59_214434_SP 16 [7.18.1963]
This memorandum, dated July 18, 1963, from the Executive Office of the President, National Aeronautics and Space Council, relates to thoughts on the space alien race question. Included are details relating to plans if alien intelligence is discovered, expanding scientific knowledge, the possibility of life on Mars, and diplomatic policy.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
A six-page memorandum of July 18, 1963, by Maxwell W. Hunter II of the professional staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, Executive Office of the President, to Robert F. Packard of the State Department’s Office of International Scientific Affairs, titled “Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question.”
Why this is interesting
Hunter takes up a policy question that had arisen in discussions on BNSP Task I: what to do if an alien intelligence were discovered in space. He weighs the scientific consensus that such a find in the solar system is negligibly likely against the claims of flying saucer advocates, discusses planet formation, the Martian “canali,” lunar observations and the speed-of-light limit, and sorts possible visitors into three types: chemically propelled Martians, nuclear-powered interstellar colonizers, and a race that travels faster than light. His conclusion is that the type should be determined as fast as possible, because policy would depend on it, and that burying all terrestrial hatchets would likely be in order. The memo ends dryly: no preparations are likely until it happens, and policy would then be set by “grand panic.”
Selected passages
- “If we were to meet such a race our policy had better be to negotiate fast, because the implications of their far better understanding and control of the fundamental forces of nature would be obvious.”
- “In any event, a policy of the immediate burying of all Terrestrial hatchets would likely be in order.”
- “because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens.”