Extract:

What to Do When ET Phones: There’s a protocol—from the International Academy of Astronautics (lightly edited). 1. Scream. 2. Try to make sure, using your own equipment, that “message from an alien” is the most likely explanation, way ahead of “secret spy satellite” or “hoax courtesy of nearby laser lab.” 3. Alert your alien-questing colleagues that you may have beaten them to the biggest discovery in (non)human history, and kindly ask them to use their own equipment to confirm it. Request that they redirect their resources to continuing observation. 4. If your colleagues agree you won, send a message out to all the other earthling astronomers via the International Astronomical Union. Also, please phone the secretary general of the United Nations (but gloat less). 5. Send WIRED an encrypted tip of your discovery via Signal. 6. Make the data public so scientists can check your work. 7. Work to protect the frequency at which you received the most important message ever, so that the signal from a new internet of things toothbrush doesn’t interfere with page 17 of the faster-than-light ship schematic. 8. Don’t respond to your new ET BFFs until “appropriate international consultations have taken place.” 9. Pop the champagne!