Inside the ufo community, there is the recurring feeling of an imminent event called "disclosure", which consists in the official acknowledgement from governmental institutions and mainstream science of the presence of a specie technologically more advanced.

Disclosure varies from person to person. Some feel we've already reached that point, others expect it to be fully supported by mainstream media. A common denominator among these variations is the following axiom: disclosure is perceived as the end of UFO stigma.

More often than not, it is associated to a state of collective increased awareness and represent a "paradigm shift" in which almost any certainty is shattered and/or include the possibility that our God(s) were aliens or multidimensional beings.

This event is supposed to bring humanity together in a not exactly specified amount of time, acting like a bridge that can close the gap between different cultures, religious beliefs, races, genders and social status.

In a post-disclosure world, we won't be anymore simply Americans, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, British, Australian or Belgian, but we'll be reborn anew as Humankind, conscious of how little we are and how arrogant we have been.

What kind of long term effect it'll have on us is subject of speculations, however the most common shared belief is that there will be a conspicuous change in term of how we perceive our surrounding and existence.

When we think about the possible implications of a face to face contact with a more advanced civilization, a large number of scenario come into play in our minds:

For scientists, a first contact represent a linguistic, cultural, ethical, engineering, physics and biological challenge. This moment could exposes to risks any specie on Earth, including us. They may be hostile, as Stephen Hawking suggested in 2010.

Last but not least, a contact with another entity is a potential biological hazard, since our lack of knowledge in exo-biological interactions makes hard to discern whether some exo-pathogens could thrive in our world and affect us or not.

For the Ufo community, a first official contact with extraterrestrial is the first step towards the betterment of humanity. We will suddenly realize we're not alone and trapped inside a blue sphere which - in this era characterized by numerous space discoveries - feels so tight.

For them, it'll be a 360 degree game changer: wars, incurable diseases, poverty, our dependency from petroleum based fuels, restriction imposed by our understanding of physics, will be forgotten. Any issue that is pestering our society in this current era can be solved.

The distinction is not cut clean, different individuals have their own set of personal beliefs. However if we take in consideration the last segment, from our perspective of simple Humans that do everything to keep their probes sterile, does that really make sense?

Would aliens really share their knowledge with us? would they really shelter humanity and give so easily the tools for space exploration or would they rather not interfere at all to avoid cultural and technological contamination?

Why would a specie capable of interstellar traveling gift tech to a more rudimentary one when that tech could easily doom it? if our limited experience with space exploration has taught us something, is that any hypothetical scenario has numerous ethical questions that follow.

Should we build bases on top Europa's crust if the presence of microbial life beneath its surface is assessed? obviously there is no easy or correct answer. If Earth is doomed, makes sense to build a colony wherever is possible, otherwise is... complicate.

There is no giant intergalactic procedural manual, floating in the interstellar medium, that can be read with the aid of Hubble telescope. There is no protocol that we must abide by. We are not aware of which first contact "policies" other advanced species are adopting.

We can only use our limited experience in space to guess in part how it'll play out. With the adoption of a no-interference policy, we cannot cure an entire extraterrestrial civilization from a virus that is plaguing it, no matter how cruel it is from their perspective.

What happens if they become too reliant on our help to solve every fundamental problem that bothers their society? There is a strong component of Eutheism at play: we could be mistakenly seen as benevolent race of gods coming from the outer space. Our aid, taken for granted.

Despite our cultural differences, we are also prone to have faith in seemingly omnipotent entities and pray them in dire times. Any sufficiently advanced civilization which can cover thousand of light years in days or hours, for us is probably closer to a god than simply "alien".

In case of a one-time-only indirect aid, our intervention could still cause unthinkable damage on a planetary scale. A fractured civilization may use that knowledge or technology improperly in internecine warfare, meeting its own demise.

What is the right approach then? we simply don't know that, yet.
A first contact is an event that cannot be judged only through an anthropomorphize filter and whose outcome is uncertain.
No one knows what kind of impact will have on humanity, unfortunately.