First Contact

'First Contact' is the first contact between humanity and an alien race, whether face-to-face or online (ie by radio over lightyear distances). There will be one real First Contact, and one lesser First Contact for every race we subsequently encounter. The big question about First Contact is "what should we do?", by which we really mean "how do we not fuck it up?". Luckily, lots of people, many of them very smart, have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have written rather a lot.

• The SETI Protocol is probably the only official document which records an agreed First Contact policy
• 'Me Human: You Alien' <http://www.magicdragon.com/EmeraldCity/extraterrestrials/index.html> focuses on the communication aspects in a convenient how-to format; amongst other things, it explains how to use $3.27 in small change to illustrate that you are an astronomically sophisticated being, how 72 inches of string can (and has) broken the ice at a First Contact, and who you should contact to establish your science team (everyone from Noam Chomsky, through the director of NASA, Francis Crick?, and Fred Hoyle? to the president of the SFWA - but not Baruch Blumberg, which is, i feel, an oversight)

Also a Star Trek film, which we will call Star Trek First Contact? (although we might also want to refer to First Contact In Star Trek?, which is different).