The only reason why aliens would come to earth…?

[mathew101281]

Is for the living things on it. Water isn’t rare, you can find them on asteroids. Minerals are also very plentiful in the universe, and aren’t worth traversing the vast distances of space to acquire. The only thing that seems to be relatively special about earth is the fact that it has life on it. Life seems, to be very uncommon, at least advanced life. Any advanced alien civilization is more likely to be interested in our philosophy, biology and or culture then our resources(save for maybe the life sustaining planet we live on). What do you think.

[CSTowle]

I'd say, like visiting on ships, that if they have the technology to travel light-years from star system to star system they could develop recording and analyzing technology that could observe us from extremely far away from the planet, and if samples or direct study was needed could do so with something like clouds of nanobots to avoid detection.

They almost certainly wouldn't fly down in spacecraft with blinking bright lights, hover long enough to be sighted and recorded, and then head off. Or abducting, probing/studying yokels and erasing their memory (though only enough so that they regain those memories and tell their stories eventually).

[Kirby101]

You basic premise about resources is right. But we have no way of knowing the thinking of an alien civilization, maybe they hold all life sacred and would be pissed we are causing one of the biggest extinction events in the planet's history. Maybe they would want to wipe us out for the parasites we are.

[Ragged Maw]

Peter Watt's novel, Blindsight is a good exploration of the possible values/mindset of an interstellar alien race and how "first contact" would go based on that.

[godisawesome]

To demand a rebroadcast of the series finale of Single Female Lawyer, because their broadcast signal took a looong time to get to them.

[Ragged Maw]

To demand a rebroadcast of the series finale of Single Female Lawyer, because their broadcast signal took a looong time to get to them.

<points> I got that reference!

[Tami]

Is for the living things on it. Water isn’t rare, you can find them on asteroids. Minerals are also very plentiful in the universe, and aren’t worth traversing the vast distances of space to acquire. The only thing that seems to be relatively special about earth is the fact that it has life on it. Life seems, to be very uncommon, at least advanced life. Any advanced alien civilization is more likely to be interested in our philosophy, biology and or culture then our resources(save for maybe the life sustaining planet we live on). What do you think.

Let's rephrase it: Why would Earth Humans visit another inhabited planet (assuming that we had the technology to do )? If we know why we might do it, then we have some insight into why an alien race might visit us.

Of course, there could be a myriad of differences between them and us, but it is a place to start.

[Kirby101]

It's a cookbook!

[Phoenixx9]

....to eat chocolate!

[Zelena]

It could be an accident…

[ed2962]

Well, just like human like explore places they haven't been, it's not unreasonable to think that aliens would have similar impulses.

Having said that, I really like the reason that was established during the Kree/Skrull War in Marvel Comics...that a lot these aliens actually have other agendas but they end up coming to Earth because we're geographically in the way.

[Kirby101]

Well, just like human like explore places they haven't been...and then conquer, colonize and take all their resources.

[Thezmage]

Or they just need more resources than they currently have?

[babyblob]

I would like to think that any race that is smart enough to develop space travel that enables them to travel to other star systems have risen above things like war and hate,

But then again we may taste like KFC or cotton candy to them and they just want a late night snack.

[CaptCleghorn]

Earth has a statistically unlikely size and distance relationship between Moon and Sun. The resulting total solar eclipses are an extraordinarily rare galactic (possibly universal) occurrence. Earth is a tourist trap for alien races.