History Main / FirstContact

* ''Anime/{{Obsolete}}'': The alien Peddlers announce themselves to humanity by broadcasting a short message across all human radio frequencies in five languages, telling humanity they will trade their technology for limestone. [[TheGhost They then refuse all further contact]]. Attempts at tracking their trading vessels reveal they come from ''somewhere'' behind the dark side of the Moon, but there have been no further attempts to seek them out.

* Hot Chocolate's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr9fRIIziXY No Doubt About It]]".

* Literature/''{{Starsnatcher}}'' has this take place in its ending. [[spoiler:After the Seizers bring Layla and Kira back home, humanity and the Seizers build friendly diplomatic relations to ensure peace and prosperity in the universe. In the epilogue, lots of scientists (and some little boys) have gathered to see the first Seizer take a step on Earth.]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* In ''Fanfic/WorldwarWarOfEquals'', when The Race's fleet is spotted just outside the solar system, Humanity tries to go for a peaceful version of this with America and Europe using [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array SETI's ATA]] and China using a system developed in Yantai Space City. The Race refuse to take the offer for peace.
* This is the premise of ''Fanfic/MassEffectClashOfCivilizations'', as the [[Franchise/MassEffect Council]] races encounter the humans of the [[Franchise/{{Halo}} UNSC]].
* Humans in ''Fanfic/TranscendentHumanity'' first discover carvings left behind by the {{Precursors}}, prompting them to unite, colonize the Solar system, and ramp up their scientific and industrial output. Eventually they make contact with other civilizations in the galaxy, and outclass them in almost every way.
* In ''Fanfic/HarryTano'', this happens when [[Franchise/StarWars Ahsoka Tano]] meets and subsequently adopts a young Literature/HarryPotter. It is later lampshaded by UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher when she realizes the [[AbsoluteXenophobe Ministry of Magic botched up the official First Contact due to being paranoid prats.]]
* In ''Fanfic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', Episode 14 features the Stardroids, alien robots who do ''not'' come in peace.
* ''Fanfic/TheNextFrontier'' features a PerspectiveFlip of sorts, as the big moment unfolds largely from the perspective of a non-human species, namely [[VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram the Kerbals.]]
* Subverted in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation''. The Caltech nerds (and Penny) are the first to make contact with "aliens" - who turn out to be from the Discworld. One of the visiting aliens is young, red-haired and attractive enough for Howard Wolowitz to forgo the usual "take me to your leader..." stuff. His first words to the alien visitor are ''Are all the women on your planet as hot as you?''. An "alien" visits. [[KavorkaMan Howard]] makes a pass at her. And when the Caltech crew visit the Discworld, a specialised aspect of quantum theory allows them to take the Internet with them. An Unseen University faculty member, given a resource allowing him (at least in theory) to tap into the accumulated knowledge of an entire planet, immediately asks if you can get lots of pictures of, er, young ladies, in ''artistic'' poses with urns and lengths of gauze. Yes. The Senior Wrangler ''immediately'' latches onto Internet porn.
* ''Fanfic/EquestriaAcrossTheMultiverse'':
** The mane theme and idea of the story is interuniversal exploration and contact, so first contact with alternate universes is a frequent occurrence. Twilight has a detailed list of how they're supposed to do it, but [[RunningGag never gets to actually do it]]. The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales'' arc is the one that follows the mold most closely.
** Eventually, the tech leap that Equestria Prime makes results in a race of aliens called the Celestial Ponies making an organized FirstContact. They come in peace...except one of their supervillains, Black Star the Light Stealer, who also arrived and made FirstContact with Queen Chrysalis.
* ''[[Fanfic/AftermathOfTheGames Integration]]'': This is one of the main plot lines. The human world is slowly gaining more magic stability and pretty soon it will be impossible to hide magic from the population outside of CHS, so the ponies in Gaia (pony world) and the humans in Terra (human world) work together to prepare for official contact and for the two worlds to become inter-dimensional allies. Sunset and Princess Twilight also have plans for when contact is made, Sunset planning to help the citizens of Terra adapt to the magic they will receive and Twilight hoping to bring technology from Terra over to Gaia.
* In ''Fanfic/WanderOverFostersAUOneshot'', Wander lands on Earth and ends up stranded at Foster's. Most planets have inter-planetary travel but Earth is one of the few exceptions. No one even knows about alien species on Earth. Due to this, everyone assumes Wander is a standard ImaginaryFriend and only Bloo realizes that he isn't.
* ''Fanfic/TheVictorsProject'' uses this as the motif for District 1's first encounter with people from the Capitol. The Capitolians first come in flying ships and had "[[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation skin of black and brown and gold and blue and scarlet, with hair of every hue and jeweled tattoos]]." When the District 1 citizens respond violently, the Capitolians return in a more AlienInvasion style, with a full army.
* In crossover fanfiction ''Fanfic/PointMeAtTheSkyrim'', [[Literature/{{Ward}} Victoria Dallon]] gets transported to the ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' world. Vicky briefly considers the various First Contact Protocols when it comes to interacting with alternate Earths, and how she would technically be breaking several laws by approaching the inhabitants without proper authority figures. The situation is dire enough that she doesn't care.
* It happens in ''Fanfic/ToHellAndBackArrowverse'' shortly after [[ComicBook/GreenArrow Oliver Queen]] and [[Franchise/TheFlash Barry Allen]] end up stranded on Lian Yu. When a shockwave rocks the entire island, Ollie and Barry head towards the impact site and find [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} two]] [[Franchise/{{Superman}} aliens]] stumbling out of a spaceship.
-->The impact is heard throughout the island, a shockwave spanning out for miles. Edward Fyers immediately sends out a scouting team.\\
Oliver and Barry get there first.\\
Barry is frozen on the spot. Beside him, Oliver is not much better, pointing and shaking.\\
A spaceship. An honest-to-god spaceship.\\
They stare, and continue to stare, until the cockpit snaps open, and a blonde-haired girl spills out, with a baby in her arms. She stumbles a bit, before gaining purchase with the ground, and looks up at them.\\
"Who are you?", she asks in a language that neither they, nor anyone else native to this planet, knows.
* ''Fanfic/DaughterOfFireAndSteel'': In order to find Kal-El, who is masquerading as a human, General Zod has his starship enter the Earth's atmosphere, and then he begins his global broadcast with a "You are not alone" message to the Earth's people.
* ''Fanfic/Arrow18MissionLogs'': First contact between Earth and Equestria is from a ship from Earth to investigate the Equestrian world (namely the fact that it's sun is orbiting the planet, and not the other way around) and discovering signs of civilization.
* ''Fanfic/IfWishesWerePonies'': First contact happens when a badly injured Harry Potter stumbles through a portal to Equestria. The portal is eventually rediscovered by the Equestrians, who proceed to make contact with the British government. Specifically the Muggle one due to the Wizarding one being laissez faire to the point of negligent.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* A major element of the B-plot in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''. It serves as the event that the crew of the ''Enterprise'' must prevent the Borg from sabotaging, since it was more or less what led to the creation of the [[TheFederation United Federation of Planets]]. Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of Humanity's first [[FasterThanLightTravel warp drive]] gets cold feet when Riker and his fellow crew stranded on the surface tell him that it will happen because of him, but they eventually get him to come around, and the actual warp flight leaves him a man changed for the better, prepared to be how history remembers him in the event. [[spoiler:For the record, Humanity's First Contact is with the Vulcans.]]
* The movie ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' takes a very Disney approach to this theme.
* Approached in a relatively similar vein to E.T. ''Film/TheCatFromOuterSpace'' has humans make first contact with alien... cats.
* In ''Film/{{Alien}}'', First Contact takes place between a crew of space truckers who are more interested in a percentage than diplomacy, and an H.R. Giger-designed horror from the beyond the stars that just wants to share a FaceFullOfAlienWingWong with them. They get along about as well as you'd expect[[note]] There are some subtle indications in the film that this might not be the first contact with alien life for humans, just the first contact with this particular alien species[[/note]].
* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', the aliens never make a formal First Contact other than trying to KillAllHumans. The closest it comes to a dialogue is when a capture alien takes telepathic control of a half-dead scientist for a pleasant chat with the President. The President asks if peace is possible; the alien curtly answers "no peace." When the President asks what they would like us to do, the alien simply responds, "Die."
* ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'': The various close encounters throughout the film are building up to this (the eponymous [=CE3K=] being actual contact with extraterrestrial life). It happens at the climax of the film starting with the sequence where the scientists try to communicate with the [=UFOs=] (through music).
* ''Film/MarsAttacks'', the First Contact seemingly goes bad when the Martian ambassador mistakes a dove for an act of aggression and starts shooting up the American greeting party with his DeathRay. The alien expert tries for a more peaceful second contact and invites the ambassador to Congress, where he pulls out his DeathRay again and kills everyone. It turns out the Martians are just dicks.
* ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'': A flying saucer lands on the Mall in Washington DC. When the ominous humanoid alien comes out and approaches the military representatives that come to meet him with some sort of device in his hand the soldiers get spooked and shoot him. Turns out the device was not a weapon but held a formal message and the alien is just a HumanAlien wearing a helmet.
* ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill2008'', where the alien craft is initially thought to be a world-ending meteorite before it slows down and lands in Central Park. The craft is surrounded by US military only for all electronic equipment to shut down, when the craft emits an EMP wave. A humanoid figure comes out, but one of the soldiers freaks out and shoots at it. A huge humanoid robot comes out to protect the alien, only for the wounded alien to stop it from attacking the humans. The alien is taken to a secret government facility, where the bullet is removed and the wound treated. To the doctors' surprise, the alien's internal structure is identical a human's. It turns out that the aliens specifically grew a body that would be able to survive on Earth. After awakening, the alien (named Klaatu) expresses his wish to speak with the UN, but the US Government has no intention of letting him leave the facility.
* The film ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' has a sort-of FirstContact when the explorer Archibald Witwicky discovers a slumbering Megatron in the early 20th century. Though Megatron is kept insensate, humanity gets a technological jump start from what they learn of his workings. More commonly seen first contacts take place later, when the Decepticon Blackout and his little friend Skorponok flatten a US military base in the Middle East, and the Autobots track down Archibald's descendant, Sam, and ask for an artifact from his ancestor. They learned their command of English from the Internet. Despite battling with the Decepticons in public, the Autobots are presumably covered up by the government, and they remain on Earth, in disguise, watching and protecting and waiting for their fellows to join them.
%%* ''Film/{{Contact}}'' (based on the Carl Sagan novel, mentioned below).
* ''Film/District9'' handles this in a very interesting manner. Unusually for a mainstream film, it's the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans who oppress the aliens]].
* In the Soviet cult classic ''Film/MoscowCassiopeia'', humanity receives a signal from a faraway star. The Soviet government builds a nuclear-powered relativistic spacecraft and crews it with high school kids, realizing that they would be adults by the time the ship arrives. However, a stowaway sits on the engine controls and somehow accelerates the ship ''beyond the speed of light''. Long story short, they arrive to their destination in the blink of an eye (for them, at least) and encounter an alien ship. TheCaptain gets into a transparent dome on the hull and tries to communicate with the HumanAliens with hand gestures. They appear to understand and reply in kind. Later, the teens use a UniversalTranslator they brought to teach the aliens Russian in a matter of seconds. They find out that the aliens they met are the last of their race due to a [[AIIsACrapshoot robot revolt]] some time ago. Only those who were in space at the time escaped. The rest were "enhanced" by the machines by having their emotions removed, thus stopping procreation (apparently, love is a prerequisite for sex). The humans offer to help the aliens retake their homeworld.
