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00:00Humankind has an insatiable curiosity, and our species has long looked up to the stars,
00:06wondering if we're truly alone among them.
00:08We've told countless stories involving claimed encounters with extraterrestrials,
00:12some friendly and many terrifying.
00:15We've created whole pop culture genres around the idea of mixing with other beings not of this world.
00:21But so far, for all our estimating, guesstimating, and fantasizing,
00:26we still haven't actually seen aliens en masse on Earth.
00:29So, what if that were to change?
00:31What if, somewhere beyond our atmosphere, there are various severe threats lurking, waiting to strike?
00:37This is Unveiled, and today we're taking a closer look at the different types of alien invasion you should know about.
00:44Do you need the big questions answered? Are you constantly curious?
00:48Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one?
00:51And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
00:54We'll get the ball rolling with what's possibly the most obvious scenario of all…
00:58a full-scale military invasion.
01:00This would involve a massive, planet-wide, aggressive invasion,
01:04where our alien forces use advanced weaponry and technology to conquer our planet.
01:08Suffice to say, it's inescapably endless bad news for us.
01:12Cities get destroyed. Our own human military forces get annihilated.
01:17An alien rule is eventually imposed upon us all, if indeed, any of us survive.
01:22It all makes for a pretty terrifying and hefty dose of some serious existential dread.
01:27But the truth is, it's more than just a made-up story.
01:30Many believe that if alien contact does ever happen on Earth,
01:34then a brutal takeover is probably the most likely way in which it'll unfold.
01:38Stephen Hawking famously warned that alien contact could or would be a terrible idea,
01:44explaining why by drawing comparisons with what the Europeans did to the Native Americans upon their discovery of the New World.
01:51For Hawking, an alien presence here could quickly spell our downfall,
01:55either through fighting, enslavement, the spread of new disease, or through any number of other disturbing upheavals.
02:02The unprecedented volatility of such a situation would leave us vulnerable,
02:06pitted against an arriving force with far superior knowledge and tech.
02:10But still, even if this were the most probable type of invasion, what's the motivation behind it?
02:15Some claim that there isn't one, which is reason enough why actually it's likely never to happen in the first place.
02:22However, that may only be wishful thinking.
02:25Instead, scarcity of resources could reasonably be a major and urgent motivator for any alien group that's come so far as to come here.
02:33Earth is a cornucopia for certain natural resources, such as water, minerals, and metals.
02:38And while it's impossible to truly know how alien life would work,
02:42it's a good bet that much of what our world has would be of use,
02:45which leaves us, the lowly humans, as little more than a nuisance that happens to be in their way.
02:51Like ants on an otherwise perfectly edible, enjoyable, and lucrative cake.
02:56Here, though, the possible strategy does split into two.
02:59On the one hand, we have the potential for aggressive mining operations,
03:03destroying nature without mercy, and with blatantly zero care or compassion for us.
03:09On the other hand, the same hypothetical alien group might prefer a more sophisticated approach,
03:14employing unknown tech to extract Earth's resources secretly.
03:18Either way, it's clearly bad news for us if something were to just up and steal our oxygen or siphon away the water.
03:25And after doing so, the invading aliens might not even deem it necessary to hang around for long afterwards.
03:32Once satisfied, they may just as well fly back off into the stars,
03:36leaving behind a devastated planet, entirely void of the life it once had.
03:41Then again, another alien type might prefer to not just abandon this world as a used-up husk.
03:47Here, we're imagining more long-term settlers, who do at least deem this planet worthy of their presence,
03:53although the outlook is still rather bleak for we, the humans.
03:57In the case of an alien group seeking to put down roots and live here,
04:01the environment may well need to be drastically altered to suit their requirements.
04:06This could involve changing the atmosphere, climate, or even the geographical layout.
04:11Wholesale terraforming, which, depending on scale, could very quickly render Earth uninhabitable
04:16for anyone or thing that had lived here pre-invasion.
04:20Still, though, for the most part, we might assume that the likes of Stephen Hawking
04:24weren't only worried about incoming aliens ripping the physicality of our current world to shreds.
04:30More often than not, the more pessimistic views are really concerned with what could happen in a social sense.
04:36Because, for our freshly-arrived alien superiors, another motivator could of course be colonial expansion.
04:43The starting, maintaining, or expanding of an empire, but on an enormous, galactic scale.
04:49From the beginning, this type of invasion should at least be most organized.
04:53The implication being that Earth is unlikely to be the first other world to have fallen to our alien foe.
05:00Nor, based on all statistical approximations, are we likely to be the first other civilization that our ET overthrowers will have encountered.
