When the booming voice of Orson Welles interrupted a dance music programme on October 30 1938 to announce that explosions had been seen on Mars, it sparked mass panic across the US.

Despite being merely a CBS radio adaptation of HG Wells' War of The Worlds, the news bulletin format was believed by many, and police were even sent to the studio to to stop the broadcast.

But 80 years on it appears that the public has become more resilient to the prospect of alien life.

A new study asking people how they would feel about the discovery of extraterrestrials by the University of Arizona, proved surprisingly positive.

"If we came face to face with life outside of Earth, we would actually be pretty upbeat about it," said Arizona State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Varnum.

"So far, there's been a lot of speculation about how we might respond to thi kind of news, but until now, almost no systematic empirical research."

In one experiment, Dr Varnum analysed language in newspaper articles about past potential extraterrestrial life discoveries including the 1996 discovery of possibly fossilized extraterrestrial Martian microbes in an asteroid, and announcments that exoplanets could hold life.

The pilot study found that language in the coverage of these events showed significantly more positive than negative emotions.