Human awareness of extraterrestrial life
The phrase "human awareness of extraterrestrial life" (TV: The Vault of Secrets [+]Loading...["The Vault of Secrets (TV story)"]) referred to the general public awareness of aliens within humanity. While humanity would become familiar with aliens after they became a space-faring race, (PROSE: The Dying Days [+]Loading...["The Dying Days (novel)"]) the matter of human awareness while on Earth in the 21st century and earlier was complicated, with the public often being aware for periods but then forgetting for various possible reasons. (PROSE: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (novelisation)"])
This concept was related to first contact.
History
19th century
Following the 1851 incident involving the CyberKing, (TV: The Next Doctor [+]Loading...["The Next Doctor (TV story)"]) the general public seemingly forgot about it. The Eleventh Doctor reasoned that a crack in time was responsible. (TV: Flesh and Stone [+]Loading...["Flesh and Stone (TV story)"])
In the 1890s, the community which would become Trap Street, London worked diligently to remain unknown to humanity. (PROSE: The Paternoster's Guide to London [+]Loading...["The Paternoster's Guide to London (feature)"])
20th century
From 1953 to 1972, the Men in Black worked for the Alliance of Shades to restrict human awareness of aliens. (TV: The Vault of Secrets [+]Loading...["The Vault of Secrets (TV story)"])
Following the Zygon gambit, UNIT hushed up the appearance of the Skarasen in London such that it never officially happened. (TV: Terror of the Zygons [+]Loading...["Terror of the Zygons (TV story)"])
Some accounts indicated that the general public accepted extraterrestrial life as fact following incidents such as the Gantacian invasion of 1992 and the Availlon fiasco of 1997. The United Nations made UNIT and its operations public knowledge, and the Foreign Hazard Duty was created to replace UNIT as the official secret organisation for fighting aliens. (COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"])
21st century
TV: Love & Monsters [+]Loading...["Love & Monsters (TV story)"], The Pyramid at the End of the World [+]Loading...["The Pyramid at the End of the World (TV story)"]
By 2005, conspiracy theorists had various theories on why humanity kept on forgetting the existence of alien life. (PROSE: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (novelisation)"]) Even following her initial encounter with the Autons, Rose Tyler wrote off Clive Finch as "a nutter" for believing that the Ninth Doctor was an alien, only recognising him as such when an Auton pursued the two into the Doctor's TARDIS. This realisation overwhelmed Rose emotionally, which the Doctor identified as culture shock. The worldwide Auton attack (TV: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"]) would be recognised by some, including Elton Pope and Jackie Tyler as the first of a string of high-profile alien incidents, (TV: Love & Monsters [+]Loading...["Love & Monsters (TV story)"], AUDIO: Wednesdays For Beginners [+]Loading...["Wednesdays For Beginners (audio story)"]) whilst others such as Donna Noble would remain oblivious. (PROSE: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (novelisation)"])
In 2006, the London UFO crash, an apparent first contact incident, led the Doctor to assume that humanity would be aware of aliens openly from then on. Residents of London celebrated and hung out banners welcoming aliens. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) However, after he discovered and halted the true masterminds of the crash, the Slitheen family, who had plotted to destroy the Earth for profit, newspapers such as the Evening Standard immediately began calling the crash a hoax. When Mickey Smith asked the Doctor why, he responded that humanity was not yet ready to believe. (TV: World War Three [+]Loading...["World War Three (TV story)"])
That Christmas, the Sycorax attacked Earth after being attracted there by the Tenth Doctor's residual regeneration energy. When they appeared on live television after capturing the Guinevere One Mars probe, it was attempted to dismiss them as a hoax, but the later events above London, including the appearance of their spaceship over London, made it clear they were real. In the aftermath, the Doctor said there was "no going back now" as humans knew alien life existed. (TV: The Christmas Invasion [+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"])
In the following year, the Earth was invaded by an army of five million Cybermen from a parallel universe, whom had appeared to humanity disguised as ghosts for a period of two months before, (TV: Army of Ghosts [+]Loading...["Army of Ghosts (TV story)"]) with Cyber-Leader One giving an order for surrender broadcast on all global wavelengths. This was met with armed resistance, which escalated when the Daleks emerged from Canary Wharf, attacking both humans and Cybermen in a brief battle before the Tenth Doctor sent the two warring armies into the Void. (TV: Doomsday [+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"])