05:08Again, this could then go one of two ways.
05:11On the one hand, an efficient alien race would just do away with us within moments,
05:16with zero chance of us surviving to even say hello.
05:19On the other hand, an efficient alien race may well have come to realize that cooperation is key
05:25whenever you have a new planet ready to add to your portfolio.
05:28Here, seeing as we're not instantly dead, things would get interesting,
05:32with the incoming aliens seeking to establish their own governance,
05:36bringing Earth in line with all of the other worlds it has conquered beforehand.
05:40Ultimately, though, it's only interesting or tolerable for us if the best-case scenario does happen,
05:46and the new arrivals wish to cooperate.
05:48If they don't, but they also don't kill us straight away, then humans could become second-class citizens very quickly.
05:55Most likely, we'd all be enslaved, destined and doomed to live out the rest of our lives
06:00as insignificant, barely-recognized cogs in the alien machine.
06:05Finally, though, and while so far we've dealt with invasions that you very much do know are happening,
06:10there is an alternative, covert infiltration.
06:13This is when our alien aggressors breach society by disguising themselves as humans
06:18or by in some way controlling influential individuals,
06:21Just as much as with the guns and hellfire of a military battle,
06:25it's a scenario that's also proven popular in science fiction.
06:28Now the goal for any alien with eyes set on Earth is to carefully and secretly gain power,
06:33influence affairs and gather intelligence.
06:36In the stories, we might see world leaders, famous faces,
06:40and anyone in a position of authority be unknowingly transformed into extraterrestrial puppets.
06:45Or even, eventually, they might reveal themselves as aliens directly.
06:50The showdown comes when they finally reveal themselves from the shadows,
06:54perhaps after a long period of time,
06:56and their subtle invasion is thereby confirmed.
06:59It's probably just as disconcerting as the idea of an alien war,
07:03but in a much different way.
07:05And for those who favor it as a more likely route toward alien domination,
07:09then it could also double up to explain the Fermi Paradox.
07:12The paradox famously says that alien life has a high likelihood to exist,
07:16but we have a contradictory lack of evidence for it.
07:19We believe they should exist, so why have we never encountered them?
07:23But now, if covert infiltration really is their way forward,
07:27and if they really are already controlling us,
07:30then that's why we don't know they're there.
07:32It's all by elaborate and brilliant design.
07:35Something called the Zoo Hypothesis takes this idea a level or two further.
07:39First formulated by the MIT radio astronomer John Ball in 1973,
07:45it says that intelligent enough aliens probably know we're here already,
07:49but they're purposely keeping their distance.
07:51He suggested similarities to Star Trek's Prime Directive,
07:54which doesn't allow space-faring societies to interact with less advanced civilizations.
07:59The Zoo Hypothesis says that the same thing could be happening in real life,
08:03so that we're being watched from afar, as though we're animals in the enclosure of a zoo.
08:08As to why an alien group might opt for this strategy?
08:11The optimistic idea is that it's for them to ensure that humanity develops organically
08:16to one day become sufficiently advanced and mature enough to explore space for itself.
08:21Perhaps our zookeepers believe that we have problems to overcome,
08:24such as war and climate change,
08:26and so they're busy controlling us in secret until such a point as we solve those issues.
08:31A more pessimistic interpretation, however, is generally known alternatively as the Lab Hypothesis.
08:38In this version of events, again proposed by Ball,
08:41it's said that humanity is nothing more than the subject of an alien experiment.
08:45No matter the end goal, our world is their petri dish, and there's nothing we can do about it.
08:51Somewhat thankfully, both the Zoo and Lab Hypothesis can likely be checked by scientists within the next century.
08:58With how far advancements have come,
09:00some believe that we'll soon be able to detect if we've been isolated in this way.
09:05Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or METI,
09:08is an organisation created to test hypotheses such as these,
09:12although it isn't without its critics, either.
09:14For those against METI, actively seeking contact with ETs could in itself be dangerous.
09:20In the context of Earth being either a zoo or a lab,
09:23any attempt by us to break out of our confines could, it's thought,
09:27result in the zoo or lab being shut down… and that's certainly no good for us.
09:33So, what's your verdict?
09:34Are any of these invasion types likely to happen soon?
09:37Or are you still feeling perfectly safe here on Planet Earth?
09:40Does the threat of an alien overlord terrify you senseless?
09:44Or are you still quite calm and unconcerned?
09:47Let us know in the comments, and keep your eyes peeled for more options
09:50that an alien conqueror might consider in a follow-up video coming soon.
09:55What do you think? Is there anything we missed?
09:57Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled,
10:01and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.