[ribosometronome]

This does not pass the smell test. Why would a peaceful alien organization contact governments if they're concerned knowledge of their existence would cause mass hysteria. Seems like a pretty major risk if they're actually concerned about that.

If they really want to research us for some reason, they could surely do that in secret if they're capable of secreting away astronauts to a joint Mars base, as claimed.

[austinwade]

Valid point. As much as I want this to be true I do agree it needs to be heavily criticised.

Just for fun in entertaining the idea, maybe they've already been doing their own secret tests throughout history and are trying to slowly start interacting with humans now, and starting on Mars with governments could be a small first step?