Aliens Exist, and We Should Avoid Them At All Costs, Says Stephen Hawking

I obviously haven't seen the documentary and have nowhere near the intellect of Hawking but one thing I'd like to know.

Did he base this theory around the assumption of there only being carbon based lifeforms that have advanced to the level of intergalactic space travel?

And on top of that, what resources could they possibly need/want that they can't find in any number of unspoiled planets within the Goldilocks zone (Google it)? I am just saying, Earth isn't what you'd call unspoiled.

Maybe they'd invade us just to shut us the hell up, what with our constant spam of WE ARE RIGHT HERE into space. I imagine that'd get kind of annoying after a while.

It seems rational to think that there's other life out there somewhere, but I don't entirely agree with Hawking.

Based on his opinion, any advanced civilization will act like the aliens on 'Independence Day'. But there are plenty of other scenarios besides planet-mugging locusts. Just look to other sci-fi works or just history.

If we listen to Hawking and "look at ourselves" we could also think that there is a compassionate side to ET - as well as the bad.

And if they're so advanced, why would they want our resources? Haven't they found fantastical ways to solve these problems?

Just like past theories of life on Venus or lakes on Mars were debunked years ago, Hawking's own opinion is no more likely to hold up to reality anymore than the Na'vi on 'Avatar'.

SJak you should really watch it. He actually answers most of your questions.

...not to take away from Hawking's intelligence or anything

The only resource that I could imagine any highly intelligent, extra-terrestrial creature would travel to Earth to harvest an abundance of - enough of which would make the celestial journey in any way worth it - would be us. Not only does slavery exist in other species, but inter-species and human slavery is still practiced by some people of Earth in this day and age. Who's to say we would not be perceived as chattel to some unknown, intelligent species? It is certainly a frightening prospect, and one widely utilized in Sci-Fi genre.

Like to read? Check out: "Slavery in Ants" by Edward O. Wilson

if aliens do decide to visit earth it prob won't be for the resources, they could get those a lot easier one some uninhabited planet. the only reasons i can think of is that they would want to study us, in the same manner as we study monkey's or something.

... or they want to convert us to their galactic religion

@0ddNotion, wouldn't they have robots for that ?

@hellkeeper6

My thoughts exactly. This whole enslave humanity thing doesn't really add up either. Robots would do it a lot easier, cheaper, and without the whole mess involved.

@hellkeeper6

Very possible. There are definately things that we could be more useful for in comparison with robots. Inter-species slavery comprises more than just heavy labor. (think lab rats or milk cows) Perhaps utilizing our waste or composition (War of the Worlds?) to suit their needs?

Who knows. All I know is, none of this sounds like my cup-o-tea!

@10jacobf

Hawking explained that when the population becomes too large for said alien race, resources would be scarce and would have them colonize other planets in their solar system just as we are trying to do so now. The aliens, having already achieved space travel and most likely discovered the nuclear bomb, would probably find a way to live indefinately by slowing or cancelling out the ageing process. Thus the population would continue to grow in huge quantities, leaving their planet on huge ships would require a huge amount of resources, and while the population continues to grow, more materials such as fuel and metals for larger ships will be a problem after their planet has virtually run out of such resources, and the demand is increasing. If the population is so large that they have to leave their solar system in search of more resources, might they stumble upon us, why would they not hesitate to take our resources since we are a "weaker" and "primitive" in comparison. In such a way such as Columbus and the Native Americans, we would be the "savages".

Hawking also explained that there may be water deep under Mars where life might exist. Since Mars is within the outer limits of the "Goldilocks Zone". Life doesn't just require water. There was a story on popsci about life found here on our own planet that doesn't live on water. He explained that gases such as nitrogen and helium might also contain life since the temperatures in space are very cold, the gases will probably be in liquid form at such temperatures and could support microbial life. The gases could be in little clusters or could be comets the size of mountains.

He also made a suggestion that some life could begin with organisms that are composed of gas on Jupiter and could possibly feed on electricity from the lighting storms on Jupiter. I'm not sure how likely this is. But in my opinion, I do believe that in Europa there is life under the ice because as Hawking explained, the way the moon is pulled by Jupiter, cause the moon to expand and contract, heating up its core and this heat may generate enough heat to melt some of the ice and viola, water.

I think there is an abundance of life throughout our universe. Think about how many suns or solar systems there are, then out of those solar systems, how many of them have planets within the "Goldilocks zone" and how many of those planets have some kind of water, or liquid gases, ect.

Perhaps the reason we have not made contact with aliens is because after a certain species can master light speed, you become part of a system where galactic law prohibits alien contact be made with primitives such as ourselves, because it us up to us to decide if we can reach that technology without any outside help and without blowing ourselves up. Or perhaps there's already a race of aliens that has "claimed" us and we're being watched. Maybe they haven't found us yet. I think Hawking is right about his predictions. If we were to encounter such a race, we'd have no way to respond to them, our defenses would be weak against them. It'd be better to make contact with them, when we are on "equal" terms.

if i told you that there was a species of monkey that would one day be more inteligient and aggresive, and will try to take over the human race. what do you think you would do to that now primitive monkey? same with aliens perhaps extinguish now before we come unhandleable in the distent future.

I think its pretty ridiculous for Hawking to be making any assumptions, good or bad on what contact with aliens would mean.
its not to say things wouldn't be disasterous..
but given that all of the variables in this instance are completely unknown, how can you jump to conclusions one way or another?

Take this with a grain of salt. But, I have heard from various people/friends that the reason why any advanced aliens would not attack Earth is because of our advent of nuclear weapons. The argument is that they know if they attacked we would just blow ourselves up and attempt to do so to them as well. The end result: no resources for them, and they might just be destroyed themselves.

Personally, based on ancient pictographs and literature there is evidence that aliens might* have visited us before. So if they have their best opportunity to take Earth has been long gone.

This really is an amazing series and I recommend it to everyone. @ Setarip - One thing he said is he feels a bit iffy on the whole subject of alien visitors in the past. He said why would an alien in a high tech space ship come here to pick off some lone human to examine us? He also mentioned that if they did visit us, the government sure is doing a better job at covering that up than they are doing in all their other jobs.

Why does everyone assume that our violent tendencies are normal?

Couldn't other life forms exists without the emotional baggage humans possess?

Imagine if you grew up in an environment where nothing ever attacked you. Where no one ever wronged you.

No jealousy, greed, anger or sadness.

It does not seem that far fetched to me.

I see them visiting us like we go to the zoo. To visit the primitive hostile animals and wonder what are they thinking?

Like many others said, they can mine uninhabited planets I don't see them fighting us for resources, however, we have a lot of water.

I think any race violant and/or evil enough to steal our resources would have destroyed themselves long before developing interstellar travel.

Also saying it would be like Christopher Columbus isn't quite fair, even we humans have come a long way since then and I doubt we would do anything like that again.

On top of that I think it is doubtful that aliens would come looking for resources anyway because they would need things like antimatter which are easier to find in deep space than here on earth.

