What If Aliens Invaded Mars? | Unveiled
What If Aliens Invaded Mars?
It’s long been argued that Mars could harbour alien life; or that it could have done in its ancient past. But what would happen if an extra-terrestrial presence did suddenly arrive on the Red Planet?
This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; What if aliens invaded Mars?
So, why Mars? It’d seem like quite an arbitrary choice of planet to land on, but for a couple of things. First, we can probably assume that any aliens targeting Mars know about us, sprawling humanity, living out our lives on its neighbouring planet - or even that we’re the reason for their arrival. With the ISS and some 5,000 satellites orbiting Earth like a swarm of bees, it isn’t as though we’re hiding… but an alien invasion so close to home would suggest that the invaders had some level of prior knowledge of us, and that they’re gate-crashing our star system to monitor us, for better or worse. Second, though, while we don’t know what elements an alien race could (or would) be made of or what they’d need to survive, it’s likely that any being would need a solvent like water to live. So, with large amounts of water ice available there, Mars isn’t only conveniently situated but it’s also relatively comfortable. Throw in a third sci-fi style possibility that any sudden, seemingly random alien presence on Mars could actually be a native Martian population returning home after a long journey… and our scene is set.
But, how would we even know that anything was happening in the first place? Mars can appear quite bright in the night sky, yet an approaching ship would be easy to miss - even with our most advanced telescopes. Maybe the invasion would be caught on camera by a Mars rover like NASA’s Curiosity, but more likely it’d be witnessed by a number of probes we have orbiting Mars - like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express. Our first inkling of an invasion would come via a long-distance photograph beamed back to us from around 140 million miles away.
It’d then be down to whoever received that image - an unsuspecting NASA worker, perhaps - to not totally panic… Though there are some plans for if there’s an invasion of Earth, there isn’t much of a protocol for a fleet of alien ships suddenly showing up elsewhere in the solar system. Knowledge that they had done would seem like classified material but would surely leak to the public very soon. At which point, well, who knows? Global reaction to the news that Mars was hosting aliens could go one of multiple ways… perhaps there’d be panic, with worried humans wondering whether we’re next; maybe there’d be calm curiosity given the sizeable (possibly safe) distance between us and them; some would prepare for the end of days, others would shrug their shoulders and carry on with life.
As a whole, though, one of humanity’s first moves would be to make contact - to establish why they’re here, and whether they’re a threat? This would be easiest in person, but we’re not about to send astronauts to Mars because a) we’ve never done that before and seemingly can’t right now, and b) there’d be no telling whether the aliens would be friend or foe. Our best bet, then, would be to send back a radio signal (or some other kind of signal) in the hope that they’d be listening and could understand.
After first contact comes full communication, which is a whole different feat… But America’s Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (or SETI) does have a division researching how to communicate with aliens. It’s been said that our best bet is to first begin “talking to” intelligent animal species here on earth - but we haven’t had a great deal of success, so far. Koko the gorilla, who died in 2018 at the age of 46, was able to master sign language, but the results of other initiatives have proven less impressive... Including an infamous bid by the 20th century physician John C. Lilly, who tried conversing with dolphins by taking various psychedelic drugs in their company.
All of which means, we’d probably need to communicate with actions… and since the aliens’ first action would’ve been apparently blatant invasion, then perhaps humanity would immediately begin by preparing its own defences. Forget tension in international diplomacy, this would be inter-planetary, and events could quickly spiral out of control - with both sides flashing weapons to ignite an instant war.
And if it came to that, would humanity stand much of a chance? If those on the “other side” are capable of traversing interstellar space, landing on Mars and making it their own, then they will’ve already achieved much more than we have. If they had weapons, then it’d be a safe bet that they’d be more advanced than ours as well, able to attack us from long distance and without warning. And the human fightback wouldn’t be much to speak of, given that even the longest of long-distance, earth-made missiles aren’t designed to even work properly in the near-perfect vacuum of space. Even some kind of nuclear bombardment probably wouldn’t have much of an effect, given that this would be an enemy that had clearly mastered the effects of radiation to get so close to us in the first place.
Strangely, we might actually stand more of a chance if Mars was only a starting base; a checkpoint for the aliens or resting stop before they mounted a full assault on Earth itself. Only then might the tables possibly, maybe turn. For one, we’d have home-field advantage; we’d feel naturally comfortable in our own atmospheric conditions, we’d know our way around and we’d know where the best resources were. We’d also be able to amass a far greater number of soldiers, with a potential army of billions available to us - unlikely to be matched by an alien entourage that’s far from home. But, even then, exactly what those aliens are packing in terms of technology would be the deciding factor. And the very fact that they’d be here could well prove anything we do to try and defend ourselves to be futile.
Of course, all of this only really plays out if we see aliens on Mars and assume that they’re invaders. In another reality they’re simply visitors, confirming to us the existence of extra-terrestrial life before moving on to “see the sights” in some other star system. No doubt their fleeting arrival would still concern a lot of people, but we’d have witnessed it without the need for a space war.
And in any case, there could prove a couple of unexpected upsides to a more hostile invasion, too, with such a colossal common enemy meaning that our own nations no longer argue over things like money or territory. And if this unprecedented international alliance somehow survived an alien force on the Red Planet, then our own potential in the wider universe will’ve sky-rocketed. We’d have made massive leaps in our own knowledge and could soon be travelling to distant planets ourselves… Hopefully under more peaceful terms, though. And that’s what would happen if Aliens Invaded Mars.
