What if we discover a threatening alien civilization that lives 1,500 light years away?

Send Donald Trump on a mission to negotiate with them.

I’m not worried unless they can travel faster than light.

I do wonder. I don’t think our military is equipped to fight things other than humans. We do have weapons that can severely damage the planet though…have no idea if you can send those into outer space anshit however.

Not a damn thing. If they have the technology and ability to travel here and then attack us, then they are light years (pun intended) ahead of us in their military technology.

We don’t stand a chance.

May as well sit back and enjoy the show.

We call Bill Pullman, Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Randy Quaid for help.

@WillWorkForChocolate I think Randy Quaid may be unavailable.

@janbb Nah, if the need is great enough, I’m sure he’d be given a pass! Especially if he were willing to fly up the blowhole of an alien spaceship again.

Then you at least know that there is a threat, and have time to prepare at least some sort of defence.
Which is better than not knowing and being surprised by an alien invasion fleet with no preparation.

Let’s invite them to tea.

We certainly would not be praying, so I guess we will be partying and boinking like bunnies until the bitter end. ~~~

Switch off everything electrical, keep very quiet and hope to God they don’t notice we are here.

Perhaps they’ll stop being threatening, if we show them our collection of kitten pictures on the Internet.

At least we will probably stop fighting each other

Well, consider that there is a 3000 year time lag in communication, I wouldn’t be too worried about it.

We send in the INS.

Might not be a Dyson Sphere, but it would be massive, whatever it is.

But like @elbanditoroso said, if they were threatening and they came here, there isn’t anything we could do. We can’t even imagine the kind of technology it would take for them to make the trip. The most we could do is hope that they’re peaceful.

We do nothing. If they decided to come after us, it would take time for them to prepare, and a whole lot of time for them to get here. By that time, we’ll be extinct. And if they still come, they can deal with the superbugs that killed us.

Shit bricks.

Let’s say that we find a Dyson Sphere (which is ridiculous). The technology required would mean they can travel beyond light speed. Our only chance would be to advance our technology, and hope they didn’t notice our communication signals. We would have to mask or cease television broadcasts, unless they are over cable.
Let’s also remember that our communication signals won’t reach them for 1,430 years.

We should focus our collective global resources on spreading our population to other planets/stars so we can’t be annihilated in one attack. It’s unlikely that we’ll have the technology to defend ourselves from a direct bombardment by the time they reach us, but it may be possible that we could fire off some ships with human embryos on ice to distant galaxies, and possibly to hide in other corners of our own solar system until the coast is clear.

Send them a Trojan horse of gifts. Infect everything with viruses.

Threatening implies that they are ahead of us-far ahead of us technologically. I strongly suspect that any civilization that advances significantly beyond our own will not survive to achieve such a feat if saddled with the primitive belligerent social impulses which afflict us. If you think about it, the one consequence neglected in the glories of our technological advance is that it daily grows increasingly more possible for ever smaller numbers of us through a growing variety of means to destroy us all. The day will arrive when one defective individual will have and use the means to end us all.

I think if there are civilizations in our galaxy capable of interstellar travel, they would in all likelihood take one look at what we’re doing here, and quarrantine us on the spot. There’s no doubt in my mind that the second it appears there’s a chance that we might escape this solar system, we will be rudely informed that violent self destructive barbarians are not allowed to spread their contagion throughout the stars.

Back away slowly and if that doesn’t work, use CG videos of us blinking planets that threaten us out of existence. Maybe they won’t know what Videos are and will think they should stay away from us.

We send a probe that has a video showing that our planet blew up. A kind of farewell to the universe, showing how we tried to save the planet but was unsuccessful and so all we could do was send out a time capsule of a civilization that once existed.

Tell them were are all of ISIS, the best and brightest being on this list- (leaders)
Take them with you for studies and live vivisection.

“Umm…if we built this large, wooden badger…”

@filmfann I found out some time ago that our radio and television signals peter out before they really get too far from Earth, so “they” shouldn’t notice any.
@stanleybmanly Have you been watching “The Day the Earth Stood Still” again???

We would immediately begin to worry about them coming to Earth without the proper paperwork and taking jobs away from Earthlings. Most of them will be rapists and murderers sent here by their own society as a way to cleanse up their own world.
Politicians will immediately begin to tell us what they would do to solve the problem if we would only elect them to office. This includes such offices as city councilmen, and mayor and other offices which couldn’t actually do a damn thing about illegal space immigration even if they owned a gun (and the appropriate CC permit).

We should set out a big welcome party in the desert with doves to set free and promise a lasting friendship.

@Here2_4. Extra lurve for the Mars Attacks reference.

Send in immigration and customs

A Dyson Sphere does that mean we might be attacked by a giant vacuum cleaner?

Just by overpriced gimmicky consumer electronics.

If Bush is elected, the US will respond by invading Iran. ;-)

@filmfann what’s the name of the guy whose singing caused the invaders’ heads to explode? My own head’s close to blowing up trying to remember that man’s name. For years compilations of his stuff were hawked on late night tv.

@stanleybmanly

The artist with the Martian-head exploding falsetto was Slime Whitman.

Slim thanks!

I saw those commercials a lot. It made MY head explode, and I’m from Earth.