If there are alien civilizations out there close enough to pick up our stray signals, there's a non-zero chance that amongst the first transmissions, they could receive the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games, meaning our first contact with another species (in the unlikely event that they picked them up) could include a speech by Adolf Hitler.
"This wasn't the first broadcast, of course," senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak explained to RealClearScience. "But it was at a high frequency that might make it through the ionosphere."
In the film Contact, this ended up being the first message humanity received from an alien civilization. The beings sent the signal right back at Earth, not realizing the impact sending broadcasts of Adolf Hitler from space would have on the species they were attempting to initiate contact with. It's a bit like if you said hello to a passing stranger, and in response they accidentally regurgitated a chapter of Mein Kampf.
Thankfully, we likely won't have to go through this scenario, with signal strengths too weak to be detected by alien civilizations.
"It would have been very low power, and with a non-directional antenna," Shostak continued. "The idea that aliens might pick it up is pretty far-fetched."
But, of course, we could end up receiving far more terrifying first transmissions, as people have been discussing over on X (Twitter) and Reddit.
Why would an advanced ET civilization telegraph any potential pucnches?
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