Our own government is poisoning us. You have to see this. (Not just theory but proof)

[Telionis]

Good points, but they DO lend themselves to a secret government dealing. If we were to find a primitive culture, we'd study it, and try to identify its leadership, so as to not cause a widespread panic and to gain further information about how the hierarchy works.

An alien civilization would certainly know that their presence would cause panic by many in the general populace.

Maybe they would make contact with the governments of the World, but collaborating or giving us technology seems ridiculous. The least responsible thing they could possibly do is give technology to only one side in a nuclear cold war. The second least responsible thing they could do is to give it to both sides.

The US represents 5% of the humans on Earth, why do you think they would contact our government instead of the UN? I guess I could see the latter happening, but personally, I'd think that they would try to avoid contributing to our artificial hierarchy and social inequity by contacting only the privileged.

Furthermore, I think that [benevolent] contact would be the greatest thing to happen to humanity since the invention of farming; easily worth a little panic. Imagine simultaneously destroying the concept of human exceptionalism, (and national exceptionalism), uniting mankind by showing us that there are far stranger intelligences out there, and offering us the wisdom and guidance of an older civilization, all at the same time.

Destroying us could very well also be a plan hatched by talking to our government first, as in the Day the Earth Stood Still. Perhaps giving them an ultimatum, or instructions designed to make a takeover easier for them, or simply wiping us out completely.

There is no justification for such circuitous and convoluted plans. The capacity to travel between stars automatically grants them the capacity to utterly destroy the entire biosphere (relativistic kill vehicle). There is no reason for them to "work" with our government when a simple "o hai, pls surrender unconditionally or we'll destroy your entire world, kthxbye" would suffice.

As for "taking us over", for what purpose? There is nothing of value on Earth that isn't much more abundant and easier to mine in deep space. The only somewhat unique thing on Earth is life itself, but for such a civilization, life could easily be created artificially.