DC's Next Big Emergency-Response Challenge: Aliens

So I'm detouring again from the original thrust of this blog (politics, the occasional dabble into homeland security) and pontificating on something that came to mind last night. I actually plunked down $10 last night to see The Day The Earth Stood Still, which included one of the most hilariously unintentional scenes of racism I've ever had the fortune to watch. (Keanu Reeves, as alien-in-human-form, speaks stilted and uneven Chinese with other-alien-in-human-form James Hong, which sounds like Keanu imitating someone else's offensive parroting of Chinese speech.)

But TDTESS's lengthy scenes involving the military, secretive federal agencies, and local law enforcement responses to an alien landing seemed wildly inaccurate. Then I realized- how could someone define an accurate response to something so goofily improbable as an alien landing? So I have decided to try. Because that's what we need in times like this. Realistic assessments of the alien threat.

Before we get started, let's postulate a couple of things:
1) There are, in fact, no secret governmental or military agencies charged with handling extraterrestrial contacts, incidents or invasions.
2) There are, in fact, no plans, policies or procedures at the state, federal, local, municipal or military levels of government which specify how to respond to an alien landing.
3) The public arrival of an alien spacecraft would, for the sake of this discussion, not commence with immediate and overt hostilities on the part of either the aliens or humans.
4) The aliens would land in a location proximate to political leaders, military power, and population centers. For the sake of this discussion, it will be the site of the original TDTESS landing, the National Mall in Washington, DC.

The Arrival

All right. So how does this begin? Well, initially the spacecraft would be tracked by one of the multiple American or international institutions that participates in the "Spaceguard" program, sharing information and data on potentially dangerous asteroids approaching the earth. Once those folks communicated that information to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, we'd probably try to come up with some way to destroy it under the assumption that it was a piece of space junk. But, again for the sake of argument, let's say it began to slow down, change course, and exhibit obvious signs of intelligent guidance. I would suspect that, despite Hollywood's assumption, the instinctive response would not be for us to attempt to nuke it before it landed.

Of course, once it entered our atmosphere and began heading for the Baltimore-Washington area, our extraterrestrial visitor(s) would enter the Washington, DC Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ.) This is where things would begin to get tricky. It's doubtful that they filed a flight plan with the FAA, so this ADIZ incursion would trigger something called an ASA Mission- Air Sovereignty Alert. Air National Guard fighter jets (whose mission, since 9/11, has been air defense for major cities) would intercept the visitors as they arrived.

Regardless of what conveyance the aliens chose for this trip, our ANG pilots would probably be quick to realize that this was not the usual ADIZ violation (such as the May 2005 incident which forced the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol.) There have been over 3,000 of these incidents since 2001, but the rules of engagement for interstellar warfare are obviously a bit blurrier than those for forcing down a Cessna pilot who's gone wildly off-course. My suspicion is that unless the UFO made threatening moves or deployed some kind of weapon, they would escort and monitor the ship but stop short of attacking it.

The Response

So now the spacecraft lands on the National Mall, which is by far the best impromptu landing area in the National Capital Region. Concerned and confused citizens(who would inevitably swamp the DC 911 center with calls) would probably refer to it as an aircraft down. This would trigger an automatic specialty rescue assignment to the DC Fire & EMS Department, dispatching hazmat, heavy rescue , and mass casualty units to the scene, as well as a number of regular fire apparatus and ambulances.

But once it became obvious that nobody had been hurt, and that it was in fact a landing rather than an actual crash, DC Fire & EMS would have to hand over command to the primary law enforcement agency for the National Mall, the U.S. Park Police. They have fairly significant resources (including three medevac-capable helicopters, dubbed Eagles 1, 2 and 3, as well as a SWAT team and motor unit) so they would probably take over command. They'd have support from other agencies like the Secret Service Uniformed Division (who guard the White House) and DC's Metropolitan Police. In addition, since this would happen directly in front of the U.S. Capitol building, the Capitol Police would almost certainly respond.

Notably absent would be the military, with the exception of our Air Guard fighters. It's a staple, in the aliens-arrive genre, that heavily armed Guardsmen or paratroopers or Green Berets are awaiting the visitors on the ground, cocked, locked and ready to rock. But mobilizing the National Guard takes time, and it's a process that has to be worked out between state and federal governments. Unless they've been activated by the Department of Defense, the Guard is a state asset. Active-duty military troops, even in the Military District of Washington, might not be there immediately. The Marine Barracks near Capitol Hill would probably be the closest, but it's anybody's guess how long it would take to notify them and for them to subsequently suit up and respond in their full "battle rattle."

But there is one military unit which would, almost certainly, respond quickly and at their full capacity- the District of Columbia National Guard's 33rd Civil Support Team. CST teams are specially trained military hazmat squads, based in every state and tasked with the specific mission of assisting civilian government during a Weapons of Mass Destruction attack. They're on call 24/7, airmobile, and come with advanced radiation and hazardous materials assessment gear. Many have mobile command units as well. Any on-scene commander, concerned for personnel and public safety at the scene of an alien landing, would be well advised to call for a CST. Let's assume that this one did.