I think its a bit arrogant to assume we are important enough to warrant any amount of attention from aliens. More likely we would face a situation like the one described in the Hitchhiker's Guide series: earth is destroyed since it happens to be in the way of an intergalactic highway.

I think trigger happy has a good point. we eliminated the indians for our own good but the human race has matured to a point now where we donot allow such behaviors to go on in the world today. The only chance I see of the human race being enslaved by an alien race is if they havent reached computing power that is more powerful than our own brains. They might see Earth as a great place to access 6 billion super computers that that could link together as a massive server to link into their own intergalactic network. but their own computers would have probably already surpasses our brain power so hopefully we wouldnt be used like in the matrix

For a genius he has made an ignorant statement. This argument is predicated on the fact that Earth is unique and has the resources that an advanced civilization might need. So lets tackle this one thing at a time.

Is Earth unique? Not in any way, in all likelihood it is one of many planets that support life. The raw materials that exist on this planet are not unique either. All the elements that exist here on Earth exist out THERE too.

That said, supposing an alien civilization were intelligent and advanced enough to travel here we could presume they have the technology to obliterate us, but intelligence suggests morality (which is why they haven't yet destroyed themselves). So why go through the moral dilemma? Even though we could destroy every sub-human primate species on this planet we don't because of the obvious moral consequence (could you live with that?).

Second, it obviously takes energy to destroy billions of people, our weapons, and infrastructure. Why not just take the easy road and capture a few asteroids? Or mine Mars, or Jupiter, or Neptune, or Venus, or Mercury, or Pluto, Eris, Saturn, Uranus, or any of the moons of these planets or dozens of dwarf planets in THIS SYSTEM ALONE?! None of which will put up any resistance.

This also assumes that these aliens wouldn't travel through some uninhabited systems on their way here, which I'm sure possess the necessary resources, so why even make the trip?

If a species is advanced enough to travel the stars it can appropriate resources from any given uninhabited world it were to come across, they don't need to come all the way here to take the resources on this planet and in doing so, deliberately kill an entire species.

Bottom line, the only reason aliens might kill us is if that's what they do, not to gather resources, but for the pure joy of it, but this precludes the necessary moral component of intelligence. If an alien species were truly hostile they'd be more likely to enslave humanity rather than destroying it. But even that is far-fetched (we haven't even begun to break the ice on robotics, molecular robotics, holograms, etc). Why bother enslaving a race, caring for said enslaved race, dealing with insurrection, etc., when you can just have a hologram and robot do the work in pulling those raw materials from some unnamed moon in a totally uninhabited star system?

Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking was the perfect blend of information and entertainment. Can't wait for next Sunday's finale!

@nagol10h and triggerhappy. We have matured that much?
Really? Well then, let me tell all the Jewish people in Jerusalem not to worry, Hammas is mature now and doesn't want to erase them from the planet anymore!

watch the news!

"Perhaps the reason we have not made contact with aliens is because after a certain species can master light speed, you become part of a system where galactic law prohibits alien contact be made with primitives such as ourselves, because it us up to us to decide if we can reach that technology without any outside help and without blowing ourselves up"

Like the prime directive in Star Trek's Federation. You have to achieve warp speed, before being able to participate in Galactic activities, and visitors from other planets.

honestly if humans have made synthetic fuel and can sustain life like this, i have no reason to believe that a race that is of a higher intelligence and technology would come down here to take our crappy resources. what could they want, oil? probably wouldn't even be compatible. Aliens that are out there are probably aware of us and treat us like we would document a rare species on earth. More evolved technology can certainly provide alternative fuel.

It is interesting that we equate intelligence and morality based on our own moral scale. People are quick to accept that an alien species will likely be completely different to us physically but for some reason will have developed similarly to us mentally.

Try to image a species thats has none of man's values and cannot even comprehend them. No evil intent but no good either. No reason not to act on their base instincts. Given the right circumstances human society produces such individuals and the are labeled monsters.Image a race incapable of love, charity and all the things man claims to hold dear. A race of monsters.

We are better off being prepared for a hostile encounter than assuming that an alien species has our best interests at heart. If we are prepared and nothing happens nothing is lost. If we are unprepared than all could be lost.

soo many paragraphs of comments, i didn't bother reading. Aliens existing, and we avoiding them, it's not like we are good people either.

Why would aliens in any sort try to destroy us if we haven't bothered them i think that we should continue to search for planets with living ecosystems and possibly life forms to make peace with them. If any other war-loving alien were to attack us they would help us and we would help them. As our technology continues to grow so will our ceriosity we will one way or another find alien life forms. We would also have a back up plan if somehow our world were to be destroyed or unlivable we would still have that "alliance" and they would be happy to help us until we found a new home.

Why would aliens in any sort try to destroy us if we haven't bothered them i think that we should continue to search for planets with living ecosystems and possibly life forms to make peace with them. If any other war-loving alien were to attack us they would help us and we would help them. As our technology continues to grow so will our ceriosity we will one way or another find alien life forms. We would also have a back up plan if somehow our world were to be destroyed or unlivable we would still have that "alliance" and they would be happy to help us until we found a new home.

I'm sure I'll be walloped for saying this, but 'ere goes.

A pattern I've seen among all the posts is the assumption that the intelligent life besides our own is more advanced than us, in terms of technology, culture, physical composition, etc., etc.

This is what I bleive.
Aliens exist somewhere in the cosmos. Some are at the point of industrial revoulution, some are in the middle of a world war, some are in the middle of the study of space travel. There are many different political structures in each planet's system of governance- monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, tribal ruling, the communist regime, the best if I do say so myself and myself alone a true democratic republic, etc there are many nations on each world.
Some worlds have reached an advancement to communicate with one another. Religion is found on each world. These worlds are learning to cope with one another, keeping a tie of freedom. Other worlds meet each other they hate each other and fight. Every world is unique in their own way no two completely alike. They all have one common belief, and that is God, but each world also has nonbelievers. Many worlds will not find each other in this universe, but may find each other in the afterlife.
Some worlds will see no purpose to find one another. Some will seek other worlds of living, but never will. Some will find others.
Enslavement, will be cast aside in many alien mindsets, just as slavery has been abolished in many countries here on ours. I believe that an intelligent species will give up enslavement. It will help nothing of their advancement. Stephen Hawkings is wrong.

@Pdolan7 - "Why would aliens in any sort try to destroy us if we haven't bothered them "
Well... why would we kill native american's when they have not done anything to us? Genocides are happening every day now, just because you do not see it happening in your back yard does not mean it does not happen.

Steven Hawking has faith in aliens, but still doesn't know what started the "big bang".

I still have faith that Jesus Christ is who he said he was and created the "big bang" out of nothing.

got Faith?

I'm with Coyote on.

So far, I've only read very humble yet arrogant assessments of this situation.

