Final Report on Unsuccessful Contact with Earth

Introduction : This report will outline our unsuccessful attempt to make contact with Earth by the Confederation of Galactic Civilizations. It will explore the history of preliminary explorations, how this contact was planned, and what ultimately went wrong. While it is not our intent to rule out the possibility of contact at some future date we believe this to be a remote possibility.

Background: The planet Earth is the third planet in a constellation of a nine planets revolving around a single star. Its inhabitants measure time in terms of revolutions around their star. One revolution is equal to one “year” and we will use this measure of time. They base the starting point of their calendar approximately 2000 years ago with the birth of a man named Jesus. For example, the year 2000 is designated as the 2000th year since the birth of this man. The planet is approximately eight billion years old and has the mass and atmosphere contusive to sustain life. Early life was primitive and it was not until a few thousand years ago that one life form (humans) became capable of reason and communication. Our monitoring of these humans indicated no ability to communicate beyond the planet until recently. Our first indication of their ability to break free of their atmosphere was approximately in the year 1944. They were in the middle of a global war (they refer to it as World War II) and these attempts appeared to be intended to gain higher ground in the pursuit of victory. The war ended the next year as one country (the United States) discovered the ability to harness the power of nuclear fission.

The building blocks to this technology go back to the early 19th Century to what they called the “Industrial Revolution.” It was there that the humans first discovered that machinery could be powered by burning elements dug from the ground. They discovered that these elements were the product of previous life and were called fossil fuels. It was a source of puzzlement to many of our observers that they never seemed interested in progressing beyond burning these elements. Long after it was clear to them that these elements were finite and harmful they did not seek or develop alternatives.

As was stated World War II ended as the result of 2 crude uses of nuclear fission. They understood the destructive nature of fission and recognized that they now had the power to destroy virtually all life on the planet. The end of the war, however, did not mark a long period of peace. Two of the allies on the winning side had the technology for fission and much of the next 45 years was spent on both sides attempting to develop technology that would cause the other side to surrender even though it appeared neither side was at war. The threat of war was enough to keep a fragile, precarious peace. The rest of the world was kept hostage by the superior technology of these two nations (the United States and the Soviet Union, abbreviated by USA and USSR respectively).

Initial exploration of space: Most of the development after the war concerned the ability to place these bombs in enemy territory through the use of surface-to-air missiles and also missiles that would leave the atmosphere. Both nations believed that they could create a platform in space that would give them the higher ground advantage. This led to the idea of space exploration and our first realization that we may wish to make contact with them. The first successful orbital launch of hardware was in 1957. We decided at that time to place observers on the planet to track this and determine a time to make contact.

It is not uncommon that as a civilization begins space exploration, it has setbacks. We found this to be true here also. The race between the US and the USSR linked technological advantage so closely to domination that the threat of destruction was always present. In 1962 the possibility of global warfare was serious enough that we temporarily removed our observers. During that time the selection of leaders was determined mainly by the temperature of the hatred toward the other nation.

Earth has one moon and in 1969 the US was able to transport 2 of their number to the moon and return them. Their moon is not able to sustain life and at least at the time they were not interested in a colony there. Our observers reported that the “race to the moon” was for no more than bragging rights. One wrote: “The US beat the USSR there but did not know what to do with the victory. After repeating the mission a few times they abandoned it.” The closest planet to Earth is Mars; it seemed like the next logical step in space exploration but that never materialized.

Space exploration after first contact with moon: In 1973 the US sent its last ship to the moon. This ended the first phase of space exploration. As was noted the hope for a Mars mission did not materialize partly due to the fact that they had not developed the technology for faster space travel. In 1981 the US developed a reusable craft that can do little else but orbit. In 1986 and 2003 crafts were destroyed and made more ambitious efforts more difficult. At the same time the US was developing this, the USSR was developing a permanent platform in space (called a “space station”). This was a hopeful step for our observers particularly after it was named “Peace” (“Mir” in their language). On the positive side the US and USSR began to collaborate on this space station and through it the US found they use for their space shuttle as a way to transport personnel and material to the station. On the negative side the USSR went through a massive economic and political upheaval in 1989 and broke up into several smaller countries. The largest of these, Russia, inherited most of the programs from the USSR but did not have the economic wealth to sustain much of the ambitions and dreams of space exploration. The 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s saw little movement and an unwillingness to devote energy to space exploration.

Fossil Fuels: As was noted, beginning in the 19th Century fossil fuels (in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas) came into use for transportation and climate control. By the middle of the 21st Century this has not changed, despite overwhelming evidence that this fuel was finite and contributed to global warming. The larger nations of the planet were not the largest producers of these fuels but they appeared to be the largest blocks to development of other sources of energy. Between 2015 and 2020 production dropped dramatically, due more to regional conflict and after that production decreased by 65%.