** Meanwhile, the same guy who sat on the controls (who is also WrongGenreSavvy about aliens) ends up being a part of the landing party on the alien planet. While exploring a strange white column, he finds himself face-to-face with a pair of strange-looking HumanAliens with antennae and black jumpsuits. He also uses a UniversalTranslator to translate their whistles into Russian. He further tries to use math to communicate, but gets the formula wrong. One of the aliens corrects him and tells him "It happens to everyone." It's later revealed that these are actually RidiculouslyHumanRobots.
* ''Film/{{Thor}}'' and ''Film/TheAvengers2012'' for the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, since the [[Myth/NorseMythology Asgardians]] are revealed to be SufficientlyAdvancedAliens. The former is a rather low-key event which is [[GasLeakCoverup covered up rather neatly]] by [[TheMenInBlack the agents of]] ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}. The latter is a massive [[AlienInvasion city-scale invasion]] that lets the entire world know they are not alone.
** ''Film/CaptainMarvel2019'', which is a prequel to ''Thor'' and ''The Avengers'', reveals that first contact with an alien civilization by modern-day humanity was actually with the warring Kree and the Skrulls in the 1990s. Like with the Asgardians, however, this incident was largely unnoticed and covered up, as only a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents bore witness to the details.
* ''Film/{{Oblivion|2013}}'' : What the "Odyssey" mission was meant to be (meeting an unexplained space object near Titan). To say that it [[GoneHorriblyWrong Went Horribly Wrong]] is a massive understatement.
* ''Film/ManOfSteel'' greatly deconstructs not only the concept of a superhero appearing for the first time, but humanity finding out that they're not alone and not even close to a match for their competition.
* In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' the main characters' goal is to make first contact with the Engineers that created humanity. [[spoiler:After waking the last surviving one up, he immediately attacks them and tries to wipe out humanity with the Engineers' bioweapon.]]
* In ''Film/{{Pixels}}'', humans attempt to make first contact with aliens. It goes catastrophically wrong when the aliens misinterpret the message of peace as a declaration of war.
* ''Film/{{Arrival}}'': around a dozen alien spaceships touch down on various places around Earth and then just... sit there. The story mainly revolves around humanity's attempts to work out some way to communicate with the aliens aboard the ships, and find out why exactly they've come to Earth.
* ''Film/UltramanCosmosTheFirstContact'' is set in an alternate universe where humans have not met any aliens or Ultramen before, until the events of the movie had extraterrestrial life (Ultras and Baltans in this cas) revealing themselves to humans for the first time in-universe. The title is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/AngelStation'', human protagonists make a First Contact with a race of [[Main/LivingShip Living Ships]] and promptly start to trade with them.
* Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark'': ''Invasion'' describes first contact with the [[HumanAlien Bino Faata]], whose starship has arrived to the Solar System in search of new races to conquer and integrate into the Faata hierarchy. The novel's title and TheTeaser (before cutting back to how it started) are clear examples of the bad kind of first contact. Humanity barely survives the assault with tens of millions of dead all over the world. On the bright side, the Faata starship remains mostly intact. From it, humans reverse-engineer the [[FasterThanLightTravel contour drive,]] DeflectorShields, and AntiMatter weapons. The second novel takes place 37 years later and involves a newly-created battlegroup taking the fight back to the Faata. Also, in-between the novels, a proper First Contact takes place with the peaceful Lo'ona Aeo, who wish to trade with humans.
** The Faata do attempt at faking the good kind of First Contact by disengaging their stealth systems at the approach of a human flotilla and offering various technological boons, including longevity treatments, cures for all known diseases, FTL technology, ArtificialGravity, etc. Naturally, this huge list of boons only serves to make the admiral, who's tasked by the UN Security Council to negotiate with them and keep them away from Earth, suspicious of their motives. The alien representative then points out that they know from [[AliensStealCable intercepting transmissions]] that Earth is not unified and threatens to accept one of the non-Western nations' offer of landing. After a few days of not getting anywhere, the Faata decide to drop the charade and just [[CurbStompBattle wipe out the flotilla.]]
* ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'' by Peter Watts invokes this. The ship ''Theseus'' Earth sends out is manned ''because'' they have reason to suspect that the event know as Firefall was initiated by aliens, who...for some reason took a picture of all of Earth. It's then subverted when what the crew of the ''Theseus'' finds isn't quite the intelligent life forms they expected to find and brought a linguist to communicate with, though. [[spoiler:The alien scramblers which inhabit the ''Rorschach'' turn out to be hyperintelligent but not conscious or self-aware, and can only parse human languages as space-wasting cognitive viruses designed to hurt them.]] As the narrator puts it:
-->"How do you say 'We come in peace' when the words themselves are an act of war?"
* Creator/TimothyZahn's ''Literature/TheConquerorsTrilogy'' kicks off when an already interstellar humanity makes first contact with a new alien race, who respond to the standard "we come in peace" greeting by opening fire, wiping out the entire expeditionary force and finally [[SinkTheLifeBoats Blasting the Escape Pods]], leading them to be known as the "Conquerors Without Reason". Yet during their interrogations of the sole survivor of this task force, the Conquerors insist that it was the ''humans'' who shot first, and the books revolve around reconciling these conflicting reports of what happened during their disastrous first meeting.
* The core of ''Literature/ConstellationGames'' is the tale of what happens when modern day Earth encounters a vastly superior alien civilization, and whether everything will go horribly wrong or not. The key difference from most such tales is that the main character isn't an ambassador, or a badass; he just wants to play their video games.
* The novel ''Literature/{{Contact}}'' by Carl Sagan deals with first contact in a relatively "hard" manner. Aliens in a system twenty-six light years distant send a radio signal to Earth - a long sequence of prime numbers. It's a palimpsest, and under it is a second message that turns out to be an audio/video signal, a repeat of the first few minutes of the first television signal broadcast strongly enough to traverse out to Vega - which, unfortunately, turns out to be UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's Olympic commencement broadcast. This, too, is a palimpsest, and under ''that'' is the blueprints to a machine. Even this is a palimpsest, for there's a primer buried in there telling Earth how to build it.
* Creator/IvanYefremov's novella ''Cor Serpentis'' is essentially a one big TakeThat at Leinster's spin on the theme. Both Yefremov and [[AuthorFilibuster his characters]] take it as extremely distasteful and, believing that no spacefaring civilization might be hostile, meet the aliens with open hands, in one of the most touching description of contact ever written.
* [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s ''Literature/TheCulture'': The Contact section of the Culture, described as the "good works" agency of that society, apart from Contact's "Special Circumstances" division, who interfere in other civilisations if it looks like they'll be trouble to the Culture. A kind of Reverse AlienNonInterferenceClause.
* Justified in ''Literature/TheAlgebraist'', another of Creator/IainBanks' sci-fi novels. It is mentioned that humanity (or perhaps just human genetic material) was transplanted from Earth to a number of nearby worlds ''in 4051 BC''. These humans were raised in an interstellar culture while Earth itself was declared off-limits. Result; by the time Earth discovered interstellar travel, [=aHumans=] outnumbered the remaining humans or [=rHumans=] by an order of magnitude.
-->'''EncyclopediaExposita:''' ''Prepping. A very long-established practice, used lately by the Culmina amongst others, is to take a few examples of a pre-civilised species from their home world (usually in clonoclastic or embryonic form) and make them subject species/slaves/mercenaries/mentored. So that when the people from their home world finally assume the Galactic stage, they are not the most civilised/advanced of their kind (often they're not even the most numerous grouping of their kind). Species so treated are expected to feel an obligation to their so-called mentors (who will also generally claim to have diverted comets or otherwise prevented catastrophes in the interim, whether they have or not). This practice has been banned in the past when pan-Galactic laws (see Galactic Council) have been upheld but tends to reappear in less civilised times. Practice variously referred to as Prepping, Lifting or Aggressive Mentoring. Local-relevant terminology: aHuman & rHuman (advanced and remainder Human).''
* In Creator/VladimirVasiliev's ''Literature/DeathOrGlory'', humanity's first contact with TheAlliance takes place after the discovery of [=FTL=] travel. A [[LizardFolk Svaigh]] ship lands in the middle of a British city and incinerates a Special Forces team sent to it. They demand a few tons of beryllium and take off. This repeats a few times, but, for the most part, they leave humans alone. Could've been worse, as at least some of TheAlliance races are known to have conquered younger races and kept them as slaves. [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters This]] becomes a major plot point in the later books of the series.
* The first contact that accidentally happens in [=McCaffrey=]'s ''Decision at Doona'' isn't technically mankind's ''first'' first contact, but the fact that that first-ever alien culture encountered [[spoiler:committed mass suicide]] in response drives much of the novel's plot by informing the human policies established afterwards to prevent anything like that from ever happening again. One of these is "non-coinhabitation"; humans aren't allowed to live on the same planets as intelligent alien lifeforms, period. Which creates a problem when the first human settlers on the new colony world of Doona run smack into just such an intelligent alien lifeform that the initial surveyors somehow managed to miss... [[spoiler:Because the "natives" are actually new colonists from another planet, who find themselves in the same boat!]]
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' novels, humanity's FirstContact with the aliens on the other end of Mars' teleportation network was an Imp throwing a flaming ball of snot into the crowd. It went downhill from there.
* ''Literature/DungeonCrawlerCarl'': The interstellar Syndicate has rules about FirstContact, but unfortunately, those rules are mostly there [[LoopholeAbuse to be exploited]]. Specifically, after first contact happens, a species has fifty years to file a claim for the mineral rights to ''their own planet'', or else it's up for grabs. And the criteria for first contact only require that the planet has something that can reasonably be called a civilisation; it doesn't have to be globally interconnected or understand anything about space flight. Earth was apparently contacted during ancient Egypt, leading to the current situation.
--> '''Per Syndicate rules, subsection 543 of the Precious Elemental Reserves Code, having failed to file a proper appeal for the mineral and elemental rights within 50 Solars of first contact, your planet has been successfully seized and is currently being mined of all requested elemental deposits by the assigned planetary regent.\\
Every interior of your world has been crushed and all raw materials--organic and inanimate--are in the process of being mined for the requested elements.'''
* In ''Literature/EarthGirl'', planets are settled with a human-deployed PortalNetwork. [[BoldExplorer Planet First military forces]] first make sure no sentient aliens live there, then commence settling. So far [[AbsentAliens they have found none]], only neo-intelligent species on two planets they [[PrimeDirective subsequently put under quarantine]]. In the sequel ''Earth Star'', [[spoiler:a mysterious unmanned, but armed alien probe travels to earth orbit and is an ambiguous threat through the book, causing evacuations of the Earth population when it does not answer any communication.]]
* In ''[[Creator/StanislawLem Eden]]'' the protagonists are ship-wrecked on the titular planet and, after many attempts, manage to meet two of its inhabitants. There's some FirstContactMaths involved, but while science is universal, the aliens are otherwise [[StarfishAliens rather alien]] and no civilisation-level contact occurs.
* ''Literature/ExpeditionaryForce'' begins with an alien battle fleet dropping out of the sky, destroying any and all human infrastructure they can find, only to be immediately followed by a ''second'' alien battle fleet who promptly kicks out the first fleet, and makes humanity a client species. [[spoiler: Turns out Earth isn't all that important anyway to either side. The only reason they bothered was the first species (the Ruhar) was trying to deny the second (the Kristang) from gaining a new base of operations in their ForeverWar.]]
* ''Literature/EndersGame'' by Creator/OrsonScottCard, although in this case the contact occurred in the backstory when the insectoid aliens (colloquially termed "Buggers") sent an invasion fleet to Earth's solar system. The only interactions anyone has with them in the first novel are violent. In the epilogue and subsequent novels, it's up to Ender to make a ''true'' First Contact by being the first of his species to successfully communicate with a Hive Queen.
** The prequel comic ''Formic Wars'' (and the ''Literature/FormicWars'' novels expanding on the comic) describe the arrival of the Formics (nobody uses the term "Bugger" now) into the Solar System and the devastating First Invasion. 44 million Chinese are killed, and a large chunk of China is covered by a deadly acidic gas. And that was just a single [[TheMothership mothership]] that was barely defeated. The final shot of the comic shows a whole fleet of these on the way, with the humans creating the [[OneWorldOrder Hegemony]] and the International Fleet to prepare for the second arrival, using the mothership to reverse-engineer Formic tech.
* Creator/PoulAnderson's novelette ''The Enemy Stars'' deals with an accidental First Contact between a human and the aliens that save his life, and the sequel ''The Ways of Love'' deals with how humans handle the first alien beings on Earth (not well, in some cases).