I say humble because most of you are seriously downplaying our technology just because most of you take it for granted. Just because an alien race may have interstellar space travel under their belt doesn't mean they have discovered or have no use for the myriad other discoveries we've made in our other scientific fields. We have anti-matter, contact lenses, Internet, unmanned drones and all kinds of other tech that is common for us, but may be completely unheard of by an alien race. Any one such item is reason enough to visit another planet depending on how much of an impact it has. We may be less advanced overall, but when you begin exploring individual fields and applications, we have more going on than what we're being given credit for in this thread.

I say arrogant because of this ridiculous notion that intelligence and morality are joined at the hip. Intelligence is a measure of ability, morality is a measure of application. Coming from the species that created and dropped two nuclear bombs not but 50 or so years ago, this point should be more widely understood. That terrible assumption of morality completely tosses aside individual circumstance. The intentions and morals of a space fairing species are tied directly to how they developed the technology and why they began exploring the stars. Maybe for peace, maybe for slaves, maybe for resources at all costs. We don't know, but to assume a species won't be hostile just because they figured out space travel is a recipe for disaster.

If we look at ourselves, we see a very important feature of technology that no one here has mentioned even though I feel it is one of the most important factors. The most advanced tech we have owned and operated by goverment and military. I'm fairly certain that when we began our space fairing chapter, it won't be led by altruistic civilians or freedom seeking rebels. It will be led government and military vehicles armed to the teeth with our most advanced weaponry. With this in mind, I wouldn't expect another intelligent species to the exact same.

In a brief response to the robots>slaves argument, why would any intelligent species waste time, resources and possibly currency to make slaves when they can go and steal them by the billion? Don't be so arrogant to think slavery isn't a viable system when morality is the only thing that determines if it's used or not. Morality a different species may or may not have. That could use us for food, grind us up for fuel, fun, whatever. The fact is that we don't know what they could possibly do to us, so writing off any possibility is foolish.

In response to Earth not being unique, that's one of dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. Yes, basic resources and raw elements can be from any lifeless, wayward rock, our planet has MANY things those lifeless rocks don't like LIFE, finished goods, intelligence, synthesized materials, infrastructure, etc. I haven't seen too many planets in my life, but from the 8 or 9 I know of, Earth is the only one with all those things. That makes it pretty unique in my opinion. You're not getting meat from Venus. If you still turn up your nose at my stance, consider this. A truck driver has a delivery from New York to Los Angeles. As he drives, he needs to stop. What does he stop for? Fuel, food, rest, fun (Whatever that fun may be). I find it safe to assume that any traveller of any scale or level intelligence would be after the same and since fun as well as food are extremely flexible variables, I'm ready to plan for the worst.

In response to their energy sources, some of you assume too much. Clean, renewable energy is not, I repeat, is NOT a requirement of space travel. The requirement for space travel is an immense amount of energy, which entails an immense amount of consumption as well as immense refueling requirements. Just because they consume a lot of fuel, doesn't mean it's efficient or clean, so we still may have something to offer them in that regard. Aliens could very well be looking for oil as one poster doubts. We don't know everything can't be made from oil nor everything that could be made with oil. We could burning/consuming starship fuel right now and we wouldn't know because we don't have starships.

In conclusion, the moral of my post is that we don't know. We don't know what an intelligent alien species may want from us, may need from us or intend for us. With that said, I agree with Mr. Hawking's warning because arguments and disagreements occur over the tiniest things and I'm not trying to get into arguement with anyone that can sail across the stars while we're sitting ducks.

Our species is too young and immature for alien contact, but just because we aren't as advanced travel wise doesn't mean we don't have ANYTHING to offer the galaxy and unless mire intelligent species come in the form of ten fingered, ten toed humanoids, I'm inclined to believe we have a vast world of knowledge and technology to not only offer, but that also makes us targets.

Until another race lands and states their attentions, I'd rather be on the safe side than the naive one...

I can certainly see where Mr. Hawking is coming from, but I'm not sure what we can do currently to try to hide from aliens. (Maybe the show explains this more, but I haven't seen it yet.) We've been broadcasting our existence for all who are in range to hear, intentionally for decades, and unintentionally for even longer. This means anyone traveling within 50-100 light years of us will notice our presence IF they are listening for almost any kind of non-naturally-occurring energy emissions.

And this might be a big ‘if.’ For example, a mining vessel will probably only scan for the material it mines, much like an oil rig doesn’t go looking for tropical island civilizations here on Earth. They focus on drilling for oil. An alien mining ship may have sensors of some sort for detecting threats and obstacles to its normal operations, but probably won’t be interested in that whisper of energy coming from our neck of the woods. By this logic, I think we can conclude that anyone who finds us will either find us by accident because we are near a resource they value (uh oh), or they were looking to find us for some reason (maybe uh oh again).

We tend to think of any intelligent life out there as being similar to us in rational thinking and moral judgment. I mean, how else can we think of them? Our experience with intelligent life, so far, is limited only to ourselves. The best we can really do is to think of qualities (good or bad) in ourselves, and reference those as another way of thinking. This shows up in how we depict alien cultures in science fiction. (IE, from Star Trek; Klingons = aggressive and warlike, Vulcans = logical and peaceful, Romulans = deceitful and untrusting) These are all human traits that we have simply isolated, and exaggerated to imagine another way of thinking or living. Real aliens will probably have completely different ways of seeing and thinking about the universe. Ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. For example, a dog can’t begin to imagine what we experience when we hear great music, write a novel or post a comment on PopSci, just as we can’t imagine what they experience in some aspects of their lives. Not that aliens or humans should be compared to dogs, but it illustrates how differences in perceptions can completely alter one’s thought processes.

If we look at the behaviors of other minds here on Earth (like other primates, elephants, etc) we can start to imagine how differently an alien might think simply based on observable behaviors that are so different from our own. We may not be able to get any real insight into the alien mind, but we can at least start to understand that our way of seeing the world/universe is very specific to us and not necessarily inherent to intelligent life.

What all this means, of course, is that we cannot know what to expect from that first encounter. They may be simply curious about us and our world. They may be interested in us as more of a resource for something like slavery or livestock. They may be completely uninterested in us, and only interested in our planet for living space, colonization or natural resources. Or they may have interests that we can’t begin to imagine due to our lack of knowledge in alien desires and needs.

Does this mean we should put our heads under the blanket and hide? Stephen Hawking seems to think so. I’m not sure what we can do right now to hide from aliens, but if Stephen Hawking thinks we should, then we should probably consider it. He is a pretty smart guy, after all.

I don't worry about them attacking.They just have to introduce themselves cough on us and most of us will die off like the indians did.We dont have any immunity to they're diseases.

hopefully they are allergic to co2...

I don't think his ideas are far fetched. Throughout our own history, we have done the same. Not just the Native Americans, but wherever cultures have clashed?

Have we grown so much?

I used to be in a profession whose sole purpose was to wage war. That wasn't terribly long ago. We recently invaded a country for no other reason that we had sexed-up intel that they were up to something they weren't.

