[dhoulb]

Probably not a novel thought, but what if appearing in the sky over, say, a 100 year period beginning with the discovery of nuclear technology (or earlier) is a way of ‘warming up’ contact races so we don’t die of shock when they land?

It wouldn’t be unreasonable. Any advanced race wouldn’t need to observe at close distance, and wouldn’t need to be detectable.

They may just wamt to sow a little ‘openness to big ideas’ into us. Look at the amount of alien literature and scifi movies there are? I guess it’s working.