Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence – Results from a Global Survey about Projected Perceptions and Reactions among the World’s Societies

In 2024, the authors carried out a survey to canvass global views about what the future for humans would look like once contact with extraterrestrial intelligence had been made. The aim of the survey was thus not merely the typical set of questions often found in other surveys, i.e., whether people believe in the existence of aliens, what or who they are, or where they come from etc., although it contained a set of such questions. These were included for the purpose of situating the answers to the essential questions within the context of different parts of societies, capturing their expectations of how diverse kinds of contact events would affect them personally, and how they thought the relationship with an alien species could develop, especially with regard to certain ethical issues.