17 ways humanity's first contact with aliens could go down

We're fairly certain that we haven't yet made contact with any extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), but when we do — and yes, let's go with when — it's definitely going to be big news. What is somewhat less definite is what form that news will take: will it be beneficial to humanity, with ETI offering to solve all of our problems, or will ETI turn out to be hostile and eat our entire species for dinner?
A group of scientists from Pennsylvania State University and NASA's Planetary Science division have put a lot of thought into many different scenarios of ETI interactions with humanity, and here are 17 different ways that first contact might (or might not) go.
Paper, via Inhabitat

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1. ETs ignore us Just like in Star Trek, it’s possible that ETI has some kind of Prime Directive or other non-interference policy with other species for whatever reason, so that even if we did know for sure that they were out there, they might not respond to us. They also might not communicate simply because as a species, humans don’t interest them, whether it’s because of our primitive nature or violent tendencies or terrible taste in music or otherwise. Or, they could show up in the form of a giant alien probe, have a pleasant conversation with the whales, and then leave, without sparing us so much as a glance. PHOTOS