A relative handful of nations on Earth are qualified to represent our world to aliens. I would cite technological advancements, high standards of living, medical care for all, a diverse population, and a low level of military aggression as useful before claiming “leadership.” So rejoice! Sweden is here to put a good face on our oh-so-ugly and self-destructive species!
Whether they are from other star systems in our four-dimensional space-time, as Einstein describes our universe, or from an alternate dimension, parallel universe, or some other place or state of being we do not understand, I have no knowledge. My guess, per Occam’s Razor, would be that they are from our universe, separated from us primarily by empty space and the technical knowledge of how to create the gravity field propulsion system that many physicists say would explain the observed behavior of their vehicles.
Now on to that whole ‘leader’ thing. It’s a very human perspective, assuming that the alien civilization or culture will be basically like us, think like us, laugh at our jokes, and covet things we may have to trade. They want to negotiate, maybe open an embassy, that sort of thing.
I’m not sure that’s going to be what’s on their mind. Not that I expect any aggression or violence from extraterrestrials – if their goals were conquest, colonization, extermination, or other Hollywood film fodder, we wouldn’t even be here. The galaxy is over 13 billion years old, our star is rather young (4.5 billion years old), and our technological civilization is young as a mosquito larva – has it been 300 years since the steam engine?
Through Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry imagined the military services of his day evolving into services dedicated to science, peacekeeping, and exploration. Swedish Forces are already well down that path. If I take aliens to a leader, I believe it had better be one who shares the vision of an evolved future.
Virtually any sentient culture in our galaxy will be a few million to a few billion years older than us. Many will have seen every star system in the Milky Way. They may have contact with 3 million other intelligent life forms in our galaxy, or 10 million, or 50 million.
Earth? They will have an unbelievably vast database of histories of worlds and intelligent species. Ours will be so far down the rationality scale that I’m not sure anyone on Earth qualifies as a “leader.” Nobody speaks for our species. We exist in over a hundred nation-states, dominated by a handful of countries with powerful technology and what passes down here for military strength.
We are always one step away from nuclear war, although most people don’t think about it. This is the fact that attracts most of the attention of aliens, or at least of the UAPs performing daily surveillance on US naval vessels and aircraft and the military assets of other nations, primarily the ones with nukes. Many of our most obvious “leaders” are the ones presiding over our war machines.
What we think a leader is will not matter at all. What will matter is what our alien visitors think a leader ought to be. I suspect they will hope our species survives this horrific adolescence we are in now, and they won’t want to speak to any human “leader” who is not committed to a peaceful and sustainable future. Do you really think they’ll care how many G’s your country’s wireless networks have?
We are destroying our own planet’s biosphere through our unwillingness or inability to control our own greediest and most aggressive people. Corporations answer only to their stockholders, most of whom care about their next dividends. The boards of these kinds of companies have to produce profits in the short term or be voted out, so investing for a better world a half-century from now is not in the thinking of many of our “leaders.”
Actually, I believe I would offer my guests one of two options:
First, I will offer to serve as a ‘leader’ in the sense of being an elder of a tribe. I am old enough to be wise and well-informed for a human, and I’m a pretty good, straight-up guy, which is important in case they are telepathic. I believe I could give them useful answers to many questions they may have about our world, our history, and our hopes for the future.
If they are researchers, philosophers, and intellectuals, I expect I’ll do just fine, and when I am over my head, I can put them in touch with others who can take up the narrative.
Second, if they have broader goals for actual negotiations, treaties, trade agreements.
I know many people are filled with partisan rancor, but if we are dealing with aliens, that is no time for petty bickering. My country is not perfect, of course, but I believe it is in the topmost tier of nations capable of holding an advanced discourse with a newly contacted civilization.
Swedish Lappland, or maybe Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, would be a lovely place for aliens to meet with leaders who actually want to lead in the proper direction. (We’ll save the bagpipes for the second or third session so as not to unduly alarm them. In the case of the pipes, a little alarm is part of the pleasure.)