Disease: Any civilization deals with treatment and prevention of disease and this civilization proved remarkably successful in some areas and remarkably deficient in others. By the middle of the 20th Century the largest source of disease were small organisms called bacteria. Around that time they developed antibiotics to combat these bacteria and this was very successful; average life expectancy rose dramatically. Some of the strains of bacteria were able through natural selection to become resistant to some of the antibiotics; other antibiotics were developed, etc. Viruses also developed that were resistant to most treatments and these diseases proved harder for them to treat. Toward the beginning of the 21st Century a few diseases became much more problematic on a global level:

• Tuberculosis: This is caused by a bacteria and can affect many parts of the human body but most infections were located in their lungs that control respiration. Treatments for this disease are normally available but it appears that it was much more available for the wealthy than the poor. This was puzzling because it has a higher incidence among the poor. When the bacteria is in the lungs it can be spread through respiration and there is generally a higher incidence of poverty in crowded areas. Nevertheless the majority of treatment opportunities are in areas of low incidence.
• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): This was first reported in the last few decades of the 20th Century and has at best a mixed record of treatment. AIDS is viral, not bacterial, and was more difficult to treat. Values, however, proved to be the largest block to treatment. AIDS is spread through non airborne fluid transfer. One aspect of fluid transfer is through reproductive (sexual) contact. Humans are male and female and reproduction occurs only between them. A small population prefers sexual contact with persons (called homosexuals) of the same gender and at the beginning of the epidemic they were the primary population of the disease. There is a strong prejudice toward homosexuals among the rest of the population and much early progress was not made because of the belief that AIDS was a punishment for being homosexual.
• Influenza: This is also a virus but is much more contagious than AIDS. Earth had suffered a large pandemic previously in 1918 but the pandemic of 2010 is one of the leading causes for a drop in population.

The First Decade of the 21st Century: This was the decade that was the most troubling for our observers to understand. One of them sent a report to us in 2007 titled: Terrorism and Response: What Were They Thinking? The end of the 20th Century brought reason to believe that Earth was beginning to think as one system and cooperate. The economies of most nations were growing and most of the strongest nations were cooperating in a way that we had not seen. Many observers were beginning to believe that this cooperation would lead to a renewal of space exploration. This fell apart in 2001 when a small, previously unknown group of religious terrorists took control of 4 airplanes and ran them into buildings in the United States; several thousand people died. The 2007 report said this about the aftermath:

The US President was new in office and he realized our gravest fears in his response. Quickly and almost singlehandedly he rolled back the gains of the late 20th Century. The remainder of the decade, what he called the “War on Terrorism,” devolved into a series of what can only be called blunders. He alienated countries who were prepared to sign on as allies and emboldened countries who supported the terrorists. Incredibly he abandoned the search for those responsible for the initial attacks and invaded an entirely different country with no known ties to the terrorists. Thousands of people have already died in this invasion and none of us can explain why he began this or how he can end it.

This president left office in 2008 but by that time too much damage had been done. The new president continued the war only because she believed that to end the war at this point would create more chaos. There was no real end to this war; as it moved into the 2nd decade of the 21st the countries essentially stopped fighting because they had neither the troops nor the material for war.

Another consequence is that this ended any movement in space exploration. In 2004 the US President announced the desire to return to the moon by 2018 and use this as a stepping stone to Mars but we were not able to find anyone who believed him. It was noted that previously conflict led to an increase in interest in space while this had the opposite effect.

The Second Decade of the 21st Century: This was the time period where it became clear that they would not be able to achieve sustained space travel. Several events took place in quick succession that dramatically impacted their ability to survive, let alone continue to explore.