Inter-tribal warfare is alive and well all over the world. You just don't see it from your armchair in a large country "at peace" ... well, at peace here at home.

Would there be a great deal of the resources someone sought elsewhere? Perhaps. But like grazing cattle, the herd has to move from time to time to find resources as they are exhausted where they have been before.

Still, the most dangerous thing about meeting someone might not be them themselves. That thing is also demonstrated by the encounter of the Europeans with the Native Americans.

A cosmic "Yellow Fever" would be a nasty thing for them to bring unwittingly, even if they came in peace.

I agree with Hawkings. It would be like the Columbian Exchange. The life forms will probably have diseases extremely hazardous to us, but also vice versa. But, if theyre advanced enough to travel across the galaxy or even universe and happen to find Earth, then they should be technologically advanced enough to overcome any chemical or physical barriers on Earth, such as Oxygen and CO2 in our atmosphere. ETs would not be visiting us to get technology or a history lesson, it would be for their own gain and our demise. It would not be good.

There is a problem though to consider...because space aliens are not us. Whatever our perspective is, probably it is wrong. We think of an alien with intelect, but, what about a childlike response? It's impossible is know.

It seems like Hawkings is creating fear Propaganda. Not that we have nothing to fear, but, let's not hate the aliens before they are here. Let's not have the oversight, to take in more than one idea. Knowlage is not only gained, by being able to see. And no matter what they/it may be, if we can't handle other lifeforms, then surely, we've ended before we've begun. And on the scale of the Dinosaurs lifespans, we've not even started.

I would like to tell Mr. hawkings to grow up.

What he's talking bout is no different then one country dealing with another country on the same planet. It’s called life people deal with it, will there are unfriendly aliens sure but there will also be friendly ones. In the end it wouldn’t be all that different then what we live today.

Honestly there is no reason for them to come looking for earth, because as it’s been said there is nothing special here you can’t get faster and cheaper by mining the rest of the system. Even oil or other such hydrocarbons can be found on one of Saturn’s moons falling from the sky.

Lets no over look the fact that green tech is easier to come up with then star travel, which means they will already know how to any resources to their highest level.

@Voices1776

If you understood evolution then you would understand that there could never be such a species. Without something killing something else you have no evolution and so that planet will never have life beyond pond scum.

So emotion of some kind are a given for a alien race able to travel the stars.

@Coyote2010

You can not have a race with no morals.

They don't have to be our morals but the base to any society is a common moral code. Without that shared moral code you have no society, meaning no technological growth and no start travel.

I am partly going to agree with dex drako here.

Sorry, Mr. Hawking, but we can't and shouldn't hide from alien life...within reason. Some alien races are undoubtedly going to be incredibly hostile and good at destroying things. Other races are going to be incredibly friendly and good at whatever they do. Neither combination is a sure bet for anything, since we may get along well with the destroyers and not so well with the lovers.

The point is, we will just have to go out there and explore. If we meet someone, so be it.

If anything, it simply sounds like Hawking is afraid of death. I can't fault him for that and he is hardly alone. Many people cherish life as a unique and beautiful thing, which is fully encouraged by our natural desire and drive to survive. This is all fine and dandy, but the truth remains that we are still part of the greater cosmos no matter what happens to our living bodies.

No matter what, our truest form will always be and we will continue to cycle through it as we always have. Many alien races will have realized such a thing as well. Whether that is good or bad depends on the natural disposition of said race. But really, there are no bad options out there :-D

Or it could end up like District 9 and we have race of intelligent beings marooned on our planet. Hopefully we wouldn't treat any real visitors so terribly, but it seems like an interesting perspective as do other works of fiction...

He definitly had his time on top. But I think. Yup. Time to retire!!!!!

I think in more educated words he is saying the apex creatures of any environment tend to be the strongest and most cut throat... lions, tigers, bears, humans o my.

It may be a little far out but imagine large cats or bears attaining our functionality and being as intelligent as us. Do you honestly think we wouldn't end up the pet or food. You need only look outside to see the fit survive and survival is a tough breed game. We as humans may get to skip natural selection at some levels, but even with that said we impose an unnatural selection that is maybe less educated than nature... blondes and blue eyes have become favored by many. However it doesn't make a lot of sense considering that it has a higher rate of cancer. Yet here where I live they tell people that if you walk in front of a moving car you may have a law suite. Yet at the same time we would tell those same people to avoid a 4000 pound boulder tumbling down a hill. Sorry off on tangent anyway you get the gist.

Everyone who says any alien race intelligent enough to get here would be benevolent as making a gigantic assumption that the first aliens to find us are scientists and not the cut throat mineral or bio diversity mining corporation. Or the band of outlaw cut throats.

Also if the current laws of space travel stand. By the time a race leaves their home planet and gets here millions of years may have passed. And the race that left may not be the one that arrives here. For all we know they may barely know how to operate their craft and might consider us fair game. They may have lost all education and become savages with fancy toys. (assuming the craft was advanced enough to take care of itself without intelligent intervention) And that we are getting to very very fast.

So I think that arguement makes a lot of assumptions. Its better to play safe than find ourselves the helpless slaves of outcasts or something.

Really ? My answer is like HAWKING. You must avoid Aliens like Maya's people must avoid Spain's troopers a decade ago.
Spain is an intelligent country but they massacred the Mayans and got their gold so the Aliens may be they will killed the Humans to take gold ? or other thing..? we humans do not know now. So prepare the world war three against Aliens. :-( our guns is like arrows againts laser guns ...? We are lost on battle humans !

Ants live in wonderful societies and one would give its life for the other, nevertheless they attack fiercely any alien. I suggest that we ask our aliens, once we meet them, for their history records and only smile if they ask for ours.

Oh my gosh, the aliens are coming! Those damn aliens have gone and developed the technology to harness the power of an entire star and create a worm hole to get at us. But what do they want? What could they possibly want from this little fleck of dust we call Earth.

Maybe there seeking knowledge? No, that can’t be it. If there smart enough to figure out how to create worm holes and aim them then they must be way ahead of us. Heck, we don’t even know if it’s possible to make or travel through a worm hole yet. Oh, but wait. Maybe there not getting here that way. Maybe they figured out a way to get real close to the speed of light and there coming in that way. In any case they must be way ahead of us. Nope, I don’t think it’s knowledge there after.

Maybe there after our natural resources? But what natural resources? The only thing we really have that we can’t find anywhere else in our own little solar system is liquid salt water and a mixture of the gasses nitrogen and oxygen. Yep! That must be it. Oh, but wait. If they figured out a way to navigate through space at light speed without crashing into a rock just like ours, then they must have figured out a way to sustain themselves on there journey. No, I don’t think it’s our resources.