Citing both the spaceship over London and the Battle of Canary Wharf, Captain Jack Harkness voiced his disbelief that people continued to deny the evidence of aliens when faced with Gwen Cooper, who told him that her boyfriend, Rhys Williams, believed that terrorists had caused mass hallucinations by planting psychotropic drugs in the water supply, which Jack called "stupid". (TV: Everything Changes [+]Loading...["Everything Changes (TV story)"]) That Christmas, the Doctor was astonished to find that Donna Noble had failed to notice either the spaceship over London or the battle of Canary Wharf. (TV: The Runaway Bride [+]Loading...["The Runaway Bride (TV story)"])
Martha Jones concluded the Royal Hope incident was the work of extraterrestrials as it was ongoing, citing to the Doctor her cousin Adeola Oshodi's death at Canary Wharf and the various recent alien incursions. At the same time, Harold Saxon, a politician running in the upcoming British elections, had stated alien life was out there in the universe, something Martha's fellow medical student Oliver Morgenstern spoke of when he was interviewed on the radio after the Royal Hope Hospital was returned to Earth. (TV: Smith and Jones [+]Loading...["Smith and Jones (TV story)"])
Saxon was, in fact, the Doctor's old enemy the Master, and after winning the election through the use of subtle mind control, he claimed he had been contacted by aliens called the Toclafane, a name taken from a Time Lord bogeyman. (TV: The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"]) In truth, the Toclafane were his own minions, converted humans from the end of the universe. (TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"]) The Master subsequently staged a first contact event onboard the UNIT ship Valiant, having the Toclafane assassinate American President Arthur Winters before staging a takeover of the Earth. (TV: The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"]) Due to the Master's use of a paradox machine to prevent repercussions from the Toclafane murdering their own ancestors, the machine's destruction by Jack Harkness led to the Master's year of rule being erased for everyone except those aboard the Valiant. (TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"]) In the aftermath, Saxon was remembered as having gone mad. (TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"])
After the back-to-back Christmas alien incursions by the Sycorax and Racnoss in the 2000s, the population of London, save for Wilfred Mott and Queen Elizabeth II, evacuated the city the Christmas afterward as a precaution against another alien attack. That year, an alien replica of the RMS Titanic was sent plummeting towards the city in an attempt to wipe out all life on Earth as a revenge scheme by the disgraced Max Capricorn against his former company, but the scheme was thwarted by the Tenth Doctor. (TV: Voyage of the Damned [+]Loading...["Voyage of the Damned (TV story)"]) Donna, even after her own alien encounter, notably thought the incident was a hoax and told the Doctor as such when she later tracked him down. (TV: Partners in Crime [+]Loading...["Partners in Crime (TV story)"])
That year, Earth was temporarily relocated to the Medusa Cascade, joining a number of alien planets which were thus made visible in the sky, and subject to a full-scale invasion by the New Dalek Empire, who broadcast a message of extermination to the human race before launching a brief but devastating attack which forced the United Nations to surrender to the Daleks. (TV: The Stolen Earth [+]Loading...["The Stolen Earth (TV story)"]) The planets were taken as part of the Daleks' plan to destroy all of reality, which was thwarted by the Doctor and his allies, the Children of Time, whom then used the TARDIS to tow the Earth back to its original position. (TV: Journey's End [+]Loading...["Journey's End (TV story)"])
By September, at least half of Earth accepted the existence of alien life, while the other half were in denial. The events of recent years led to an increase in suicide from crises of faith. Prime Minister Brian Green was left fatalistic by the invasion. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One [+]Loading...["Children of Earth: Day One (TV story)"]) When Clyde Langer admitted to his father that he fought aliens, Paul used the Daleks as a frame of reference. (TV: The Mark of the Berserker [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Berserker (TV story)"]) In 2059 of an alternate timeline, Rani Chandra reflected that people knew about aliens through seeing the Daleks and the Cybermen, but they "didn't know everything", which she contrasted to her present day. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic [+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"])
When Amy Pond, originally from 2010, encountered Daleks involved with the Ironside Project in 1941, the Eleventh Doctor was highly disturbed that she did not recognise them from the Planetary Relocation Incident – indeed, she had no memory of the incident at all. (TV: Victory of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Victory of the Daleks (TV story)"]) He later determined the incident had been erased by the cracks in time after encountering one in the wreck of the Byzantium on Alfava Metraxis. (TV: Flesh and Stone [+]Loading...["Flesh and Stone (TV story)"])
In 2022, the Redaction erased all knowledge of the Doctor and events involving them from the universe, including Earth. (AUDIO: Salvation [+]Loading...["Salvation (audio story)"])
During the November 2023 UFO incident, (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"]) UNIT arrested a BBC reporter for reporting on the UFO crash. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