** In his novelette ''Literature/TheHighCrusade'' first contact occurs during the crusades, when the aliens send an armed scouting force to Earth and try to intimidate the locals. The medieval English turn the tables on their invaders and capture their ship. When they try to use the ship to go to the crusades they end up in space instead, and begin a crusade against the alien's galactic empire.
* ''Literature/{{Fiasco}}'' by Creator/StanislawLem is about an expedition to contact an alien civilisation - which proves way [[StarfishAliens too alien]], not to mention completely uninterested. As to how it ends - the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin hint is in the title]].
* ''Literature/FirstContact'' by Creator/MurrayLeinster is, unsurprisingly, about exactly this. Interesting because it takes place a long way from home for either species and both of them are worried that the other might be powerful and warlike, so neither wants to give away any information about the location of their home planet... which also means they're both stuck there, since they can't be sure the other ship can't fly faster or track better than theirs can.
* ''Literature/HalfwayHuman'': The Capellan legal system requires first contact to be done carefully, because intellectual property is considered the universe's most valuable commodity. FirstContactTeam scientists work for infocompanies that monetize their research.
* ''Literature/HaloContactHarvest'' details the UNSC's first contact with the Covenant from the perspective of both human and alien characters. [[spoiler:When the Covenant's Hierarchs discover from a Forerunner AI that HumansAreSpecial and not them, they decide to wipe humanity out in order to preserve their religion (and thus their power).]] That said, the shooting only begins in earnest after [[spoiler:one nervous and TriggerHappy Grunt attacks a human during a negotiation]].
%%* Sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton discusses the devastating effects on the economy of an advanced alien technology in ''The Nano Flower'' and the short story ''Escape Route''.
* Several Creator/HarryHarrison novels deal with first encounters with aliens:
** In ''Plague from Space'', a ship sent to explore Jupiter returns, releasing a deadly disease that rapidly mutates and kills people. Eventually, a special forces group makes its way aboard the ship and watches the videologs, which reveal that the solid core of Jupiter is inhabited by a HiveMind race whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is OrganicTechnology. The crew of the ship learned to communicate with the Jovians, but the Jovians eventually moved on to dissections. The remaining crewmember was sent back [[spoiler:along with a Jovian passenger]], infected with a disease engineered for humans. It turns out that [[spoiler:the whole plague thing is nothing more than an attempt by the Jovian HiveMind to study humanity, whom it perceives as also likely a HiveMind. After the end of the "experiment", the Jovian passenger transmits the results to Jupiter, gives the humans the cure, and dies]].
** In ''Invasion: Earth'', a spaceship crash-lands in New York's Central Park. Since the book was written during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, the Soviets send a representative (a female linguist) to join the FirstContactTeam that enters the craft, mostly composed of American soldiers. Inside, they are attacked by a [[Franchise/StarWars Wookie]]-like creature, which they riddle with bullets. They find a chained-up white-skinned HumanAlien who speaks English and Russian from [[AliensStealCable aliens intercepting the most common radio-broadcasts]]. The alien explains that Earth has been targeted for invasion by their bitter rivals Blettr (the hairy aliens). The Oinn, the alien's people, offer to help by setting up a base in the Antarctic to defend Earth using their advanced weaponry. The Blettr fleet arrives, and the Oinn battle them. They manage to fight off the first wave, but several human cities are wiped out by OrbitalBombardment. The authorities begin to doubt the truth when the Oinn refuse to let humans anywhere near their base and forbid them from attempting to communicate with the Blettr. [[spoiler:In the end, it's revealed that the Blettr and the Oinn are PlanetLooters who are working together to get as much radioactive material from Earth as possible before moving on, looking for their lost homeworlds. The humans manage to fight them off and bluff them into leaving the system, while keeping a small ship to reverse-engineer]].
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' parodies this, of course. Humanity's ostensible First Contact with Galactic civilization is with the Vogons, who are here not for chitchat but to destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. It's subsequently subverted in at least four separate ways, which ''ought'' to be ItWasHisSled by now:
** Earth's been visited by aliens for ages, we just never realized it.
** The Earth is actually a giant supercomputer built to calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
** Humans are ''themselves'' AncientAstronauts and not the originally planned sapient inhabitants of the planet.
** Due to a temporal anomaly, Earth had a First Contact event prior to the Vogon demolition of Earth: an alien war fleet attacked Earth [[spoiler: but due to a miscalculation Earth - or at least Humans - never noticed as the warfleet was swallowed by a dog]].
* In the backstory of Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' universe, humans and Thranx both have first contact with the violently xenophobic [=AAnn=] shortly before coming into contact with each other, taking what might otherwise have become a violent war and turning it into an EnemyMine situation that evolves into the two species becoming close allies.
* In ''Literature/TheKillingStar'', first contact with the aliens consists of them slamming relativistic missiles into the Earth, nearly wiping out humanity.
* In the short novel ''Literature/TheLibrarian'' (2015) the protagonist alien accidentally falls prisoner to the military. He explains he was not intending to make FirstContact per se, but since they already know he's not human, he better explain the rules of how this is usually done.
* ''The Listeners'' by Creator/JamesEGunn is about a very slow first contact made via slower-than-light radio. The story covers the lives of several men, years apart, who are involved in the very slow process.
* The prequel novel to ''Franchise/MassEffect'', ''Mass Effect: Revelation'' deals with the start of the First Contact War mentioned below in its prologue. Interestingly, even this novel doesn't really describe the first contact or the subsequent conflict. Anderson is merely told by his superior about the attack on human ships and the retaliation on the turians. Of course, the existence of aliens isn't really news, since the exploration of the [[{{Precursors}} Prothean]] ruins on Mars is what allows humans to develop FTL travel.
* Creator/JackMcDevitt:
** ''Literature/InfinityBeach'' begins on a human colony world making a final attempt to communicate with any possible life Out There, but the conclusion appears to be that mankind is alone. [[spoiler:Unknown to all concerned there ''had'' been a First Contact some years before but it was bungled, with all the aliens and several humans killed; ashamed of their error the survivors covered things up. When the protagonist discovers this the government decides the best thing is for humanity to lay low, for if the aliens weren't hostile before, they undoubtedly will be now! Against orders, a group of scientists decide to risk another Contact. Fortunately the aliens accept their explanation that it was all a mistake, and peaceful relations are established.]]
** In ''Omega'' (part of the ''Literature/PriscillaHutchins'' series), an intelligent species is discovered directly in the path of an interstellar catastrophe. The species has begun to develop technology, but is still at a pre-spaceflight stage of development. Researchers determine that the technology they have may be enough to save most of their population if they can be persuaded to apply it properly, but the AlienNonInterferenceClause makes the first-contact team's job difficult. Disaster is approaching rapidly, and the team needs to learn as much as they can about the language and culture of the Goompahs, starting from zero. But how do you persuade some alien creatures to cooperate in saving their species if you can't even reveal your own existence?
** ''The Hercules Text'', published almost simultaneously with Carl Sagan's ''Contact'', has a very similar premise: signals are received by Earth via a radio telescope which contain mathematical information that turn out to be the key to a later transmission containing a great deal of scientific information. The effect of all this on the peoples of Earth is dramatic.
* ''Literature/{{Mindscape}}'': The Barrier that appears is actually an alien life-form. Both the Vermittlers and the Ghost Dancers communicate with it by singing.
* ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'', by Creator/LarryNiven and Creator/JerryPournelle. Inverted in that humans have the star-spanning empire, while the aliens are trapped on one single world.
* In the Creator/KirBulychev novel ''Literature/TheMysteryOfUrulgan'', first contact occurs when a small band of adventurers finds a spaceship that crashed in Siberia. The alien assumes the humans will be civilized, and shows them his technology, but all that ensues is conflict between the adventurers and attacks on the alien, who finally escapes.
* [[Creator/RaymondZGallun Raymond Z. Gallun]]'s "Old Faithful" (1934) is one of the earliest science-fiction novels to deal in detail with the difficulties of making long-range signal contact with [[StarfishAliens ''very'' alien aliens]]. The in-story solution, which begins with [[FirstContactMath basic mathematics]], is the method which was also chosen by most SETI scientists from the 1950's on.
* In one of the short stories in the companion volume to ''Creator/PennAndTeller's Cruel Tricks For Dear Friends'', humanity is set to be eradicated by an alien empire whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is destroying redundancy. It seems that everything that (we naively believe) makes humans unique is actually duplicated somewhere else in the galaxy, and the aliens see no sense wasting a prime habitable planet on such a bog-standard redundant species. [[spoiler: The main character saves the human race with a magic trick, implying that deceiving one another by sleight-of-hand for amusement is the one uniquely human art form.]]
%%* ''Literature/RealQuickFlashFic'' has a parody version of first contact in the story; ''The Selkat Snooper''.
* Seen from a nonhuman perspective in one of the {{infodump}} chapters of ''Literature/TheRomulanWay''. The Vulcans' first contact was disastrous, as it took place with the predecessors of the Orion Pirates. The Vulcans fought them off but the aftereffects were one of the triggers for the Sundering between the Vulcans and the Rihannsu (everyone else calls them Romulans). A couple thousand years later the Rihannsu, not warp-capable but who had shipbuilding capacity to support trade between ch'Rihan and ch'Havran[[labelnote:*]]the planets the Federation calls Romulus and Remus[[/labelnote]] detected a ship in orbit and linked it in their minds to the pirates of millennia earlier, and reacted accordingly. Unfortunately for all involved, the ship belonged to the Federation.
%%* The plot of Mary Doria Russell's ''Literature/TheSparrow'' is about how FirstContact can [[GoneHorriblyWrong go horribly wrong]].
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/TheStarsAreColdToys'', First Contact happened during the first extrasolar jump, which coincidentally put the space shuttle near a Conclave ship. One of the crewmembers is interrogated by the aliens, and she reveals the location of Earth. She is later tried for treason but acquitted, as the defense claimed the aliens {{Mind Rape}}d her. Thus humanity becomes just another cog in the ruthless Conclave regime. Slightly subverted due to humans being [[spoiler:descendants of the colonists from the Shadow]].
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', the human survivors manage to make contact with the hidden aliens of the world.
* Creator/CherryWilder's ''Literature/{{Torin}}'' trilogy concerns the first contact between the Moruians of Torin and visitors from the alien planet Earth, told almost entirely from the viewpoint of the Moruians.
* Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/TowerAndTheHive'' series depicts humanity's first encounters with two separate alien species - the first is an [[BugWar insectoid race trying to exterminate humans]]; the second is a compatibly sentient species impressed by our ability to defeat the first and trying to ally with us against them.
* Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/TroyRising'' kicks off with aliens bringing a gate for a PortalNetwork near Earth.
* Subverted with extreme prejudice in the Harry Turtledove story "The Road Not Taken," in which Earth has first contact in the form of an alien invasion.... by Aliens that are less advanced technologically than Humanity in ''every single aspect'' other than space travel. They literally attack with flintlocks and swords. It turns out that basically Anti-Gravity is ridiculously simple and most species discover it during roughly the Age of Sail. Although the ending of the story makes it appear that Humans are too OP, a sequel subverts the premise by having Humanity be the less advanced one.
** Turtledove has also had it in some other stories: in ''Literature/WorldWar'' FirstContact comes in 1942 as the result of an AlienInvasion, and in ''Literature/AWorldOfDifference'' it's humans landing on an alternate Mars inhabited by primitive aliens in the 1990s.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov
** "Literature/LivingSpace": Alec Mishnoff is relieved when the people he encounters on Rimbro's home (one house to every [[AlternateUniverse dead planet earth]]) are actually humans from [[AlternateTimeline another timeline]]. He, alone in the story, has been fearing that StarfishAliens will show up because in [[TheMultiverse an infinity of universes]], they will. He's horrified to be proven right at the end of the story.
** "Literature/VictoryUnintentional": The humans on Ganymede and the alien Jovians have been communicating via radio-waves. Remote contact had been going well, until the Jovians realized that the people they were talking to weren't Jovian. Angry at the unintentional deception, the Jovians declared war against the beings of Ganymede. The humans designed the ZZ robots (our Protagonists) to land on {{UsefulNotes/Jupiter}} to talk with the aliens directly, and establish if they're able to create spaceships.
** "Literature/TheWateryPlace": The aliens chose to land in [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere a remote town, notable for its lack of crime]], and speak with the Sheriff. Unfortunately, first contact between humans and aliens goes badly because the Sheriff thinks [[HumanAliens the aliens are from Italy]], and are just being annoying.
* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' by H.G. Wells takes the pessimistic view that our first aliens would be just like us. Or rather, just like the British Empire was in India; eager to set up a colony and not too fussed about the locals.
