If the government found intelligent alien life should it keep it a secret?

[Zach]

We've had massive technological jumps and breakthroughs that are almost without a doubt based on reverse engineering alien technology.

Just a quick aside here. Are you joking? Why do you assume that our technologies are based on those of extraterrestrials? Man is capable of inventing things for himself.

Yes we are and we have for the most part. The era I speak of is mostly during the space race when there was a lot of pressure to beat the russians to the moon. Assuming the first landing was a fake since it so obviously was, we did eventually get there but the technology was not exactly readily available prior to that. Suddenly we get the ability to build rockets that can support life into space? That was a jump that would have taken years to develop on our own.

It's a loose speculation I know, but I doubt we haven't been visited by aliens and they have to have influenced our civilization somehow.

Why do you think the moon landing was a fake? Like you said, there was a lot of pressure to get the first man on the moon. NASA probably had hundreds of scientists working around the clock. The only reason you think it was a "sudden ability to build rockets" is because it was all kept very secret until the initial launch because they didn't want the Russians to steal their technology.