I was hired by NASA to protect Earth from aliens – here's what happens when they find us… & why it may spark disaster
John Rummel was twice NASA's Planetary Protection Officer - from 1987 to 1993 and 1997 to 2006.
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His objective was to prevent the contamination of other planets during exploratory missions, and also to ensure alien samples didn't contaminate Earth.
But he also contemplated what he would do if intelligent aliens were to visit.
And Rummel, now retired, has even outlined what could happen if there was a full-scale alien invasion.
Rummel told The Sun: 'An alien visitor would provide mutual benefit.
'We could imagine standard microbial sampling, such as swabs and wipes for our part.
'Conceptually, it could be like the Danish film, The Visit, where we have somebody who is coming here but not invading, and they're interested in finding out more.
'I would insist we sample the visitor to make sure we have no microbial hitchhikers and also that we do not introduce anything to hurt the visitor.
'As for alien invasions, you could end up with the Martians being killed off by the first pathogenic bacteria, and the other way around.
'If we go to Mars, we become the Martians. We have to be careful that when we do get there we don't bring back unknowns that might otherwise be a problem.
'A lot of people go, oh well, we haven't found life on Mars so far, so it shouldn't be a problem.
'There are a lot of people with big enough egos to say 'trust me'.
'But that's not really a good idea. Ignorance is not bliss. Let's go ahead and take some data.'
He added: 'We are just getting started in looking for signs of life. I will vote for aliens finding us first.
'We are otherwise in the 'selfie' stage of understanding what to look for, and where.'
Rummel said there were no official NASA plans to prepare for an invasion, insisting his views are personal.
But in that scenario, he says the agency would be unlikely to have any jurisdiction for a response.
Rummel spoke after his successor, Catharine Conley, exclusively told The Sun she had been fired by NASA in 2013 for claiming its plan to return Mars samples to Earth was not safe, something Rummel agrees with.
Conley said her job, like Rummel's, was to protect Earth from rogue alien life entering the atmosphere.
But she believes that if there was an alien invasion, the response would be led by the US Air Force.
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Mars facts
Here's what you need to know about the red planet...
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun
It is named after the Roman god of war
The landmass of Mars is very similar to Earth, but due to the difference in gravity, you could jump three times higher there than you can here.
Mars is mountainous and hosts the tallest mountain known in the Solar System called Olympus Mons, which is three times higher than Everest
Mars is considered the second most habitable planet after Earth.
It takes the planet 687 Earth days to orbit the Sun
The planet has a diameter of 4,212 miles, and has an average distance from Earth of 140 million miles
Martian temperatures can vary wildly, reaching as high as 70F/20C or as low as -225F/-153C
She told The Sun: 'They would very much more likely be tiny little aliens.
'But if there were any intelligent ones, that would be the Air Force's problem, not NASA's, at least for the US.
'But again, we don't know what we're preparing for.'
Rummel continued to work for NASA as a senior scientist at the Astrobiology Program after leaving his PPO role before retiring.
He added: 'If somebody were to come in and land on the Earth, it's unlikely that they're going to cause a problem in my opinion.
'But I wouldn't trust my opinion on this because I don't have data.
'I believe that there's life out there but it wouldn't consider itself alien. Because they're out there and we're the aliens if we go out there.
'They're not the aliens themselves. I hope intelligent alien life is out there, and I certainly think it could be. We have a chance of seeing them in our lifetime.
'It changes all the time, but the search for extra terrestrial intelligence or technology has the potential to reveal if there's something else going on in the galaxy that's not us.
'At one point in time, I was the SETI program person at NASA headquarters.
"And some very smart people are dedicated to seeing what's out there.'
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NASA says on its website it hopes to send humans to Mars as early as the 2030s to explore signs of alien life.
It was planning to return Mars samples before then as part of its Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign.
But that has been scrapped by Donald Trump's cuts, and NASA instead says it anticipates returning samples through lower-cost options.
China remains on course with its own plans to return Mars samples through its Tianwen-3 Mars mission, set for launch in 2028 and bringing samples back by 2031.
Rummel says he agrees with Catharine that NASA's current plans to bring samples back to Earth are not safe.
But he says he'll be keeping an eager eye on the Chinese.
He said: 'Mars sample return by robotic space vehicles is not currently funded by the US, so Catharine is right.
'It will be interesting to see the details of whatever the Chinese do.'
He added: 'The bottom line is that we're looking for life on Mars and if we think there's a credible possibility of finding life on Mars, then it would be nice to know something about whether or not that life form was benign or whether or not it somehow might affect us.'
'You don't want it to go badly.'
The Sun has approached NASA for a response to Rummel's comments.
On questions surrounding the safety of samples returned to Mars, NASA previously said: "It is anticipated that future missions to Mars will return samples for study on Earth.
"NASA will never compromise on safety."
How long does it take to get to Mars?
It's not that short of a trip...
There's an immense distance between Earth and Mars, which means any trip to the red planet will take a very long time
It's also made more complicated by the fact that the distance is constantly changing as the two planets rotate around the sun
The closest that the Earth and Mars would ever be is a distance of 33.9million miles – that's 9,800 times the distance between London and New York
That's really rare though: the more useful distance is the average, which is 140million miles
Scientists on Earth have already launched a whole bunch of spacecraft to (or near) Mars, so we have a rough idea of how long it takes with current technology
Historically, the trip has taken anywhere from 128 to 333 days – admittedly a huge length of time for humans to be on board a cramped spacecraft.
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