* ''Literature/WeAreLegionWeAreBob'': Bob is forced to reach out to the primitive inhabitants of Delta Eridani when more subtle means of encouraging them to move camps fail.
* In the world of ''Literature/WildCards'', aliens sent a mutagenic virus to our world, which arrived shortly after the end of World War II. Our first contact was with a rogue Takisian who tried and failed to stop an outbreak. He did stick around to clean up as best as he could, though.
* ''Literature/XandriCorelel'' follows the head of Xeno-Liaisons on the starship Carpathia, communicating with new species to bring them into the Starsystems Alliance.
* The novelette "Peek! I See You!" by Poul Anderson (''Analog'', February 1968) has Earth as a waystation & supply depot for lots of alien races, but they only deal with Native American tribes. If any other Terrans found out about them, they'd be required to admit Earth into the Federation and spend zillions educating and assisting Earth's people. However, the aliens aren't counting on a stubborn Irish-Swedish pilot who just happens to have seen a FlyingSaucer.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' has a number of first contacts not going as well as they could:
** Earth has at least one truly disastrous first contact in its back story: The first contact of humans and Minbari happened between two squadrons of warships. Recognizing the strangers as fellow warriors, the Minbari kept their stealth at minimum and ''opened all gunports'' as a weird gesture of friendship (the message being "this is all our weapons, we aren't hiding anything"), spooking the [=EarthForce=] squadron, and when the Minbari flagship ''did'' charge its weapons to deal with a pest that [=EarthForce=] scanners couldn't detect the humans opened fire... And killed the Minbari's political and religious leader, who, anticipating the chance of this happening, had ordered to close the gunports right as his ship's skipper charged the weapons. [[HopelessWar The Earth-Minbari War saw the decimation of Earth's military]] and came dangerously close to [[KillAllHumans the extinction of humanity]] before the Minbari Grey Council declared ''surrender'' (why they did this is one of the main mysteries of the early part of the series).
** Earth's first contact with aliens was made with the Centauri... Who, seeing that humans looked like them, promptly claimed Earth was a LostColony. When presented with proof they weren't, they claimed the ship that established first contact mistook the Sol System for a different solar system ([[PlausibleDeniability as the Centauri used to control the space around Earth, it's less ridiculous than it sounds]]).
*** Earth got lucky in that they met the Centauri in their Second Republic, long after they abandoned their ancient expansionistic ways for the most part. Others met them in their First Republic and got invaded, with the Narn being invaded even if they met them around the same time as Earth due a combination of them being contacted by a different Centauri House, the Centauri needing the minerary resources, and the Narn being technologically much more primitive at the time.
** The Narn first contact with aliens had happened when [[AbusivePrecursors the Shadows]] built a base on their homeworld during their latest war with the Vorlon. The Narn fought back and managed to destroy their base... And lost all their telepaths in the Shadows' retaliation.
** The Centauri's first contact happened in the age of the First Empire, when they were {{Actual Pacifist}}s and reached the southern continent of their homeworld, finding it inhabitated by another sentient race, the primitive Xon. The Xon attacked for no apparent reason,[[note]]according to the Centauri. The ExpandedUniverse states that an alien posing as a god helped the start of Centauri civilization and decimated the Xon in the past, hinting that the Xon got scared when they saw the Centauri using their god's symbol and decided to strike first[[/note]] destroying the Centauri's First Empire... And getting completely wiped out by the First Republic that replaced it.
** The Centauri's first (official) contact with people from outer space happened late during their war against the Xon, when the southern continent had for the most part fallen under their control and a trio of Technomages (considered renegades by the others) visited the planet and helped the Centauri progress technologically from an early Renaissance level to early 20th century level. The ''second'' contact happened when the Shroggen, minions of the Shadows, tracked those three Technomages down to Centauri Prime and, realizing they intended to make a stand using the natives as their army, attacked without bothering to explain the situation. After the Shroggen were beaten back and the Technomages had left, the Centauri swore to reach space and [[WellIntentionedExtremist form a mighty nation to protect the weak from those who would subjugate or kill them]], [[HeWhoFightsMonsters the first step into becoming a conquering empire]].
** One episode deals with a probe that gives the people on the station a short amount of time to answer various complex mathematical and scientific questions before it blows up, as its creators believe only races that can answer them deserve to live. However, Sheridan figures out it's actually designed to kill anyone who ''can'' answer the questions, whom the aliens consider a possible threat.
* ''Series/DarkSkies'' also has the first contact between the Hive and the American government take place in secret. The President has a face-to-face meeting with an alien representative, who telepathically demands Earth's unconditional surrender. In response, the President creates the Majestic 12, whose job is to cover up the existence of aliens and fight their attempts to infiltrate humanity using any means necessary.
* Features in the backstory of ''Series/{{Defiance}}''. It went... badly. The Votan arrived as desperate refugees, and relations between them and us were always strained, and then one of their ambassadors was assassinated on live TV. The resulting wars reduced the planet to mostly 19th century infrastructure levels (give or take some alien gizmos).
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a few examples:
** There have been a few real, official first contact situations on the show. [[StatusQuoIsGod None ended well]].
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]], the Slitheen hoaxed a "first contact" situation as part of a plan to destroy the planet.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'':
** Played with. In [=S01E07=], "I, E.T.", Moya has to land on a backwater planet because of a beacon put on her that could alert the Peacekeepers, and removing the beacon is a surgical procedure that could kill her. John and the others go in search of an element that can serve as an anesthetic for the procedure and meets with some of the locals... who are flabbergasted at meeting an honest-to-goodness alien. Yes, a human is the first contact of another sentient species.
** Also happens on Earth multiple times throughout the show, though the first few times it was AllJustADream. Eventually it happens for real, though.
%%* Hilariously spoofed in the comedy series ''Series/{{Hyperdrive}}'', most notably in the Queppu episode.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' did several episodes based on this trope.
** One memorable episode, "Trial By Fire", starts with a new US President being inaugurated only to be whisked away into a bunker deep underground when objects are detected approaching Earth. There's plenty of misunderstanding, as the humans have no idea what the aliens are planning and cannot understand the language in the messages they send. Meanwhile, the President's efforts to maintain peace are theatened by Russia's gung-ho attitude to the aliens, eventually forcing the President's hand and causing them to launch nuclear weapons at the aliens, to no avail. The bitter irony is revealed at the end, just before Washington, D.C., and Moscow are obliterated in retaliation. The aliens were [[AliensSpeakingEnglish speaking English]] all along, but their message was distorted by their aquatic environment. It was a message of peace.
** Another episode, "Relativity Theory", involves a human ship landing on an Earth-like world and encountering a group of seemingly primitive aliens. The scientists are keen to make contact and study the locals, while the military types want to wipe out the locals to make room for a future colony. It turns out the "primitive locals" were the equivalent of Boy Scouts on a camping trip and weren't even from that world. When they call for help, a powerful alien ship shows up, downloads the human ship's navigational charts, destroys the human ship, and heads straight for Earth to exact revenge.
* Notably [[AvertedTrope averted]] in ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', where hostile aliens attack on a weekly basis for six years (without any diplomatic contact of any kind!) before anyone friendly enough (and not focused on perpetuating TheMasquerade) to speak to officials or the public at large shows up. By that point, everyone is fairly certain that there's life on other planets; it's the reason property values in Angel Grove have fallen so much recently.
* Vaguely mentioned in an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', after they end up in a world with a more advanced level of technology. It turns out, due to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII continuing for several more years in this world, a different US President got elected just in time for the [[RoswellThatEndsWell Roswell incident]]. Instead of covering it up, this President decided to make the existence of aliens public knowledge. Shortly after that, the Reticulan-American Free Trade Agreement (RAFTA) is drafted, allowing a good amount of ImportedAlienPhlebotinum to be ubiquitous by the end of the 20th century, as well as a manned mission to Mars. No aliens are actually present in the episode, but one of the locals is a human who has been accidentally turned into a HalfHumanHybrid with a gene therapy that cures most known diseases.
* The real First Contact in the ''Franchise/StargateVerse'' (not counting TransplantedHumans abducted thousands of years ago, or the {{Precursors}} who happened to evolve here millions of years ago ([[RetCon sort of, maybe]])) happened in 1994, when a top-secret Air Force team used an [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum ancient alien artifact]] to travel to another world, where they found TransplantedHumans being ruled by a PuppeteerParasite. More than 15 years, 300 episodes, three TV series and two made-for-TV movies later, despite the creation on Earth of half a dozen ships capable of interstellar travel and at least two battles in Earth's atmosphere or in orbit between humans and aliens, the existence of aliens is still apparently a secret from the general public. This trope has also been inverted several times, when we see First Contact from an alien (well, transplanted human) point of view. In general, the aliens' government [[PlausibleDeniability covers it up just like ours]] if they are advanced enough to do so, but there have been several exceptions.
* Most ''Franchise/StarTrek'' episodes by default (particularly in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''), but the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode deals specifically with the protocols (and problems) involved.
** Ironically for a show revolving around specialists in alien diplomacy, the ''Enterprise-D'' was pretty bad at it. Their crewmen were captured, their surveillance apparatuses blown wide open, their technology pillaged. When the Federation is probed by a heretofore unknown race (and not the other way around), things typically go much smoother.
** The self-titled Next Gen episode, "First Contact", depicts a First Contact gone awry. The species in question [[RetGone erases all evidence of their encounter with Picard's crew]], believing that divulging the existence of aliens would cause panic and civil unrest. Even some warp-capable species want nothing to do with those weirdos.
** "Who Watches the Watchers" had the opposite effect Starfleet intended, with Picard accidentally rekindling the Minatakans' belief in a wrathful god.
** Sometimes when First Contact occurs between two alien species, the results have been less than happy. The Cardassian Union landed on Bajor and proceeded to herd everyone into ore mines. They later claimed they were a backward race and disputed that Bajor had achieved space flight first (they had).
** In Enterprise's MirrorUniverse episodes, the First Contact between humans and [[spoiler: Vulcans]] at first played out exactly as in [[Film/StarTrekFirstContact the film]], but instead of welcoming the aliens [[spoiler: with a handshake]], the humans shot the aliens, stole the advanced technologies on board the alien ship and proceeded to build an interstellar [[TheEmpire Terran Empire]].
* The very beginning of ''V'' (both the [[Series/{{V 1983}} original series]] and [[Series/{{V 2009}} the remake]]). Alien ships appear over Earth, and the humanlike aliens promise that they have come in peace and want to establish relations with mankind. Their motives and nature turn out to be far more sinister.
* In ''Series/TheXFiles'', humans were contacted, abducted, and experimented upon for millions of years but the first contact between the alien Colonists and human authorities took place, as far as we know, in October 13, 1973, giving rise to the shadowy GovernmentConspiracy to hide the truth. It is also of note that the contact was made possible by extensive reverse-engineering of the alien craft recovered from the RoswellIncident.

