Here's my take on the world of Steven Spielberg's 1977 film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". The film itself is pretty open-ended, so I had a lot of room to imagine what might come next. Hope you enjoy!
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Aftermath
Some forty years have elapsed since First (and, as of 2017, Last) Contact. Since that momentous day - August 15, 1977[1] - Devils Tower in Wyoming has become a designated World Heritage Site, seeing more tourists each year than Versailles and the Colosseum put together. A museum of extraterrestrial history has also been established, where the intact Flight 19 aircraft and the SS Cotopaxi (carefully removed from their former resting grounds in the Sonoran and Gobi Deserts, respectively) have been placed on display. There's also a small gift shop, offering only the finest in tacky alien-themed merchandise.
The confirmation that humanity is not alone in the universe has paved the way for a somewhat more optimistic world, even allowing Jimmy Carter to win a second term in office (he was much more open about his own UFO experience after the Devils Tower Incident). Of course, there are some naysayers who think the whole thing was a government psyop, claiming that the aliens were either puppets or kids in Halloween costumes, but they're given about as much credence as moon landing deniers IOTL.
The fifty or so Abductees that were returned (in many cases, decades after their disappearance) were quarantined, and thoroughly questioned by the US government. Attempts by foreign agencies to extradite non-American Abductees were, of course, unsuccessful - although the Americans were surprisingly transparent in their findings. The Abductees were not forced to sign any Non-Disclosure Agreements - largely, because there wasn't much to disclose. The Abductees' recollection of their time in outer space tends to be hazy and light on specifics - even their drawings and descriptions of the Mothership's interior are often vague and contradictory. It's already known that the Visitors are capable of subconsciously influencing human behavior through unknown means, so the leading theory is that that their memories were at least partially wiped prior to their return (can't have them spilling all the Galaxy's secrets!) Notably, the most comprehensive account of the UFO and its myriad inhabitants comes from Barry Guiler, although given that he was just three years old when he was abducted, it's hard to know which parts are true and which are childish imagination (Barry himself has been pretty defensive about these claims - he famously punched out a conspiracy theorist demanding to know what REALLY happened at Devils Tower).
Interestingly, even decades later, quite a few Abductees have reported experiencing similar, strangely vivid dreams: dark winged creatures flying fussily between great obsidian towers on a world of perpetual twilight; mammoth-sized scorpions carrying inhuman riders across indigo plains beneath the light of a globular cluster; florescent, oddly-shaped gigafauna "swimming" through the gaseous reefs of a vast planetary nebulae. Whether these are true resurfaced memories or just further alien hypno-fuckery is up for debate. Today, the Abductees enjoy an almost celebrity-like status, writing bestseller books and frequenting late-night talk shows. In 2017 most of them are still alive, having not aged thanks to the effects of time dilation (one Cotopaxi crewmember returned to discover he now had a grandson six years older than him, while people weren't quite sure what to make of the Flight 19 pilot marrying his now 53 year old fiancé). However, after witnessing the grandeur of the cosmos (even if they can't recall most of it), some have struggled to re-adjust to Earthly life, not to mention their newfound fame - sadly, Abductees are disproportionately likely to experience mental health issues and drug addiction.
Contrary to what conspiracy theorists have suggested, no earthly powers are in possession of any crashed alien spacecraft (Roswell, as it turns out, really was just a weather balloon - the reason for the coverup was because it collided with a UFO before its swift departure). That's not to say there aren't any biological remains, however: it is now accepted that the first verifiable encounter between humans and extraterrestrials occurred in the late nineteenth century. Much to the US government's embarrassment, there was an alien corpse hiding under their noses for more than eighty years - indeed, had it not been for the rejuvenated interest in UFOs following the Devils Tower Incident, it may never have been discovered. This specimen, known as "Marvin" (after the fictional Martian invader of the same name) was retrieved from a cemetery in Aurora, Texas. The alien had crashed outside the town all the way back in 1897, and was subsequently given a Christian burial by a travelling priest, with what little remained of its vessel being abandoned in a well without second thought.
