That paper you wrote as a grad student concerning the possibility of alien life, what it might look like, how it might function, has come to bite you in the ass. You've been called in on a special team to deal with the downing of an extraterrestrial craft. The craft is remarkably intact. Clearly superior engineering. The crew is nowhere to be found. Another, more militaristically trained team is looking for them. Your job is to examine the interior of the craft to determine what kind of beings the other team is looking for. What do you look for? What clues guide you in putting together a picture of the missing crew?
I want to see their language and communications. But first, just inspect the whole thing, try to deduce the shape of their bodies and what appendages they use for dexterity, from their environment. How big are the chairs, doors, is it mechanically operated or in some other way (wireless? telepathic?). Also, look at living quarters, where they feed, how they source food. And general feel of the place. Is it cold, combat-like or is there some art appreciation going on. Ah, if only I had a chance to do something like this, it would be so awesome.
Me being the complete coward I'll let @jazzabel go in first and make sure there are no booby traps and then direct her from afar! Actually I'll look for footprints around the craft or signs that a smaller craft left the mother-ship by road or air. I'd also want to see in their wardrobes to determine the size of these aliens, maybe find a gun cabinet or other such arsenal, scan the ship for external weaponry.
Well, my first curiosity would be "How's this thing fly?!" but clearly from the task laid out, that's out of scope. Here's my list of how to progress, note that I'd try to take care to try to document as much as possible before taking each next step in case evidence gets destroyed. - Look for any signs of movement, egress out of the craft in its immediate surroundings. Footprints, drag marks, that sort of thing. Use lidar or radar to get full 3d image of surrounding terrain before moving in on the craft. - Have gamma-ray radio-isotope identifiers and geigercounters on and chemical weapons detectors running when approaching the craft. Don't want to be too careless. These things might breathe Sarin. - Try to get a clear idea of what the entrance/exit to the craft is. What would fit through the opening and how would it get inside and out? - What are the arrangements for travelling inside? Are there seats? Are there living quarters? What's the layout like? Are there obvious life support systems? I.e. a thorough analysis of the general layout of the craft. Fully document everything with cameras (visible light, NIR, mid-IR, possibly UV and x-ray if available). - What's on board the craft? Find out what's directly relevant to the alien life forms (not the engines, probably, but perhaps the food supply, gadgets, weapons). - Start disassembling the craft, documenting every step. Identify sub-systems, like life support and craft control and analyze them. The former would tell a lot about what the aliens need to obtain on Earth to stay alive, the latter would give clues as to how the aliens are used to manipulating their surroundings, i.e. what tools can they wield, which senses do they employ, etc. - Start disassembling sub-systems for a more thorough analysis and even more clues on the aliens. For the sake of simplicity "sub system" here includes any clothing, tools, personal equipment etc. Edit: Some things I forgot. If possible, capture some of the atmosphere in the craft and do mass spectroscopy on it. Another thing would be to have people with police training in evidence collection go in to look for biological tissue samples. There's bound to be something, even if it looks just like dirt. Then get histologists and pathologists to work on that and send another sample through the mass spectrometer for good measure. I'll probably think of more things as time goes by.