[[folder:Music]]
* Hot Chocolate's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr9fRIIziXY No Doubt About It]]".
* "Ancient Aliens" by Music/LemonDemon is about a caveman struggling to comprehend the existence of an alien being who is implied to be the sole survivor of a spaceship crash.
-->''I'm not like you\\
You fly, you burn my eyes, my eyes\\
You speak in my mind\\
Your kind all died when you arrived''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music Videos]]
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wrwcEZ3Btw music video]] to Music/{{Moby}}'s "In This World" has a few representatives from a civilzation of aliens the size of jawbreakers fly to Earth and attempt to greet humanity, using signs of basic human greetings like "Hello" and "Hola" in lieu of speech (most likely they only knew how to write human language, not speak it). Unfortunately, their tiny size compared to humans makes them nearly impossible to notice, with the exception of one man who gives them a wave...[[HopeSpot then walks away shortly afterwards]]. The aliens then return to their home, last seen preparing a bigger sign to carry.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* In sketch show ''Radio/SonOfCliche'', this was a running gag in the in-show serial ''[[Series/RedDwarf Dave Hollins - Space Cadet]]!'' Whenever Dave tries to speak to alien life forms who are just as bemused with him, misunderstandings inevitably proliferate.
* ''Radio/JourneyIntoSpace'': In ''Journey to the Moon'' / ''Operation Luna'', the ''Luna'' crew makes first contact with the Time Travellers on UsefulNotes/TheMoon in November 1965.
[[/folder]]

