life from a galaxy far, far away.

One of the most compelling proofs of alien intelligence is video captured by US military pilots and released by the US Dept of Defense.  Videos are widely available of fighter jets chasing after UFOs (HUD view), flying in ways that no human aircraft/vehicle is known to be able to travel