Boy, these aliens are becoming very crafty. What on Earth could they want? Maybe there just passing by on there way to where ever there going. Maybe they’ll just stop off for a burger, fries and a Coke and that’ll be the end of it. Hey, wait a minute. That’s It!! There after the secret recipe to Coca Cola. That’s the only thing that we have that they can’t find anywhere else in the universe. Boy, I feel sorry for the president of Coca Cola. How is he going to explain to the board of directors that aliens came down and copied the recipe to Coke? Can you imagine the look on his face when and if we ever make it to a planet similar to ours and Coke is already being sold. Believe me, the lawsuits are gonna fly.

I completely agree with Mr. Hawking. Assuming there are no other places to gather resources I would find it hard pressed that "they" would come in peace. "Look at ourselves" is completely valid. There have been lots of examples of just how humane we humans are as resources become less and less abundant/available. To end on a positie note I do hope/believe that our future proves not to repeat the horrors of the past and that our technology and progress lead everyone to prosperity.

The aliens, who created the human being, known as the Anunnaki (those who from heaven came to earth), did mine gold in South Africa. The company Consolidated Goldfields found a 100-ton boulder wedged into the mouth of a gold mine there. Because the Anunnaki astronauts enjoyed space travel more than dusty gold mining in caves, they revolted which led EN.KI to find a substitute worker. Contact with over 1200 alien civilizations has already been made, most of whom are very polite. The Gray aliens and the Piol Mantis, who are the pilots of the Anunnaki motherships, are dangerous. One of the former NASA astronauts told me that we are a single-planet species. This is untrue because we have been relocated to Earth II in the Pleiades. We also have the underground MEPI (Mars Experimental Planetary Institute) Mars base which houses 600,000 human inhabitants. Marsian pilots are flying our personnel to Mars in their spacecraft. Astronaut Gordon Cooper flies the Beamship between the Federation's home planet and Earth II, albeit in a cloned body he was given by their genetics laboratory. Every continent on earth has a large underground alien base. In the Caribbean islands there are motherships that are four miles in diameter which sit submerged just below the ocean surface. We should shift from obsolete rockets to this new technology of producing lift using space-time curvature and transporting objects by teleportation. I think the real reason for Dr. Hawking recommending that we do not contact alien civilizations is that we will all of a sudden come in contact with their advanced technology and science which will upset our present theories and make obsolete many of our technologies. For example, aircraft manufacturers would see their aircraft and launch-rocket sales disappear. They would have to retool for the teleportation machines and the new spacecraft that rely on hyperspace physics to operate. So they will have falling revenues at a time when they need huge research and development funds.
Sources:
Sitchin: The 12th Planet.
Good: Alien Base.
Howe: front cover of An Alien Harvest.
NASA Astronaut talk on NASA budget cuts.
Basiago: new book on teleportation technology.
St.Clair: employee at Consolidated.
Nostradamus: 1999 prediction of the terror of the skies
in the Century 10, Quatrain 72
St.Clair: Remote viewing amplifier and wormhole-propagating gravitational wave teleportation.
PR Police report: 4-mile diameter mothership

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First of all, if you haven't seen the documentary mentioned, I would suggest doing so because it helps explain what Hawkings is saying.

Secondly, it is entirely plausible to assume alien visitors would be hostile. Hawkings compares them to Christopher Columbus and his conquest of the new Americas; a perfect analogy in my opinion. They would be here for resources (hence them leaving their planet in the first place) and our well being would be circumstantial at best.

The power of evolution and the need to keep a civilization alive alone would be enough to prove Hawking's assumptions correct.

We kill our own kind for resources, what would make it out of the realm of the possible to suggest that another race wouldn't do the same thing, let alone be hostile towards us.

I agree with hawkings view .

One point nobody has mentioned but seems to have some people Hung uup . I agree that there are probably many worlds in the universe where life had evolved , but to say that because of that reasoning that earth is not special or unique and the resources that exist here exist elsewhere is to not undervalue the earth .
Granted that many earthly resources are found elsewhere like all the elements of the periodic table and various compounds and minerals that exist here , but this leaves out all of the unique life that has evolved here , species that would not exist elsewhere .
I believe aliens coming to earth would be interested in increasing their knowlege of what life exists out there and what advantages or unique properties can be realized by studying the life that exists .
We humans are increasingly looking towards nature for new compounds or materials to help cure deseases or advance our understanding .
Who's to say alien explorers aren't motivated by a terrible desease that is uncurable with any medicines they have discovered and are searching all life supporting planets for their cure .

Alien races may have many possible motivators , they may not be democratic and could easily be militaristic totalitarians.

The biodiversity of earth is a unique resource that aliens would likley be interested in , in simpler terms than stated above . Mineral resources are one thing but not the only thing .
And its the biodiversity that is rare or hard to find in the universe the needle in the haystack . Safe to say once a needle is found it would be fought for

Haha all I can think about when reading this is Stephen Colbert's joke. It went something like:

"Colombus's expedition wasn't all bad for America, as I recall we brought them Jesus. Maybe these aliens will come to us preaching some sort of Space Jesus we don't know about"

Three quick comments:

1st) I tend to agree with Mr Hawking on this one. Until we have a definitive presence in multiple systems, it seems too much of a risk for the whole human race with all of our eggs in one basket. Not that every ET is bent on universal conquest: it's just too risky for us fledgelings.

2nd) Since life as we understand it is based upon the statistical processes of physics and chemistry, it is only natural to apply statistics to the system at large. The universe is so vast that statistically speaking life is almost a dead certainty--intelligent life on more than one of those worlds is astonishingly high.

3rd) Predation is a very powerful natural selector for evolution, both for predators and prey. Chances are excellent that anything evolving with intelligence will also, of necessity, come from a history of predation whether it was a top tier predator or prey. Ergo: violence will not be unknown to them. QED: they will probably be dangerous to us.

OMG Hawkings gone crazy
Earth doomsday begins to count
*Tik Tok...*

things we agreee with
preadtory aliens+humans= bad
benolavnt aliens + humans =good

but why are you asuming a society requires morals to survive. ants as far as we no have no morals but there societys pretty great.

what if there like the zerg and ruled by a OVERMIND or something. aliens are 90% likely to be NOTHING LIKE US HUMANS.

and again how do you know that the aliens are more advanced than us. maybe they have good spaceships but no robitics ornano technology.
just because they got the avility to get here doesnt mean there super advanced in everyway.

What if, life is out there. And they are on the same evolutinary level, or scale as us. They can travel their solar system and have been to their moons. What if they have weapons like ours and space ships like us. Aliens on the same technological level as us. When we look through hubble into deep space, we see millions of lightyears into the past since that how long it takes the light to get here. We cannot see their civilization yet. Just like if they look through their telescopes, they see out dinosaurs, or a time even before that. They cannot see us, just like we cannot see them.

Based on the theory provided to me by Christopher Erickson. If aliens were 200 lightyears away, they would be looking at Jefferson and Washington now.

Steven Hawking is talking out of his crap hole when it comes to aliens. He like anyone else here has never met one. It's all based on assumption. He could be right, he could be wrong, and he could be sorta right.