** The [[TheGreys Tau]] were actually first encountered in 789 M35, when an Explorator Fleet reached their homeworld and briefly [[AlienAutopsy studied]] the humanoids there, who had only recently mastered fire and simple tools. But the fleet subsequently sent to cleanse and colonize the system was lost in a Warp storm, and internal conflicts made the Imperium lose interest in one world on the Eastern Fringe. Six thousand years later, an unknown alien ship was destroyed while approaching the Imperial world of Devlan after failing to respond to challenges from the local defense fleet, and when the bodies in the wreckage were identified, the Imperial authorities were horrified that the "new" xenos rapidly expanding in that corner of the galaxy were the same species the Imperium had failed to properly purge millennia ago. So then the Tau got to experience the Imperium in the form of the Damocles Gulf Crusade, which ground to a bloody stalemate until Tyranid troubles forced the Imperium's attention elsewhere.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''Videogame/{{Civilization}}'' and its derivatives:
** The interludes popping up throughout ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' reveal that Planet is a GeniusLoci. One of the endings involves blasting the combined human knowledge into the Planetary mind in order to force Planet to "mature". It works. The Transcendence victory has the humans then joining Planet's HiveMind. The ExpansionPack involves a more traditional FirstContact with descendants of the aliens who created Planet. In fact, the contact is with two of the factions of the same species, who are engaged in a bitter ideological war over Planet (AKA Manifold Six). Human factions can't communicate with Progenitor factions until either one researches a certain technology (Social Psych for Progenitors, Progenitor Psych for humans).
** One of the possible victory conditions in ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' is managing to achieve this with an alien race.
** An interesting version in ''VideoGame/CivilizationCallToPower''. One of the endings involves discovering a wormhole in Earth's orbit and sending an unmanned ship through to collect some samples. The ship comes back with samples of alien DNA. The final task is to create a cloning lab to make new aliens.
* In the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSeries'', humanity's first official contact with sapient alien species (the Scrin) occurred during the middle of the [[PhlebotinumWar Third Tiberium War]] between the Brotherhood of Nod and the Global Defense Initiative. Since the first [[AlienInvasion action of the Scrin]] is to [[KillEmAll attack every human encountered]], neither of the two human superpowers bothered to communicate and [[HumansAreWarriors just add them to their target list]]. [[EarthIsABattlefield While still fighting each other]]. It should be noted, though, that humans do fire the first shot, when Acting Director Boyle orders the [[KillSat ion cannon]] to target the incoming alien craft, but the Scrin weren't planning on chatting anyway.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'', humanity already encountered various non-sentient alien life. Their first encounter with extraterrestrial beings equal to or greater than humans in intelligence was a single, massive creature that slaughtered the population of an entire world and demolished their technology with its bare claws. Since its massacre was efficient enough to prevent any word from getting out, this situation replayed an unknown number of times before anyone realized first contact had been established.
* A few ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' titles deal with first contact, most of them bad experiences:
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'': Goes good (advanced technology) and bad (mad scientists, rampaging mechs.)
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': Goes bad (Jenova kills off the [[{{Precursors}} precursor race]] and her body helps foster an EvilArmy, plus she ''won't die'')
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': Goes very bad (The moon contains monsters and ended at least one civilization)
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Goes ''extremely'' bad (Culminates in the destruction of one planet, and apocalyptic events for the other)
* As mentioned under Literature, ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' doesn't have nice first contact. "Hello, our Prophets say that you are abominations to all that is holy. Our Gods demand your genocide." It goes downhill from there until ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', set some twenty-seven years later.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', first contact with aliens leads to a war with the turians, which is then dubbed the 'First Contact War' (though this happens several decades before the start of the game). The casualties on both sides of the war is the cause of much conflict between turians and humans. It was basically a classic example of PoorCommunicationKills coupled with an inability to communicate and horrible judgment. The turians found a human merchant group of ships opening a mass relay--something that's illegal by Citadel law, but also something that humanity would not know of. Because randomly opening mass relays led to a costly BugWar in the past, the turian patrol opened fire on the merchant ships, but one got away. Cue a short but heated conflict in which the number of casualties is altogether very low for an interstellar war, but allows humanity to prove its military prowess despite having absolutely no experience with space combat. Hostilities ended when the Citadel Council stepped in and reprimanded the turians for shooting before asking questions, and allowing humanity to step into the greater galaxy in peace.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' with the geth. In the previous game, all the geth Shepard and company thought were worshipers of the Reapers, but as we come to learn from Legion, [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch they make up a minority of all geth, with the mainstream geth just wanting to be left the hell alone]]. Legion was created to act independently of the geth consensus in order to make contact with Shepard, and if Shepard lets Legion join his/her crew, it becomes the first geth to make peaceful contact with a human, as well as the first since their war with the quarians to make peaceful contact with any organic. [[spoiler:If Legion survives into ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', this becomes an important turning point for the geth, as Legion and Shepard's first meeting allowed them to start considering peaceful coexistance with organics.]]
* ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'':
** The Andromeda Initiative's first meeting with the angara plays with the trope. At first, it ''seems'' like first contact between the bold explorers and the twitchy locals... only for the aliens to speak comprehensibly in English, because they've already ''met'' some humans. The idea is explored with the angara having wildly different opinions. Some are nervous (since the last alien species they met tricked them, and have spent the last eighty years trying to kill them), some overjoyed, some suspicious, some [[FantasticRacism violently disgusted]], and in one case, thinking humans made themselves look more "familiar" so as not to freak the angara out.
** Also approached with the kett. On first meeting, Ryder tries to look friendly and non-threatening, as the kett shout and beat another member of Ryder's scouting party for no identifiable reason, then open fire on Ryder and Liam. Later on, when Ryder has a chance to talk with one of the Andromeda Initiative's leaders, they'll ask what the plan for First Contact was. The person they ask retorts that Initiative expected someone who'd want to talk back, not just kill them on sight.
* The latest update to ''VideoGame/PandoraFirstContact'' introduces the Messari, advanced warlike aliens, who may or may not have originated on this world but abandoned it for some reason. If one of the human factions activates some of their technology, they will receive an FTL signal and come back in force, opening portals throughout Pandora to wipe out the interlopers. As a HigherTechSpecies, their units are extremely tough and frequently require WeHaveReserves tactics to beat. The only way to stop them is to destroy their portals.
* This occurs with extraterrestrial life of the other dimensional kind in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon''. Employees of the [[MegaCorp Aether Foundation]] make contact with a race of blue-skinned humanoids from an alternate dimension called Ultra Megalopolis after experimenting with the [[ThinkingUpPortals dimension-hopping powers]] of Cosmog. The details of the actual first meeting are never seen as they happened before the main story, but we can assume it went well as the Aether Foundation is seen throughout the game working closely with agents of Ultra Megalopolis, called the Ultra Recon Squad, to bring down an EldritchAbomination that is draining their world's light.
* Inverted in the first three ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' games, in which we focus on an alien species who learns that they are not alone in the Universe.
** The prequel, ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'', features Earth in the beginning of its spacegoing existence. Not only does it feature Earth's FirstContact (with Eldar via subspace radio), but the main character initiates and/or encounters the aftermath of so many FirstContact situations that go/went horribly, horribly wrong that he persuades Earth to set up a prime directive.
* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': TheFederation has experimented on Zerg for a while and already knew about the Protoss but the "official" first contact with both races involves a planet getting overrun with the Zerg and then getting blown up by the Protoss.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', encountering another star empire's ships, stations or planets results in a special project to decipher their language enough to engage in diplomatic relations, and the first time you speak to another ruler you can choose from one of several responses based on your empire's ethos. Empires may have specific first contact policies that balance between making it easier for contact to be established or keeping one's communication protocols more strongly encrypted to protect from prying eyes. Militaristic and Xenophobic nations can also set their first contact policy to "aggressive" and treat any unknown encounters as hostile, which can lead to a permanent "first contact war" malus with said species.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' franchise started with the people of Azeroth's FirstContact with the Orcs of Draenor which doubled as an AlienInvasion. The Orcs were so vicious that the Humans thought they were demons. Which wasn't too far from the truth. Of course, later games revealed that 10,000 years before that, the [[TheLegionsOfHell Burning Legion]] made contact with the Night Elf royalty and tricked them into opening a portal to Azeroth and invade.
* In ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'' series, first contact with [[AliensAreBastards the aliens]] takes the form of aggressive abduction of humans, quickly followed by terror attacks on civilian population centers. In response, a council of nations activates a secret multinational paramilitary organization, the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, to fight back. It's only after the fighting is ongoing on that the aliens try diplomacy, in the form of bribing or intimidating individual nations to sign non-aggression pacts with the invaders in exchange for dropping out of XCOM - which, the bad ending shows, the aliens do not plan on honoring.
-->'''Newscaster:''' All attempts to contact the invaders thus far have failed. Their only purpose seems to be destruction and chaos.
* In the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'', humanity knew there were (or at the very least, had been) aliens out there ''somewhere'' since 2041, when one of the jumpgates they built locked onto a gate of alien origin. But they wouldn't actually meet aliens until 2300, when the Argon Federation encountered the Paranids. The Argon and Paranids ended up allies and trading partners for a while, but then the Paranids elected not to help the Argon fight the [[RobotWar Xenon]] and things went south.
* First Contact in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' involved Earth being blown up in the crossfire between two alien races. Fortunately humanity had been working on an Arc Ship program, even if most of them didn't make it. [[spoiler:In actuality, First Contact was twenty years before that, when Elma showed up and warned world leaders this was coming.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe Princess Voluptua]] musing on why she [[https://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/86/ wants to avoid a big public First Contact:]] "Five billion primates all asking, 'How does this work?' 'How does that work?' Ugh! No thank you!" Elaborated on in [[https://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/87/ the following strip,]] where she boredly enumerates some of the silly questions newly contacted primitives usually ask.
** We later learn that her people's first contact with Earth's [[UltraTerrestrials pre-human]] civilization of [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] went very, very [[https://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/456 badly.]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' humanity has made contact with a few alien races, though mostly aliens of the {{Starfish|Aliens}} variety so relations are limited. Also many humans were wary of accidentally causing an interstellar incident when first meeting Florence or Sam (until they realized that Florence wasn't an alien and Sam was annoying). When they found Sam's species, the summary was "keep searching".
* In [[Webcomic/OneOverZero Tailsteak]]'s ''Band'' [[http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=126 the sequence of squares is employed]].
* In ''Webcomic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger'', Quinn goes through this with the blue Federation aliens, the "hand head" alien planet, and later takes some time to address the Empire's [[http://www.rhjunior.com/quentyn-quinn-space-ranger-0046/ somewhat unusual First Contact philosophy.]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' this is played for laughs when [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-09-02 Elliot first meets Uryuoms]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Vexxarr}}'' falls (ahem) into this situation frequently enough, so when he ''doesn't'' see natives...
-->'''Sploorfix:''' Hiding?\\
'''Vexxarr:''' From two unarmed alien bags of fluid gastropodding across their local ''gren space''? We should have seen either their ''military'' or their ''nerds'' by now.
* In ''Webcomic/LoonLand'' the alien Lana Loon lands on Earth and has a close (failed sexual) encounter with the terrestrial loon Mike Moon [[http://www.loonland.net/?index=4]].
-->'''Mike:''' Hang on! You've got like five holes down here! Which do I poke it in?\\
'''Lana:''' All of them.
* ''Webcomic/{{Galaxion}}'' has:
** Jax Augustus's [[NoodleIncident encounter with Myradi]]
** ''Hiawatha'' crash landing -- the crew was taken in by friendly natives
** Our protagonists' failure of a First Contact [[spoiler: and it's much, much more of a failure than we're initially given to think]]
* Between the human protagonists and the StarfishAliens in ''Webcomic/AnnaGalactic''.
* ''Webcomic/EllieOnPlanetX'': Ellie is the first link between Earth and the planet's adorable aliens.
* It's the main scope of plot of the ''Webcomic/LeavingTheCradle'', describing accidental first contact between humans and The Alliance.
* ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'''s plot features two distinct instances:
** The prologue establishes that humanity's first contact with aliens was with members of a race called the Orgus, who were fleeing after [[BigCreepyCrawlies the Umiak]] invaded and overtook their homeworld. This also alerted humanity to the war between the Umiak and the [[SpaceElves Loroi]], and the impending danger of Earth being dragged into the conflict.
** The main character, Alex Jardin, is the first human to make contact with the Loroi, as they rescue him after the scout ship whose crew he was part of is destroyed by an unknown attacker.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The issues involved are explored on [[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/aliencontact.php#id--Introduction this page]] of the ''Atomic Rockets'' website.
* Should you have come on this page with the intent of finding help, [[http://io9.com/5510801/what-to-do-if-youre-the-first-human-to-ever-make-contact-with-aliens this page]] should hopefully provide.
* In ''[[http://qntm.org/ed EdStories]]''[[spoiler:, First Contact is established about 85 minutes after the Andromedans aimed an asteroid into the Earth at 10% light speed.]]
* ''Literature/TheJournalEntries'' doesn't cover the actual first contact of Earth in any detail (there are two different things that could count, but the one described at all is just Ken visiting himself in his subjective past on Earth to give himself the AppliedPhlebotinum that kick starts the whole series, and that's just mentioned in passing). The first contact between Pendor and Eareth kind of weirds Earth out not because Pendor is peopled by [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furries]] with amazing technology and weird social standards, but because Pendor desperately wants Earth culture. (At this point, Pendor has existed for something like a century and everyone is desperate to get at the deep, rich cultural materials Earth has accumulated over several thousand years.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "When Aliens Attack" involves first contact between Earth and the people of Omicron Persei 8. However, in the setting of ''Futurama'', humanity has already made contact with numerous alien species, making this an unusual example.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "Get Schwifty", a race of giant alien heads appear in Earth's sky and command the human race to "Show me what you got." It turns out that this is an invitation to participate in an intergalactic musical reality show. Not realizing this, several Earthlings form a cult worshiping the heads. Sometime later (and offscreen) in "The Wedding Squanchers," formal diplomatic relations are formed with the Galactic Federation and Earth accepts membership. The transition appears mostly peaceful; many aliens appear interested in Earth culture after the planet is opened up to tourism.
* The concept is PlayedWith in ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. While everyone makes a big deal about first contact, the USS ''Cerritos'' deals with the less-glamorous work of ''second'' contact, in which they do the actual work of setting up infrastructure and learning the finer details of alien cultures. Paid off in the second-season finale, "First First Contact," where the Cerritos finally makes first contact with an alien species.
[[/folder]]

