First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My reluctance to use alien invasion is due to the feeling that we are not likely to be invaded and taken over.
What are you gonna do, talk the alien to death?
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Saying there's a silence is a bit like if Columbus, looking to discover a new continent, only sailed 10 miles off the coast of Spain before turning back to say, 'Nothing out there!'
I think if we ever encountered aliens, even communicating with them would be really, really difficult.
If we had failed to pursue the facts as far as they led, we would have denied the public any knowledge of an unprecedented scheme of political surveillance and sabotage.
If an alien visited Earth, they would take some note of humans, but probably spend most of their time trying to understand the dominant form of life on our planet - microorganisms like bacteria and viruses.
So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.
Well, we could tell them that we're here on an archeological expedition.
What if the invasion forces will not leave our lands? What if the U.S. forces and others stay in our beloved lands? What if their companies and embassy headquarters will continue to exist with the American flags hoisted on them? Will you be silent? Will you overlook this?
The Federal government does not have any information about extraterrestrial life to conceal, and there are no secret projects for me to investigate.