But in the end he doesn't know any more about intelligent life than a waitress at Hooters.

I would rather believe Dr Hawkins than fall victim to an avoidable catastrophe. As for his ability to anticipate the future; it is probably as good or better than most people.
As to why would aliens be seeking resources- any one traveling long distances in this universe is going to consume their available onboard resources. Wherever we look we see the same elements, the same protons and electrons, the same radiation, the same star material and most recently we see the same planetary materials. It is a relatively simple leap to assume that aliens of our age would not be far removed from ourselves or at least our carbon bio-type. If they were a million years ahead of our level of civilization, how much would we have in common? Would we even realize they were here among us? For example how aware would an ant be of us? For that matter how would you carry on a conversation with an ant. And ants are not too far removed from ourselves, as carbon life forms.
It is the nature of creatures in our age group to extract resources from our environment in order to survive, it is natural. Unless the aliens are plants who can extract their needs from the sun. Sunlight, which could be collected from space is a form of energy that must be collected up close to a star. But if they need replaceable resources like sunlight then that begs the question are their other resources wearing out, burning up or otherwise being exhausted? Only beings who would be far beyond our conception might be able to extract the inevitable essential resources without our knowing it. But then why do we think that a species only a few thousand years out of the stone age imagine we are so all knowing and aware that we can even concieve of other beings who might be inconcievable to our data base?
If our aliens are like us, we may be competitors.
If they are not like us, we may never know what hit us...
It would seem that Dr Hawkins may have a point...

What if, instead of us being primitive and the aliens coming to us, it was the other way around? Realistically, this is just as likely. It's very possible that aliens on other planets have evolved at different rates than we do, and it's just as likely that we find them, as it is that they find us. We really don't know what's out there, and there's no point in not trying.

We'll never know unless we go.

@omaracoustic

I didn't rule out the idea of life else where - I tend to think there is (even intelligent ones). And for the record:
- I read popsci a lot and I don't recall life that doesn't need water (I think you mean oxygen - I saw that one)
- I didn't say anything about life on Mars nor Europa not existing...just Hawking's concept of advanced life.

As I said earlier...

"not to take away from Hawking's intelligence or anything"

And FYI, I did see some of the facts that Hawking thinks life would be like - just not the whole show because I was busy. It's just that they're so new to me that they sound perfectly fictional (ie. life from gas giants?!).

And a lot of what you said in your lengthy post didn't make any sense at all anyway. But if I struck a nerve with my comment then I APOLOGIZE.

It just seems that with so much spin on what aliens may/may not be like when we find them (or they us)

until then... "We are of peace. Always" ;)

I believe in Alliens.Billions of planets are there in Universe. Why not possible to have planet which is environmentally identical to earth? The science may be different form our science. Gravity may be different, air pressure may be different, chemistry and physics may be different. But there might be planets which support life. What about the heaven which have been mentioned in all religions? and the angels living there. It's only the matter of time. One day science will clear the path. But As MR. Hawkin says, it may be doomsday to us.

Why would aliens come here? We could be a good source of food. A TV show by Alfred Hitchcock hadsuch a story. Aliens came here and treated us very well, elimiating all disease and then loaded their ships wih people who wanted to visit their planet. One of the items they brought was a book entitled "To Serve Man". When sciebtists finally decoded it, they discovered it was a cookbook.

Wow, you all have missed the space ship on this one! Did any one think of pirates of the universe? They would come for our DNA! Yes, they would take all our best looking and smartest women. :-D I would if I was a Alien pirate, and sell them to the highest bidders. No one though of our best resource.... LOL and LOL

Let's assume the statistical probability that other life forms exist, have reached a technological level of interstellar space travel, and have detected our presence on a small planet with average mineral/metal resources in a solar system on the outer edge of one galaxy.

Harvesting resources requires effort, time, and materials. Traveling for years to obtain edible humans, requiring food shelter and care on that long return trip seems a poor investment. We could be turned into corpsicles, but gourmet aliens are likely to want fresh - or even live - nourishment.

Okay, we do have lots of water. Aliens might more sensibly grab water-rich comets rather than chance the costs of entering and leaving our planet's gravity-well and fighting the current owners for five gallon bottles of Arrowhead or Sparkletts.

Maybe this is not an original post, but my attention span is too short to read through all the previous comments:

I'm no Hawking, but my prediction is that alien life will arrive on Earth, not as fully-developed, highly-functioning, complex structures, but as very simple, single-celled micro-organisms. They will not arrive in sophisticated, exotic "space craft", but will hitch a ride on an asteroid that is heading this way anyway. They will incubate, adapt, absorb, and will evolve into multi-celled creatures perfectly suited to Earth's environment. Do they evolve into peaceful creatures, or a aggressive "monsters"? Both, is my guess.

Oh, wait... Hasn't that alreadt happened? Welcome to Earth, fellow aliens...

I believe that any alien civilization that comes across our planet will be very similar to our own race. When you look at our own solar system what organisms have evolved to a point anywhere near traveling in space? Humans are the only intelligent beings that have made it into space and have attempted to contact other life forms. Obviously there are no other life forms even near our levels of evolution that could attempt space travel. How is this going to be any different in other solar systems?

Any life form living in a different habitat from that of our planet or similar planets would have to be one of the oldest life forms in the Universe in order to be evolved to the point where interstellar travel is possible. Even then what use would a being like this have with our planet? If we were ever forced to leave Earth would we search out a planet like Jupiter or Neptune? No we would leave them well alone and not waste resources on exploring that planet or fully exploiting its resources.

How much different could a civilization be that developed on a planet in the “Goldilocks Region”? Maybe differing levels of gravity or atmosphere would cause them to look squatter or taller; essentially they would have evolved in a slightly different matter then ourselves. However they would be very similar to our own civilization and have very similar needs. This I believe would be the race that would come to our planet in a hostile or peaceful way depending on religion/ideals/ongoing wars/need of resources, etc.
If a civilization has evolved to the point of interstellar travel then I’m pretty sure they would have discovered most if not all the same technologies at some point in time that we have. How could a race seemingly skip over a technology? That is just illogical. Any civilization needing anything to do with our planet and our resources would probably have gone through many of the same problems as we have, i.e. pollution, food shortages, exploring alternative fuels and so on. You can’t tell me that somehow a civilization would make it into space and be able to travel light-years without finding a renewable fuel. The same with our other resources, at the moment we are on our way to creating many renewable synthetic materials and we are in no way close to being an interstellar civilization. As I said before a civilization that can travel through space cannot skip over many of these things. How would that even be possible?

On the topic of enslavement it is absolutely illogical to think that any space faring race would need our populace for anything other than energy or as someone said before computation. Once again they would most likely be advanced enough to create renewable resources and clearly would have a great understanding of robotics. I’ll say it again, there is no way that a civilization that can travel light-years to get here would not have all or similar technologies that we have, that is including contact lenses or the internet. Either way the cost of providing for slaves; sustenance, housing, overseeing and preventing insurrection and the myriad of other costs would be astronomical. Just illogical.