Another federal unit from the Department of Homeland Security would be quick to respond. The U.S. Coast Guard's Station Washington would probably dispatch air support to the Mall, adding to an already crowded sky but providing additional scene security. Their units would already be patrolling the Potomac River and helping to lock down the area. No sense in drunken boaters adding to the confusion.

And it wouldn't just be cops, firemen, Coasties and soldiers. Let's not forget that the arrival of alien visitors would create even more problems for DC's notorious traffic. The District D.O.T. and the National Park Service would have to divert traffic away from the National Mall, creating major detours around the center of the federal city. And the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, better known as Metro, would be forced to shut down its Smithsonian station to prevent commuters from inadvertently wandering into an interstellar incident.

The Mission

So with DC Fire, the 33rd CST, USCG, Park Police, Capitol Police, Secret Service, DDOT and MPD on scene, as well as onlookers and the inevitable media presence, the question would quickly become "who's in charge?" Federal, state and local responders are required to use the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, which emphasizes a concept called Unified Command. Instead of arguing over which agency is running the show at a big disaster, NIMS encourages the creation of Unified Command, where the major responders establish joint command and set incident objectives as a team. This is rarely as easy as it sounds, but at least they'd have DC Fire's mobile command unit as a safe location for the agency leaders to run the show.

The first priority would be establishing a perimeter around the scene. It wouldn't be easy, but it's been done before (and, during the upcoming Obama inauguration, they'll have to do it again.) The outer perimeter could be established fairly quickly, since there would be no shortage of police units to throw up checkpoints. The next step would be to establish communications. The federal government has authorized billions of grant dollars to ensure that cops, firefighters and other responders can talk on each other's radio systems, but it's not a done deal yet, and there are still problems.

Of course, once they'd established command, secured the scene, and set up communications, local, state and federal coordination centers would have to activate. Emergency Operations Centers, as they're called, serve as a place where different agency representatives can go to share resources and information as well as plan a wider response. While it would be nice to have Mayor Adrian Fenty and DC Homeland Security & Emergency Management Agency Director Darrell Darnell monitor the situation from the DC EOC, though, they'd probably show up to the scene.

So now we have elected leaders arriving at the scene. Fenty might be the first, and (since our UFO's inevitable Air Sovereignty Alert would certainly lead to the evacuation of the Capitol) members of the House and Senate (who hadn't already been evacuated to Mount Weather) would almost certainly wander on over. And good luck denying them access. Then the executive branch would show up- the quickest to arrive would probably be FBI special agents, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, and their entourages. My opinion is that the most important federal Secretary on scene would be the one charged with international diplomacy, and whose Foggy Bottom offices were a stone's throw a way- the Secretary of State. (Who would bring, as this blog has mentioned in the past, Diplomatic Security special agents.)

It would be very dependent on a President's personality, regarding whether or not he/she would choose to meet the aliens. Our current administration has shown a propensity to head for the hills (specifically, of Bluemont, Virginia and Waynesboro, PA) at the earliest hint of trouble. Not that I fault them- continuity of government is extremely important in matters of national security. I somehow think that our President-elect (while quickly sending Joe Biden to Site R) would choose to stay in the White House, most likely monitoring it from the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. He'd have the option of meeting E.T. if he wanted to, and of staying in a place of relative shelter not too far from the scene.

While all of this was going on, the 33rd CST (along with DC Fire) would probably suit up and enter the inner perimeter of the landing site. Most movies imply a lot of steam, smoke and dramatic concealment of the craft and its occupants, but I would imagine that any transgalactic civilization would be able to land their craft without making it look like a dry-ice trick on Halloween. At this point, our hazmat teams would start running the risk of encountering the alien flight crew. But if the aliens were still doing their landing checks inside the ship, the CST would probably detect slightly-elevated radiation levels from interstellar travel.

The Media

DC would be a luckier landing site for the responders than many other places. If they touched down in New York or Los Angeles, emergency response units would be plagued by buzzing and hovering news helicopters. They'd have to establish a temporary flight restriction, which can take time, but DC-area TV stations don't even use helicopters (they'd never get clearance to fly in the first place.) But the Mall has long, open lines of sight, and it wouldn't be long before the print and broadcast media would be howling for some kind of information about what had just landed on the Mall.

This is another situation in which the Unified Command would be smart to break out their NIMS training and set up a Joint Information Center somewhere outside of the hot zone. By sending spokespersons from different agencies to staff the center, they could coordinate their messages before opening their mouths. For example- the Washington Post asks, is it an alien ship? The Coasties could say no, the military could say yes, and DC Fire could say maybe. With a JIC, responders can can get their stories straight without contradicting each other a la Hurricane Katrina.

Regular briefings, reasonable access to the scene and honest information would go a long way towards making news media coverage of the response run smoothly. As smoothly as possible. Let's not forget, we're dealing with aliens landing on the freaking Mall here.

Making Contact

So now that the scene has been secured, the Civil Support Team has assessed the situation, the media is being managed, and the President is monitoring the situation, who would be sent to make the first contact? Who would be our emissary to the interstellar visitors? What kind of a message would we send? For God's sake, we're talking about aliens landing on the Mall. I have no freakin' idea.

But it does make planning for the January 20th inauguration seem a lot easier, doesn't it?



Please feel free to leave comments and let me know (if you've got experience in public safety, emergency management or the military) if I've missed anything, or if you think it would be managed differently.