If a gate suddenly appeared near Earth how would we cope?

[YellowSubmarine]

Ooooo, a gate! Would it be painted white? Dark green? Natural wood? Would it have decotative trellises on it? Flowers carved into it? A latch?

Forget about a door. I have it on good authority that between the Earth and Mars there is a fricking sports car revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, just like in VOY: The 37's.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Forget about a door. I have it on good authority that between the Earth and Mars there is a fricking sports car revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, just like in VOY: The 37's.

OMG I didn't make that connection now I can't unsee it..... Brilliant.

In 300 years a future Earth ship will find that car and wonder what the heck it is doing out there

 

[YellowSubmarine]

We'll have our record of the launch in 300 years, especially if we are still going to space.

But if the civilization as-is collapses as civilizations wont to do and then rediscovers space travel (or rediscovers right about... anything) in 1000-2000 years, even the by-then completely corroded car will raise a lot of eyebrows, especially if there are more hidden – and longer-lasting – surprises in it. Will be one step more shocking than when they get to rediscovering our abandoned cities.

 

[valkyrie013]

Well it depends on the circumstances of how the gate appears.
If it just pops up out of nowhere, with no explanation at all..
one: nations would go to defcon 2 really really quickly. Then after days, weeks, we'd calm down, then we would send up some probes, maybe manned to look at it.
Now the next thing is.. is this gate one way or 2 way? If it is one way, then we would end up sending probes through, and nothing comes back, not even radio, so we wouldn't know where it goes, so if its that way, then you'd have these loonies that would jump at the chance to get through. while most would be hesatant.
If it was 2 way, then a probe would go through, and come back, and tell us where it was. does it go to a new planet? Out in the middle of no where?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Well it depends on the circumstances of how the gate appears.
If it just pops up out of nowhere, with no explanation at all..
one: nations would go to defcon 2 really really quickly. Then after days, weeks, we'd calm down, then we would send up some probes, maybe manned to look at it.
Now the next thing is.. is this gate one way or 2 way? If it is one way, then we would end up sending probes through, and nothing comes back, not even radio, so we wouldn't know where it goes, so if its that way, then you'd have these loonies that would jump at the chance to get through. while most would be hesatant.
If it was 2 way, then a probe would go through, and come back, and tell us where it was. does it go to a new planet? Out in the middle of no where?

OK to clarify my OP........ The gate is 2 way so probe data can be sent back to Earth....... The planets in question were mere days from the other side of the gate.

 

[Oddish]

I think you're on the money with the hoax angle.. I mean they blame poor Bill for coronavirus so yeah blame him for a giant stargate appearing in the sky, why not?

More likely they'll try to blame Donald Trump.

No, I'm not a Trump supporter.

If think if we really want to know how humans would react to some form of alien contact today, we should look to how human societies reacted to coming into contact with one-another for the first time historically, especially if those cultures did not at the time fully understand the other culture to be the same species as their own.

Interestingly, such contacts never led to the kind of mass hysteria people here are supposing.

Mass hysteria, no. War, enslavement, land theft on a continental scale, definitely.