If aliens came to Earth, and you had only seven minutes to convince them not to experiment on you, eat you or exploit you in any other way, what would you say? Students across the country are pondering this question courtesy of PETA’s When They Came For Us virtual reality experience, which is landing on college campuses this semester. It’s a question we should all ask ourselves.

In this AI-powered experience, terrifying aliens who see humans as inferior and exploitable “abduct” you. Your only hope is to plead for your freedom. You might start by pointing out that your physiology differs significantly from that of the aliens, making experiments on your body of no benefit to them. You could argue that your capacity to feel pain and fear would make harming you cruel. Maybe you’d highlight your intelligence, reasoning and ability to communicate. These qualities, you could mention, make you more than just a collection of cells; they make you someone. Perhaps the most convincing argument of all would be that your life matters simply because it matters to you.

As compelling as these arguments are, they are not unique to humans.

Other animals are intelligent, form complex social bonds and experience emotions. For example, mice can solve problems and navigate complicated mazes, chickens communicate using over 30 distinct vocalizations and form social hierarchies and cows recognize faces and build friendships. These animals, like you, are not objects or commodities — they are individuals, each with intrinsic worth and the right to live free from cruelty. But they are never given a chance to argue for their lives.

When They Came For Us is only virtual reality, but the cruelty that countless living, feeling animals endure daily is actual reality. Humans burn, blind and poison them in the name of “science;” we kill and eat them; we electrocute them to steal their skin and fur; we beat them into submission to make them entertain us. And on and on.

Consider the experiments we conduct on other animals. Most are irrelevant to human health, fail to contribute meaningfully to medical advances or are undertaken purely out of curiosity. Forcing healthy individuals of a different species to endure ailments they would not naturally experience, confining them to stressful and unnatural environments and attempting to generalize the findings to naturally occurring human diseases rarely yields accurate results. The National Institutes of Health has noted that the failure rate of drugs tested on animals is nearly 96%.

While other species’ reactions to drugs and diseases differ markedly from those of humans, all animals feel pain and fear. When a mouse in a laboratory cowers in the back of a cage, a monkey screams in fear during an experiment or a cow tries to escape slaughter, these reactions are not unlike what you’d do if aliens used you as a test subject or as food.

We are all animals, interconnected and interdependent. Every life matters — to the individual, to their family and to the world they inhabit. If we deny this reality, are we any better than the aliens depicted in sci-fi horror flicks, with no qualms about using and abusing Earthlings for their whims?

We can be better — and every day is full of opportunities to do so. We can use only products not tested on animals and refuse to bankroll “charities” that fund cruel experiments. We can leave animals off our plates and leave their skin, fur and feathers out of our closets. We can avoid petting zoos, circuses and other venues that exploit animals for entertainment. And we can seize every opportunity to speak out against cruelty and exploitation.

So, what would you say if they came for you? That’s a good question. But there’s an even more important one: When it comes to how you treat animals, will you be an alien or an ally?

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Melissa Rae Sanger is a licensed veterinary technician and a staff writer for the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

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