The circumstances of Marvin's ill-fated visit are highly speculative, and characters based on the humanoid and speculating his origins are common in TTL's sci-fi movies and literature. One of the leading hypotheses is that Marvin's craft was an escape pod originating from a larger vessel, which remained stuck in terrestrial orbit for some eleven years before finally crashing into Russia's Tunguska region. This theory would also help explain the so-called "second moon" observed by Dr. Georg Waltemath in 1898. While humanoid in shape, Marvin does not appear to correspond to any of the species observed at Devils Tower, and whether or not he was part of the same interstellar civilization is unknown. Aside from some damage sustained during the crash, the body is remarkably intact, possibly due to Earthly microbes being unable to break down extraterrestrial flesh. Curiously, quite a few scientists and other experts involved in Marvin's excavation and autopsy passed away not long after, from natural causes, vehicular accidents etc. - some believe that the spaceman's corpse might be cursed.
UFO sightings have declined somewhat since their peak in the 1960s and 70s (now known as the "Golden Age of Flying Saucers"). While there haven't been any verifiable abductions since Roy Neary bid his family farewell, it is common for relatives of missing persons to hold onto the slim hope that their loved one is enjoying an extended vacation in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and might one day be returned to them. Ditto with aircraft accidents: these days, any time a plane disappears the Abduction Theory is inevitably considered, even after a more conventional explanation has been found. That being said, genuine alien spacecraft of varying shapes and sizes do crop up periodically in all corners of the globe, although their occupants seem to be content with silent observation - pilots and military personnel have strict protocols to adhere to in the event of UFO sightings. Notably, in the late 1980s, there was the famous case where a young woman tricked several major media outlets into believing she was Amelia Earhart, returned by a UFO fifty years after her disappearance.
Outer space is unsurprisingly of much greater interest to world polities: both the USA and USSR maintain small bases on the Moon, and a manned Mars mission is currently scheduled for 2019, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Life is now understood to be fairly common in our region of the Galaxy: the James Webb Space Array, using telescopic techniques more advanced than anything IOTL, has revealed the presence of more than a dozen biospheres within a roughly hundred lightyear radius, the closest of which, the watery world of Avalon, is situated in the Alpha Mensae system some 33 lightyears from Earth. Other examples of note include the frosty world of Hyperborea (which resembles Earth during the Last Glacial Maximum); the planet Tolkein (so named for its dense forests and shimmering rings); the dry, moribund world of Methuselah (soon to be swallowed by its expanding sun); twins Lilliput and Blefuscu (whose close proximity has given them an egg-like shape); the high-obliquity world of Pandemonium, and the stormy, rapidly rotating planet Carousel, where the days are less than ten hours long (orbited by three tiny moons - Secretariat, Seabiscuit and Man O'War).
SETI has a much larger budget than in OTL, with the organization itself pretty much a household name (a great many children dream of becoming alien hunters when they grow up). That said, the job isn't quite as exciting as one might expect - genuine alien broadcasts are vanishingly rare, and two-way interstellar communication has yet to be established. One of the more elusive signals originates from a particularly empty region of space some 13,000 lightyears away - some suspect it may be an alien distress call (not that we can do much about it, considering it was sent before the invention of agriculture). The question is no longer "where is everybody?", but "where'd they go, and when are they coming back?" While everyone has their own answer to this question, whether or not the Visitors plan on returning to welcome us into the galactic community remains to be seen. It may be the case that this is the standard treatment for primitive civilizations: a brief introduction followed by a decades (or centuries) long absence. This may be to study how different species react to the revelation that they are not alone, and give them ample time to adjust. Perhaps once we develop fusion, or AI, or faster-than-light drive, we'll be considered worthy of a second visit - until then, all humanity can do is keep watching the skies.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The movie was filmed between 1976 and 1977, I settled on this date because it's when the Wow! signal was received IOTL.
