The science fiction slash horror film Life, which is set on the International Space Station, proposes the ultimate in worst case scenarios for its characters: You are trapped in a self-contained environment with an anomalous, amorphous, at least instinctively intelligent and highly adaptive alien life form picked up on Mars and it has proven to be extremely deadly. So how do you contain and or eliminate it onboard? Or worse, how do you ensure that it never gets to make planetfall? Because, believe it or not, even though the Pentagon has contingency plans for a military-like invasion by aliens, there currently exists no protocol for a response for an alien that has breached containment and is loose on planet Earth.
The fear of such a thing happening is akin to the basic fears triggered by coming into contact with the unknown, the other, the stranger, the outsider, the invader and, yes, the alien that is now inside what was once thought to be secure territory. The movie Life takes advantage of this atavistic fear response and leaves us — after a couple hours (film-wise) of battling a monster while trapped in a small space — wondering what might be done should an alien life form (and a deadly one at that), for whatever reason, becomes a threat on Earth due to an inability to keep it contained. GeekWire spoke with John Rummel, senior scientist at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California, about such a potential threat.
When asked if there were any sort of provisions to respond to a runaway or escaped Mars organism on Earth, Rummel pointed out that, at present, there was no protocol for dealing with an alien outbreak or breakout.
“None, at this moment,” he told GeekWire. “We have to catch one first!” he added. “When we commit to a sample-return and biohazard containment facility, those questions would addressed both by NASA and by the regulatory agencies having authority over the importation of exotic organisms to the U.S. (and elsewhere on Earth).”
To read more, click here.