In the end though I think we should prepare ourselves who knows what will happen, though saying to avoid them at all costs is silly.

Stephen Hawking is absolutely right. All you people saying he is wrong have logical flaws in your arguments.

If we exist, so do aliens. Mathematically, it is almost impossible to predict that no other life exists in a seemingly limitless universe. Based on historical findings dating back some 25,000+ years of cave paintings aborigines, clear evidence can be found that visitors have been here. There is a general suppression or denial of these facts in the present day. Anyone who thinks rationally can look at artifacts that pre-date our current era and depict antennas, space-suits, and rocket ships and accept that in order to draw/create these things, they must have been seen visually. How else could such bizarre artifacts exist?

On another note- the Earth has been around for several BILLION years. In this time period, it is inconceivable to say that aliens did not locate our planet and identify it as suitable for life. Fast-forward our civilization a few thousand years- you don't think we will be identifying dozens of suitable planets each year? So what does that say about other humanoid/self-conscious life forms that developed millions of years ago and have been searching the galaxy since? It says that if you give Earth humans one million years of civilization, we would be everywhere. This begs the question of - is our civilization a colonization of other humans from other worlds?

Open your eyes - we are only a few in a universe of many.

We have to start thinking about this logically. We all know that we have to Hubble Space Telescope that can see millions of galaxies and it has not found one ounce of intelligent life. That's fact. Why is this so hard to believe? Is it because our top scientist are so smart? Didn't they just lie to us about global warming? Why is it so hard to imagine that a loving caring supreme being created this universe? Why is it so easy to imagine that aliens want to destroy us? Which image is our entertainment mostly feeding us? I have one last question. What if all who think there is no God is wrong?

I certainly agree with the basic note of caution as advised by Professor Hawking mainly because I believe that space faring aliens would see the Human race as a potential threat.

Admittedly not at this present time but at some time in the foreseeable future (say 500 years or so) we may very well be capable of interstellar travel.

Assuming that the development of intelligent life is relatively rare, when one does start to develop it is certainly worth monitoring by the top dogs on the block (so to speak)

Just consider this...at the moment the human race is confined to one single home world and therefore it would be very easy for an advanced race to burn the entire planet and thus eliminate the potential threat before we can spread out and really become a significant factor.

Once we have developed interstellar travel we will spread throughout the galaxy in a relatively short space of time and at that point we are no longer able to be confined, controlled and conquered quite so easily.

Not having ever met these aliens we should ask ourselves the question: are there any assumptions that we can make about them in a general sense.

I believe there are three basic assumptions that we can make about any (and every) advanced civilization that we might ever encounter.

1] In any conflict between two civilizations, If it ever came to a point in which one civilization would have to decide which civilization should prevail, we can be reasonably sure that THEY would NOT choose US.

2] Naturally they will make the same assumption about US as it relates to THEM.

3]You do NOT get to be top dog in your particular food chain by being NICE.

We are at present many many years away from interstellar space travel and as such we would be very weak and vulnerable in any conflict at this stage in our technological development, of necessity any civilization that was capable of discovering us and making some kind of contact with us, would be far in advance of us... we would in short, make very easy pickings.

The aliens have only to observe our dealings with the lower animals on this planet and the planet itself; to know what we are capable of when it comes to dealing with other species and thus it is certainty not unreasonable for them to see us as a potential threat.

My advice to the men and women who make these decisions would be for us to keep very quiet, adopt a very low profile and certainly NOT I repeat NOT advertise our existence in the Galaxy ...at least until such time that we have spread out to many other worlds.

mike 13323 remarks:
"I believe that any alien civilization that comes across our planet will be very similar to our own race."

There is certainly no reason that this should not be the case.

The constraints on evolution imposed by the properties and relative abundancies of the chemical elements are among the factors making such an outcome almost inevitable.

This issue, together with related topics, is addressed in my recent work "Unusual Perspectives", the electronic edition of which can be downloaded for free from the eponymous website. The book also provides a more evidence-based and meaningful vision of the future than the trite standard fare.

I can lay this whole subject to rest quite easily. Our world represents a table top in the retuarant of the universe. The Alien species whoever they are .. sufficiently advanced in space flight to have interstellar travel, have just strolled in for a meal. There are no busboys so they brush the crumbs off the table. As im sure nost of you now realize Stephen is only pointing out that instead of trying to contact an alien species perhaps we had better go about learning covertly what can be learned lest we becomes crumbs on the table.

I suppose I should clarify some of my earlier statements.
Any alien species would be far advanced in comparison we are still stuck in the quagmire of physics rules designed to prevent free thinking and advance of civilization. ANY alien species who comes upon a less advanced people will do one of two things observe, and leave, or stay and conquer. We have heard many stories in the past of ties between civilzations and aliens influences. while we ultimately profited from those suposed ventures at the time slavery was the rule of the day. I might add that its the primitive peoples who are always enslaved not the advanced aliens. Mr Hawking only points out that when we do make contact only one thing is likely to happen. I believe he is correct.

As we further our biological status with that of technology, we have to assume that they have done the same; though in much complex form and matter. These "aliens" will be far superior to the human species in every way. There is nothing they will want other than knowledge and peace. It just so happens we are not a peaceful species and our extinction will take place rapidly if necessary.

He's loosing it... that is all.

Well in terms to the lightyears and them only seeing washington and jefferson think about this. If we have the Hubble telescope right now imagine what they got. a flying laboratory that travels at light speed and can observe right above us and look at us currently. maybe thats what that flying speck was in that nasa video when it was flying towards earth then the flash happened and it sped away. Aliens would have to go through alot of trouble to wipe us out,clean it up, put machines on earth to exacvate and retrieve, transport, and use. plus arent aliens 36 feet tall? imagine how much there machines need to work, one ship could probably go through earth in a year.

Enslavement could be possible but the work site we would be sent to could be our death, I.E. War of the worlds when all the aliens died due to co2 exposure. maybe aliens arent even that advanced as we are thinking they are. we think of them as a god status. THEY CAN DO EVERYTHING! what the hell do u think native tribesmen in south america think of the camera crews theyve come across and somewhat. oil wouldnt be a valuable resource in space either. the time it takes to burn and power it can unleash probably wouldnt be sufficent enough for light speed travel.

Colonizing other untouched planets is ideal. lets just hope it doesnt turn into pandorum

Lots of ill informed pipe dream wishing going on here. Those thinking that intelligence and advanced species would be more prone to not harming us are dreaming. The strong survive and the weak die out. There is no point in time in which an advanced, thinking species could be without pain, anger and war. Differing factions will exist in ANY group that allows free thinking. Any aliens that will have the capabilities to reach us will have machines designed during war time. They will be well acquainted with war and bloodshed and are not likely to immediately think of peace with primitives such as us.