Compare AlienAmongUs. Contrast with AbsentAliens. See also FirstContactMath, TheXenophile (who will actively look foward to this), BoldlyComing (a.k.a. [[RuleThirtyFour Thirty-Fourth]] Contact), FaeriesDontBelieveInHumansEither.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', encountering another star empire's ships, stations or planets results in a Society Research project to decipher their language enough to engage in diplomatic relations, and the first time you speak to another ruler you can choose from one of several responses based on your empire's ethos. Militaristic and Xenophobic nations, however, can set their first contact policy to "aggressive" and treat any unknown encounters as hostile. Which can lead to a permanent "first contact war" malus with said species.

* The concept is PlayedWith in ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. While everyone makes a big deal about first contact, the USS ''Cerritos'' deals with the less-glamorous work of ''second'' contact, in which they do the actual work of setting up infrastructure and learning the finer details of alien cultures.

* Subverted with extreme prejudice in the Harry Turtledove story "The Road Not Taken," in which Earth has first contact in the form of an alien invasion.... by Aliens that are less advanced technologically than Humanity in ''every single aspect'' other than space travel. They literally attack with flintlocks and swords. It turns out that basically Anti-Gravity is ridiculously simple and most species discover it during roughly the Age of Sail. Although the ending of the story makes it appear that Humans are a MarySue, a sequel subverts the premise by having Humanity be the less advanced one.

