THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the center of stars or even floating in interplanetary space. “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”
The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history. One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.
Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity. He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”
I would advise the aliens to eat the Canadians first, they’re much leaner.
Displace, destroy and enslave indigenous life forms and then exploit their natural resources, leaving a barren and lifeless rock unable to support life? Sounds like Western Australia, to me.
#10 bobbo said, why do you go slumming with the entirely lazy notion that Hawkings is “religious” about his lack of belief?
I did not say that Hawking is “religious” about his lack of belief. I think Hawking is religious for dismissing all the realistic catastrophes that most certainly will cause or might cause the extinction of humankind and, instead of that, believing that we need to worry about space aliens.
He’s correct. I should know since I’m a member of the advanced reconnaissance party. Here’s an inside tip, don’t bother to pay your bills next month. Feel free to blow it all partying.
Hawkings is certainly correct that if intelligent alien being are anything like humans, we better avoid them.
We would likely fare no better than the Incas when alien Francisco Pizarro paid a church visit.
Aliens exist – in their distant planets. They cannot reach here, have no interest, or will not survive here. If any aliens survive and come here, then they will wipe us out.
All the UFOs and the anal seeking incidents are just aggressive homos from NASA/Pentagon.
I just want to go where no man has gone before.
Just pondering……. I wonder what would happen, if a brilliant mind were to sit quietly and concentrate on black holes for ten years? And when he finally came out of the trance… what brilliant ideas would he have? Anyone?
#22–Now Shubee==if what you say were true, then why did you put atheist right after religious instead of putting everything you said at #22. Those are entirely two different statements. Heh, heh. Is your problem with the language, the idea, or just telling the truth?
Skeptic==I think Shubee has your answer, but it might take about 10 years from now before he can answer.
Why is it, after reading some of these comments I keep thinking of Peter Jackson’s greatest film ‘Bad Taste’?
Any species able to travel between the stars would most likely have about as much respect for humans as humans do for a bunch of monkeys.
If they see something we have that they want they’ll take it because they can.
#- Deowll — I am of the same thought. Aliens that have traveled vast distances would view us the same way we view monkeys cracking nuts with rocks.
Our cities will be scraped from the earth like we cut down forrest. They won’t think they are conquering us, they will think they are taming the wild.
Alien cities will rise. In those cities will be zoos with animals from around the world. In one of the show cases will be the very adaptable ape called human.
We are assuming that aliens will be destructive forces as we are now, in this point of still primitive human evolution.
They would watch us as we watch animals. But not all humans kill animals for pleasure. Some take care of them as pets. Some others kill for food. And some others have a deep respect for them.
Its very hard to see if an advanced alien race, its advanced because of their high tech, their high spiritual development, or both.
But if they are advanced, maybe they found a way to be able to coexist with the universe, otherwise they would not exist by now.
I’m not worried. I still have this old fashioned faith in Einstein and the limit of light speed. That means anyone who wants to visit has thousands of years of travel ahead of them. Sure, maybe they’ve tamed wormholes. But, if they’re that ancient a race then they are probably long-lived, too. And if science has taught us anything about longevity it’s calorie restriction and reduced proteins. So they’re probably not coming for the livestock. And besides that, why would you phobes assume an alien race would have evolved a digestive tract capable of processing human flesh? My goodness. Think lactose intolerance on a cosmic scale!
Perhaps the answer to the Fermi Paradox (“Where are they?”) is that technological civilizations (TCs for short) are both widespread and friendly. When one civilization detects electromagnetic signals from another, chances are they’ll aim one (or perhaps many) of their radio telescopes and send a “Hello! We got your broadcast!” message. If there are a lot of TCs, the originating planet might get bathed in a lot of directed microwave / infrared / laser beams and get zapped — talk about global warming!
I don’t believe in space aliens. However, I will change my mind if shown proof of their existence.(ie the come to earth or we find them on their own planets.)
Besides if aliens do exist they will give us Blue Energy and then after we replace all our power plants with it, they will take it away.
I always find it intriguing to read peoples comments when it comes to questions such as these. Like we know everything there is to know about the universe and it’s secrets. I think Einstein himself said we have barely scratched the surface.
But.. But.. Mr Hawkins,the aliens make great tentacle porn.
NSFW
http://photofakerpro.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/monster_sex.jpg
Maybe the ET’s are all just like us…sitting around like lovelorn people, waiting for the phone to ring. Or maybe they, too, have scientific figures like Hawking advising them not to be the first to call anyone…
They say we’ve already broadcast our presence with radio DJ’s and dumb TV shows, and electromagnetic waves go on forever (I read an article on this, and it was pointed out that even though that may be true, less than a light year out those signals will probably be scrambled by the space environment to the point of being nothing but background noise…which come to think of it they are anyway).
After reading this, and viewing the show last night, I don’t think that this was the actually the intent of Dr. Hawking’s view. He still wants us to contact extraterrestrials, but, if they are like humans, we are more than certain to become an extinct species. I don’t think that he believes that extraterrestrials are anything like humans, in that way. So now people are going to take one sentence out of context, and make the uninformed panic about, AS USUAL. Geeze, the mainstream media sure does stink!
OTOH, if extraterrestrials did invade Earth, it would put new meaning to the term “illegal alien,” now wouldn’t it? It might do more to help the citizens of Earth realize that they have a lot more in common, than all their differences, and we should all work together for the survival of our species.
Then again, if these extraterrestrials are even smarter, they will just let us destroy ourselves, and move in after the debacle, which, IMNSHO, is what they are doing.
Resource wars are a real possibility.
The current (cautious) predicted population for the year 2200 is 10 billion. Since the carrying capacity for the earth is estimated to be about 10 billion, we would be forced to expand into the solar system. The solar system is rich in resources, but it cannot sustain us forever. Eventually we will be forced to look at our neighboring star systems.
We would then colonize and consume the resources we find. If we came across an inhabitant system, would we sacrifice ourselves in order to preserve alien life?
Think about human growth rates. Right now, human growth has leveled off, but with unlimited resources our growth rate could very well return to its historic rate of doubling every 100 years. That would mean by the year 10,000 CE, the human population would be well over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.