Americans have always assumed that first open contact will
unfold in the United States. In fact, this has never been a
very likely scenario, not from the time that the US military
began shooting at UFOs back in the forties. Also, the US
population is heavily armed and full of people whose
ideologies and beliefs make them unpredictable.
The visitors can avoid attack reasonably effectively when
they are prepared, but in a situation where they are
attempting open face-to-face contact, they are vulnerable.
Therefore, the first place that this contact might take
place has to be chosen carefully.
Certainly, with the US military's long tradition of violence
toward them, this country is an unlikely choice. It is
possible that, in the late eighties, they experimented with
carrying out first contact in Belgium, but the aggressive
appearance of armed NATO fighters whenever they showed
themselves seems to have caused them to back off.
Over the past few years, there has been an increasing amount
of UFO activity in China, and now a Chinese observatory has
reported that it observed an unknown object in the sky for
40 minutes during last July's eclipse.
This marks the longest observation ever by professional
astronomers--at least, the longest one that has ever been
publicly admitted. Because of the extent of resistance in
the scientific culture of the west, it is unlikely that any
western telescope would dare to admit such an observation.
Recently, the amount of UFO activity in China has been very
high, and so far the Chinese government has not reacted in a
hostile manner, nor has the local scientific culture
rejected the phenomenon with the same energy that western
science has rejected it.
This makes a fruitful ground for possible first contact.
What is needed are three things: 1. A government that is
neutral or open to the possibility; 2. A population that is
unwilling and/or unable to react violently; 3. A scientific
establishment that is not too arrogant to take advantage of
the knowledge on offer.
Unfortunately, none of these three conditions are present in
the US, and the western countries where they are present,
such as France, which fulfills the first two criteria but
not the third, are physically too close to American airbases
to guarantee safety.
Other countries, like Mexico, where all three criteria are
fulfilled, do not have a robust enough scientific
infrastructure to take advantage of what will be an
extraordinary leap ahead in scientific knowledge.
The Chinese do posses such an infrastructure in the form of
excellent laboratories and a highly organized and well
educated scientific establishment. Therefore, they will
hopefully be able to make some of the crucial, and very
challenging connections that are going to be necessary to
achieve even a basic understanding of the true potential
that is on offer from the visitors.
Of course, if it does appear that contact may start to
unfold in China, the US will certainly try to convince the
Chinese government to respond militarily, and the western
media will be enlisted to try to make the Chinese look like
fools. In Chinese culture, loss of face is a sensitive
matter, and this approach to derailing contact may be effective.
If it is not, however, and contact does unfold, China will
experience a tremendous leap ahead technologically, that
will make it a nation without parallel in the world, far
more important to the human future than any country has ever
been before.
Our visitors are well aware of the situation we are in, that
we have used up our planet's resources and will experience a
dramatic dieback of our species if we do not receive outside
help and encouragement. They are also aware that
environmental and social decline go hand in hand, and know
that there will come a time in the not too distant future
that no human society will be organized enough to sustain
the shock of contact.
So it is possible that they will overcome their various
objections and take the risk now. But it will most likely be
with China, not the United States, if it happens.