** We later learn that her people's first contact with Earth's [[UltraTerrestrials pre-human]] civilization of [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] went very, very [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100518.html badly.]]

* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe Princess Voluptua]] musing on why she [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20061116.html wants to avoid a big public First Contact:]] "Five billion primates all asking, 'How does this work?' 'How does that work?' Ugh! No thank you!" Elaborated on in [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20061118.html the following strip,]] where she boredly enumerates some of the silly questions newly contacted primitives usually ask.

** An interesting variation on First Contact occurs in ''The Algebraist'', another of Iain M. Banks's sci-fi novels. It is mentioned that humanity - (perhaps just human genetic material) - was transplanted from Earth to a number of nearby worlds ''in 4051 BC''. These humans were raised in an interstellar culture while Earth itself was declared off-limits. Result; by the time Earth discovered interstellar travel, HumanAliens, or aHumans outnumbered the remaining humans or rHumans by an order of magnitude. First Contact was less WeComeInPeaceShootToKill than What Kept You? As a method of preventing every First Contact boondoggle ever theorized, it worked. It also annihilated all terrestrial human culture.
--->'''EncyclopediaExposita:''' ''Prepping. A very long-established practice, used lately by the Culmina amongst others, is to take a few examples of a pre-civilised species from their home world (usually in clonoclastic or embryonic form) and make them subject species/slaves/mercenaries/mentored. So that when the people from their home world finally assume the Galactic stage, they are not the most civilised/advanced of their kind (often they're not even the most numerous grouping of their kind). Species so treated are expected to feel an obligation to their so-called mentors (who will also generally claim to have diverted comets or otherwise prevented catastrophes in the interim, whether they have or not). This practice has been banned in the past when pan-Galactic laws (see Galactic Council) have been upheld but tends to reappear in less civilised times. Practice variously referred to as Prepping, Lifting or Aggressive Mentoring. Local-relevant terminology: aHuman & rHuman (advanced and remainder Human).''

* In the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSeries'', humanity's first official contact with sapient alien species (the Scrin) occured during the middle of the violent [[PhlebotinumWar Third Tiberium War]] between the Brotherhood of NOD and the Global Defense Initiative. Since the first [[AlienInvasion action of the Scrin]] is to [[KillemAll attack every humans]] encountered, none of the two human superpowers bothered to communicate and [[HumansAreWarriors just add them to their target list]]. [[EarthIsABattlefield While still fighting each other]]. It should be noted, though, that humans do fire the first shot, when Acting Director Boyle orders the [[KillSat ion cannon]] to target the incoming alien craft, but the Scrin weren't planning on chatting anyway.

* As mentioned under Literature, ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' doesn't have nice first contact. "Hello, our Prophets say that you are abominations to all that is holy. Our Gods demand your genocide." It goes downhill from there until ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}''. Some twenty-seven years later.

* ''Literature/DungeonCrawlerCarl'': The interstellar Syndicate has rules about FirstContact, but unfortunately, those rules are mostly there [[LoopholeAbuse to be exploited]]. Specifically, after first contact happens, a species has fifty years to file a claim for the mineral rights to ''their own planet'', or else it's up for grabs. And the criteria for first contact only require that the planet has something that can reasonably be called a civilisation; it doesn't have to be globally interconnected or understand anything about space flight. Earth was apparently contacted during ancient Egypt, leading to the current situation, where Borant Corporation has "reclaimed" every man-made structure, including the bodies of anyone inside, and tossed the survivors into a reality TV show to extract even more credits from their struggle.

* ''Film/UltramanCosmosTheFirstContact'' is set in an alternate universe where humans have not met any aliens or Ultramen before, until the events of the movie had extraterrestrial life revealing themselves to humans for the first time in-universe. The title is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

* The prequel novel to ''Franchise/MassEffect'', ''Mass Effect: Revelation'' deals with the start of the First Contact War mentioned below in its prologue. Interestingly, even this novel doesn't really describe the first contact or the subsequent conflict. Anderson is merely told by his superior about the attack on human ships and the retaliation on the turians. Of course, the existence of aliens isn't really news, since the exploration of the [[{{Precursor}} Prothean]] ruins on Mars is what allows humans to develop FTL travel.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' humanity has made contact with a few alien races, though mostly aliens of the [[StarfishAliens starfish]] variety so relations are limited. Also many humans were wary of accidentally causing an interstellar incident when first meeting Florence or Sam (until they realized that Florence wasn't an alien and Sam was annoying). When they found Sam's species, the summary was "keep searching".

* Between the human protagonists and the [[StarfishAlien Starfish Aliens]] in ''Webcomic/AnnaGalactic''.

* The issues involved are explored on [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#introduction this page]] of the ''Atomic Rockets'' website.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "When Aliens Attack" involves first contact between Earth and the people of Omicron Persei VIII. However, in the setting of ''Futurama'', humanity has already made contact with numerous alien species, making this an unusual example.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "When Aliens Attack" involves first contact between Earth and the people of Omicron Perseii VIII. However, in the setting of ''Futurama'', humanity has already made contact with numerous alien species, making this an unusual example.

If taking place in America, it may turn out that First Contact actually happened decades ago in [[RoswellThatEndsWell Roswell, New Mexico]], and that the government has been keeping it under wraps ever since.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/VictoryUnintentional": The humans on Ganymede and the alien Jovians have been communicating via radio-waves. Remote contact had been going well, until the Jovians realized that the people they were talking to weren't Jovian. Angry at the unintentional deception, the Jovians declared war against the beings of Ganymede. The humans designed the ZZ robots (our Protagonists) to land on {{UsefulNotes/Jupiter}} to talk with the aliens directly, and establish if they're able to create spaceships.