First Contact

(See First Contact (disambiguation) for others.)

Taken from the 1945 Murray Leinster novelette of that name, first contact became a stfnal trope for any first encounter with intelligent aliens. The phrase is now widely used outside fandom as well.

The onetime fannish usage to describe the first meeting of a protofan with fandom has fallen into disuse, but it's important to note that Contact was the name of magic wand with which the Spirit of Fandom touches Jophan at the beginning of The Enchanted Duplicator, published in 1954.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

In Murray Leinster's story of that name, the first encounter of humans with intelligent ETs; by extension, with us, the first meeting of stfnist with actifan.