• As a result of 150 years of burning fossil fuels the average temperature of the atmosphere began to increase. It was first noted in the 20th Century but but there was no political will to change anything; the result was that the temperature continued to rise. As the atmosphere, and then the oceans, became warmer we began to notice an increase in hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean (their second largest body of water). Population centers were often right on the coast and as these hurricanes increased in number and severity, they became much more deadly when they made landfall. A hurricane in August 2005 devastated one of their larger cities, New Orleans. In subsequent years hurricanes struck American cities of Miami, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Tampa. The summer of 2011 noted 4 hurricanes that were determined to be the most severe (Category 5) and one of them swept up the coast killing 30,000 people in the span of 3 days. It never appeared to us that they were ready for these storms; evacuations were chaotic and appeared to have no order. Basic needs for food, water, and shelter appeared not to be available, particularly for those who were poor and lacked transportation; it almost seemed normal that emergency shelters themselves could not withstand the force of the storm. In Houston their sports stadium (the Astrodome) was used as an emergency shelter; when it collapsed and flooded nearly 7,000 people died there alone. These storms occur only during the warmer seasons and between 2005 and 2025; in that 20 years span nearly 800,000 people died.
• Another result of global warming was a disruption in the flow of drinking water. While approximately 65% of the surface is water, that water has a high concentration of sodium chloride (salt) and is undrinkable. Virtually all of the drinking water for the planet comes from evaporation, precipitation over land, and collection of fresh water. Because of their seasons much of this water on land is frozen (called "ice") during cold seasons and flows (melted and can be collected) in warmer seasons; many areas of the world have periods of precipitation that last only part of the year. Therefore they are dependent on water being "stored" in colder times. Warming atmosphere shortened the season where the water is frozen; the result is that the water runs out before the next cold season. This proved particularly devastating to a densely populated area of the United States called “Southern California.” The population of that area suffered severe droughts beginning in 2010. Riots in 2013 forced the government to evacuate 50% of the population to other parts of the country. Other areas of the world were also impacted, though not to this degree.
• The final consequence of this warming is the change in the geography of the land. The contours of the land were determined in part because water was stored as ice in the colder areas of the world. With warming some of this ice began to melt, flow into the ocean, raise the level of water, and change the contours of the land. This caused the displacement of millions of people when they needed to move inland. Our observers noted that people who lived in these areas tended to be either very wealthy or very poor. Each had its own difficulties. Particularly in the US the wealthiest demanded that they be compensated for the loss of their property. These demands nearly bankrupted their economy and made it impossible for the country to provide assistance for the more needy. In other countries it was the poorest who were displaced. Millions died as they fought each other for dwindling land areas; other died because they made their living from these oceans and no longer had access to the ocean.
• At the same time there was a dramatic increase in influenza outbreaks. This virus begins in the bird (avian) population and for several years it was transmitted only bird to bird or bird to person. Again, economics played a part in this. Most of the people who had direct exposure to birds were poor and there were several small outbreaks in the years 2006-2009; approximately 15,000 people died. Most of the deaths were in the Southeast part of the continent of Asia (the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand). In late 2009 or early 2010 the virus mutated and was transmissible from person to person. Given the ease of transport around the planet it was not difficult to see how the virus transmitted so quickly. It was recognized that the fatality rate for this virus was nearly 70%. In 2010 alone 6,000,000 people died. That was the worst year but in the death rate for the next 3 years (2011-2014) was itself 2,000,000. The world population was 4,000,000,000; in other words 0.2% of the world population died of only that cause in those 4 years.
• The influenza pandemic began a chain reaction in the political world. That area of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand; also Laos and Myanmar) lost 40% of its population; large numbers of the survivors attempted to flee north into the country of China. China was the largest nation in terms of population (1,400,000,000) and felt they could not absorb the refugee population; there was also the fear that large numbers of these refugees were infected and China was dealing with its own epidemic. They mobilized their army to the border to keep the refugees away. This led to a large death rate among the refugees from both influenza and starvation. China’s neighbor India protested and this escalated to a non-nuclear war in March 2014. The other nations of the world were able to stay neutral and by the time the war ended in July 2016 there were a total of 850,000 dead. These nations both were both populous and these dead were a small percentage of their total population but it caused great tension in the rest of the world.
• China and India were both centers of manufacturing and the war caused a rapid decline and therefore shortage of manufactured products; this combined with the after effects of the influenza outbreak plunged the world into a deep economic recession for most of 2014 until early 2019. Virtually all the economies of Earth are capitalist and economic health depends on the movement of capital; when this slows the resulting recession leads to sharp increases in unemployment and decreases in standards of living. The shutting down of factories and manufacturing plants and concurrent drop in economic strength led to decreased demand for agriculture and all other work. The earth axis is tipped 23 degrees and has seasons; most of the population is in the Northern Hemisphere. Their winters of 2017 and 2018 were particularly severe; between that and the decrease in food output approximately 11,000,000 people died from starvation or exposure. Several of our observers needed early rotation out because they found this so difficult. Despite all the advances in technology there appeared to be little or no willingness to share or ration resources. The wealthiest 5% of the population controlled 70% of the wealth and had more than they could reasonably use. They appeared unconcerned that while they have more wealth than they could use, large sections of the population did not have enough wealth to survive.
• The recession began a chain of riots and skirmishes. From 2016 until 2020 riots broke out in the cities of New York, Moscow, Cairo, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tokyo along with dozens of other, small cities. If the intent was a better distribution of wealth it had the opposite effect. It appears the wealthiest were able to protect themselves from the violence and much of the infrastructure of these cities was compromised or destroyed.
• It was earlier noted that primary means of transportation and heating were still being provided by the burning of fossil fuels. Despite warnings for decades before, they appeared to be utterly unprepared for the day when these fossil fuels would run out. While deposits of the these fuels are located globally, the majority of these fuels that were extricated were in the form of liquid oil from an area called the “Middle East.” These were populated by people who lived in severe poverty until oil was discovered. Many adopted a wealthier lifestyle with revenues from this oil but they found that the wells began to run dry in the years 2012 to 2015. By 2020 production was down 65%. This had implications in many areas. For those people who were dependent on this oil for their wealth, their standard of living dropped dramatically.

Conclusions: By the time this report is being written (2027 in Earth years) it is clear that Earth no longer has the capability to explore beyond their atmosphere. The very technology that brought them to the brink of space exploration created their own undoing. The world population has decreased by 25%. Their ability to easily move over large distances is virtually nonexistent. Large nations have broken apart and most people are governed/ruled by in small groups. It appears that for all their ability to create technology they never had the ability to decide how to use it (or when not to). The events of the first 2 decades of the 21st Century took Earth back approximately 200 years. Some of our observers suggested that we continue to monitor Earth for the possibility that they "will have another chance" in 200 years. Clearly this will become more difficult; much of the progress was due to the discovery of fossil fuels which are now depleted. Our decision to continue to monitor is due more to hope than evidence.