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I was curious, and apparently while the VP does get full clearance automatically, they don't get full access automatically, due to need to know compartmentalization rules. So Vance is cleared for anything area 51 reports to the White House, but not cleared to go there unless Trump says there's a reason. I doubt that would be much of a speed bump, but technically there is a restriction.

For the record, I don't think the government is in contact or aware of alien life, at least not any technologically advanced civilization (I'm open to the possibility of maybe them being aware of microbial life on Mars or Europa or something and keeping it under wraps)

But, if they were, and assuming we're talking about a civilization based in another star system (as opposed to somewhere in our solar system or maybe in interstellar space somewhere) I think it's a pretty safe bet that that's being handled by people in the military and the president, etc. are all kept out of the loop.

Because it would take too damn long to get a message back and forth to them assuming they don't immediately give us the key to FTL travel or communications.

Let's assume that first contact was made in January 1993, and one of Clinton's first acts as president is to acknowledge that we received their message, introduce himself, and signals that he's willing to open a dialogue with them.

He fires off that message, let's say it's to proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, it takes a little over 4 years to get there, arriving around early to mid 1997.

They reply and we get their next message probably mid to late 2001 (I really don't feel like crunching the exact numbers of how long these messages are taking to travel or speculating how long it's taking to draft our messages.)

Bubba is out of office, and Dubya needs to be brought up to speed on the alien situation right around the same time 9/11 is going down. He fires off a reply, and gets back to starting a war in the middle east.

Aliens get that reply around late 2005, and send another reply. We get that around early 2010. Obama's been in office for about a year, things have kind of settled down a bit. He fires on another reply, it arrives around 2014, aliens are starting to get the picture that they're probably not going to have a real back and forth conversation with the same president. They send a reply.

Their reply reaches Trump in 2018 sometime. He rambles at them a bit, they get it in about 2022, the aliens aren't at all sure what to make of that, they think maybe the transmission got corrupted somehow. What they do make out sounds like insane raving bullshit, but at least this guy will be gone soon and they can get back to talking to a real grown up with the next message.

They don't learn about COVID, or Jan 6, or any of the other stuff going on. Biden get skipped over, Donny is about to receive that reply in a few months, he's gonna be the first president to have an actual back and forth with the aliens, and he's probably gonna be pissed that they're asking if we can put Obama back on the phone.

So yeah, not a great way to be having a conversation. It probably makes a lot more sense to give that responsibility to maybe some career military types, or maybe some unelected pencil-pushers whose government careers can last decades and have more of an opportunity to select and train their successors to ensure smoother communications, and to keep the president and politicians as far out of the loop as possible, because there's a good chance they could be out of office before they can actually get anything done.

The dynamic changes a bit if we're talking to someone closer, if maybe we're dealing with a fleet that's parked somewhere in or near our solar system that's authorized to act autonomously from their home planet. Maybe then we could loop the president in a little more, but if they do ever need to phone home for something we'd still have the same problem.

Or if they're further away than the closest star to us, the problem gets even worse. Let's say instead of proxima Centauri at about 4¼ light-years away, they're instead based around Altair at about 16.7 light-years away. They would have gotten Clinton's message in around late 2009 or 2010, and we're probably just about due to finally hear back from them in the next couple of months.

He doesn’t believe any of this. He’s pandering to the dumb, too-online young right wing men who get their news and opinions from comedians’ podcasts.