High school students wear matching alien masks in downtown Roswell, New Mexico during their spring break in 2017. The airspace above is a no-fly zone, and armed guards and thousands of CCTV cameras monitor the perimeter of the base. The search for aliens outside Area 51If scientists at NASA were to detect extraterrestrial intelligence, they don’t have an official protocol in place to guide them on next steps, according to NASA's astrobiology division. However, the researchers with SETI do—and it doesn’t involve Area 51. Once other scientists confirmed the evidence, they would then hold a press conference to share their discovery with the public.