What If Earth Is Controlled By Aliens? | Unveiled

What If Earth is Controlled by Aliens?

Life on Earth is already a pretty incredible thing. Here, we have one planet to host all of our plants, animals, ecosystems and environments in seemingly perfect balance… what are the chances of that? But there are various theories - including the Directed Panspermia theory and the Zoo and Laboratory Hypotheses - which suggest that this world is way more than just a happy coincidence.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; What if Earth is controlled by aliens?

The Zoo Hypothesis is fairly well known in theoretical science circles. It proposes that aliens do exist and that the only reason we don’t know about them is because they don’t want us to. For advocates of the theory, one or more advanced alien civilizations have purposefully cordoned off the Earth, treating our planet like an enclosure at the zoo. There could be a number of reasons for this, but most explanations include the idea that our alien authority wants to see how life plays out here but doesn’t want to risk cross-contamination between us and them. From the beginning, the Zoo Hypothesis seeks to answer the Fermi Paradox - which asks; “where are all the aliens?” - explaining that they’re out there but that we might never know it… As for where it ends, it could be that Earth is only released from the zoo whenever something living on it becomes advanced enough to understand its place in the universe - whether that “something” is humans or not, remains to be seen.

There’s another, more disturbing variation of the Zoo Hypothesis, though; the Laboratory Hypothesis - first mooted by Harvard astrophysicist, John Ball, in the 1970s. Here, one or more alien civilizations again deliberately sections off the Earth from the rest of the cosmos, only this time our planet is more like a petri dish than a cage. Plants, animals and humans aren’t just left to their own devices by their inquisitive extraterrestrial overseers… but are instead experimented on by alien overlords with an agenda. Everything we do and see (possibly even think and feel) is shaped, guided and controlled by advanced ETs. It paints a less than rosy picture for our future, because it strips humanity of all semblance of free will. In the Laboratory Hypothesis, anything that might or might not happen to us today, tomorrow, next year or next century only occurs that way because Earth-controlling aliens have made it so.

As for what experiments such aliens could be conducting on us, it’s likely that we (the puny humans) would never truly grasp their purpose. We’re the lab rats in this scenario, going about our daily lives because it’s the only way we know, when really we’re just one data point in an Earth-wide study presided over by a higher power. If aliens were controlling the world in this way, then the whole of human history could be just one chapter in a centuries-long experiment into the effectiveness of oxygen, for example, or the significance of surface water, or the likelihood of self-destruction. That last one gets Zoo Hypothesis theorists particularly excited in the modern world, because of the increasingly perceived notion that humanity could be right now on the cusp of self-inflicted ruin.

Understandably, there are plenty who immediately discredit the Zoo and Lab Hypotheses as pure speculation, though. And it’s true that there is nothing by way of solid evidence that Earth really is at the whim of aliens in this way. Hey, we don’t even know for sure that aliens exist at this point… although our “not knowing” is a key aspect of how and why the Zoo Hypothesis works. If we knew we were in a cage, or that tests were being run on us, then we’d naturally act unnaturally… and whatever results “life on Earth” gave would be skewed. Still, it makes for an existence-shattering thought experiment… because what would (or could) we do if it ever was revealed that aliens really did control Earth?

Such a revelation would instantly alter humanity’s collective thinking. Say an alien controller - let’s name them “Bert” - one day pulled away the veil that had been hiding them from us… We’d suddenly have an answer to many of our most pressing existential questions. Who created us? Bert did. Why are we here? Because Bert wants us to be. Why do bad things happen? Because of Bert.

In the face of such an incredible higher power, all other social structures could quickly fall. Governments would be just as answerable to Bert as everyone else, so their control would probably crumble. The religions of the world might also struggle to retain the Faith of their followers. And all other systems of order like trade routes, the economy, and the workplace would be a mess. Unless or until the whole of humanity accepts Bert as their ruler, we’d have chaos. And Bert’s experiment would be a write off.

So, what then? For Laboratory Hypothesis advocates, it’s exactly why we should hope to never know that we’re being controlled… because the moment we gained that knowledge would also probably be the moment that our controllers pull the plug on us. It would be the natural end to the aliens’ experiment… and while it could be a mild source of amusement for them to watch our panicked reactions, they’d more likely just move onto their next experiment, abandoning or exterminating us as they did. Not good.

Still, it needn’t be quite so bleak as all that. While the Laboratory Hypothesis offers little by way of a positive outcome, the broader Zoo Hypothesis does provide some hope. Some versions of it suggest that if humanity ever reached a level of advancement at which its alien zookeepers felt they and us could safely exist alongside one another, then they’d relinquish control of the Earth and welcome us Earthlings into some kind of wider, cross-universe society. At this point, we’d have enough knowledge and emotional range to comprehend that we had, until then, been subject to the actions and decisions made by another entity… and we’d be fine with that! We’d almost certainly be way more technologically advanced as well… enough to travel the universe and see the literal “bigger picture”. And, now, at this completely hypothetical future time, we could even be in position for a role reversal…

Say Earth is controlled by aliens and say humanity really did advance enough to take back control as their equals, then we could become the controllers of someplace else. Through Directed Panspermia - the deliberate spreading of biological material onto another world - we could bend and shape a society of the future to our own design. At this stage and with this potential power, would we then remember our own vulnerability as we are now? Our own one-time innocence to how things really worked? If yes, then you’d hope that were humans to become the aliens controlling another planet like Earth, we’d show care and mercy over our subjects. If no, then here’s hoping that the hypothetical aliens controlling us aren’t the same way inclined!

Ultimately, any and all of these outcomes are at the moment totally hypothetical. They make for a good thought experiment, and they offer an interesting lens through which to view our own everyday actions, particularly how we treat other people, animals and the rest of life on Earth. But there’s no need for an existential crisis just yet. As far as we know, aliens aren’t controlling our planet… but that’s what it would be like if they were!