[krapp]

>Global societies at large are poorly prepared to manage the cultural and practical impact of a confirmed first contact.

We're living in a world awash in decades' worth of science fiction media and pop cultural references to aliens, government conspiracies and first contact, good and harmful . That governments around the world are keeping the existence of aliens a secret has, itself, become a meme within a meme. I don't know if the disclosure of first content would be as much of a culture ending event as is often assumed.

It's not aliens, though. It's never aliens.