You can say all you want about me basing my statements on human actions, but that is the way life works. Life is a struggle for existence. Whoever is top of the food chain got there not by making peace with the lesser creatures, but by dominating them.

Why should we bother making assumptions? It is doubtful that their alien race is exactly like us, or all of the aliens out there. We should just wait until they come, or go to them.

As for everyone that compared this to Columbus, the human race has matured from that point. Everyone who says we haven't matured, we have matured, just some nations more than others. We dropped an atomic bomb onto Japan to end WWII, which would have help the human race a lot more than eventually destroying ourselves with an endless war. Also, why would they be able to achieve interplanetary space travel but not have AI, the Internet, etc.

Funny that a 12 year old is one of the most sensible people commenting.

I am not worried about aliens. What troubles me is that it seems science reporting has gone the way of the tabloids. Steven Hawking did not say that "Aliens exist and we should avoid them at all costs". I saw the show. He did not say that. He just made some valid observations from a historical perspective
Science is exciting enough. There is no need to spice it up with misquotes. I guess it is all about selling more magazines. It is disappointing. Maybe I have outgrown Popsci but it seems like it used to be different.

I think Hawking is pointing out the obvious about humanity, we are pretty brutal and self-serving. However, there are also other motivations that drive us. We can also be selfless and humble. It's a mistake to project any of our characteristics on any being, presumably very different from us. While the possiblity that other life forms exist out "there" is a strong one ... we simply have no idea what form that would take, let alone that they would be driven by the same limbic system, lizard brain, we possess.

Is there a possibility that we, given our track record, are the one's being avoided like the plague?

It would have been easier for the aliens to come 4 or 5 hundred years ago when people didn't even know if our own world was flat? Let alone know anything about other worlds. It would be like stealing candy from a baby.

@hellkeeper6

yes, just like the story in Avator, Human study Navi and then take away all their resources.

I'm just wondering why aliens will come in the unknown future? why didn't they come 100 years ago?? If they come 100 years ago, the earth is unspoiled, they can take whatever they want. The reason they are coming to take away our resources probably is we don't cherish what we have.

I believe that the most valuable resource would be humans. We are intelligent enough to complete/understand tasks assigned and we have the capacity to destroy ourselves. It would be logical for an extraterrestrial species to force us into harvesting necessary bio-matter before we render it useless. Their initial intention is irrelevant. They would see us as irresponsible creatures and not have a choice but to do this.There would probably be a large group of humans declaring war against them because they are strange things from somewhere else and these people would act irrationally/emotionally as result.Or the aliens would observe our neglect towards the planet. Either way, they would then have no choice but to extinguish our race and take what they could before it was too late. Hawking makes a good point, only because we have planned this fate for ourselves. We must change. Not only because of this scenario, but because we are on the path to self-destruction.

-

Too late. We're here.

-

In his book "A Deepness In The Sky", the author Vernor Vinge offers another very interesting perspective on what extra-terrestrial life may be doing here if it exists. It is obviously enormously difficult to bring all the resources you need to build and maintain a civilization and its respective spacecraft across interstellar distances. It would be improbable or impossible to bring all the infrastructure needed to maintain your spacecraft and culture across these distances. It makes much more sense to visit systems with intelligent life, wait in a lurking strategy until the technology develops to the point where you can trade with the locals. In the meantime, you can observe and infiltrate the areas of the culture and technology that most benefits you, and perhaps influence the native culture into developing the things which you may have the greatest need for. Why would they bother in destroying us? It is much more to their benefit to use the greatest resource a planet can offer, our enormous manufacturing infrastructure. In the process, a visiting culture can cherry pick technology for ideas or items that they may not have developed themselves.

To obliterate a civilization for the sake of "taking over" is probably the last thing that a visiting culture would ever want.

Why do people keep saying things like “They will obviously see the way we neglect our planet”? We really haven’t neglected our planet. There’s really no possible way that we could have evolved to our stage in life without using the resources at hand. We haven’t destroyed our planet nor have we caused irreparable harm, the one thing that is for certain is that the Earth will be here even if we kill ourselves off. Any civilization that can travel light-years to our world will be able to see what stage we are at in our technological progress.
Once again, if a civilization is intelligent enough to discover interstellar travel they will obviously have any technology that we already have. I believe it is like a tech tree in a video game; you can’t get the better technologies without first acquiring the basic technologies. Also if they are coming to our planet for resources then they have already mined their planet to the point where almost every resource has been used; in that case why would they care how we treat our planet? However, judging by our own advancement they would have discovered renewable resources or at the least another way to obtain the resource without doing damage to their own planet. Either way they should be advanced enough to know what problems we are struggling with and to know what point we are at in our evolution.
Lastly, like I said before it would be totally illogical for any alien race to use humans as slaves. In any form.

Hmmm. Probably one of the most crucial debates for determining the longest-term survival of species on our planet. Even more important than if someone died in a car accident last night - but that typically gets more of our attention. We must start setting long-term worldwide goals and strategies that go beyond annual budgets or petty wars. The more focused we are on our long-term goals - the more likely we will achieve them, and the more rapidly we will achieve them.

We must look at this issue from the standpoint of probability. We cannot predict and thus prepare for only a single outcome. There is a bell-curve of likely outcomes from alien visitors ranging from them wanting to dramatically improve our standard of living -- to them wanting to completely destroy our planet (think kids pouring water down an ant hole - they might just nuke us as they passed by - for fun! They might play a game call Planet Bowling - where they point asteroids at us to see the explosion). They might already be here - and be so intelligent that they are residing at the center of our plant (or on our moon or another planet in our system) and simply observing us -- and occasionally messing with us (hey - let's let them think they invented nuclear weapons! See what happens!).

Since there is a bell-curve of likely outcomes, we would be extremely foolish not to prepare for at least the more likely outcomes as discussed above: (enslavement, hunting us for fun (think deer and elk), experimentation and resource depletion) - and possibly some of the more significant outcomes (the rapid and total destruction of our planet - for reasons never explained to us). And I strongly believe that Dr. Hawking has it quite right - you don't go bleating like a sheep (dinner) to the universe until you've got some very advanced defenses working - it's pretty stupid actually. And our next space launch might be to find that damn Voyager spacecraft carrying that inept gold record (which so carefully lays out -- to any potential alien species that might find it - our every weakness - including directions for how to find us) and destroys it before it is discovered.

We need to:

A) Set some intelligent long-term goals for our planet (as a single intelligent entity - a large unified strong tribe -- and not as a bunch of yapping pigmies constantly infighting -- such as:

- 1) being able to divert an incoming asteroid (by far the largest immediate threat to planetary survival); and

- 2) making sure we don't wipe out our planet by nuclear disaster (via war or energy production) -- or by killing ourselves by screwing up the very delicate environment which is totally crucial to our survival (before we have the technology to fix it); and

- 3) making sure we don't create a silicon-based life form (yeah - those "helpful" robots we're frantically creating) that, combined with our soon-to-be extremely networked planet and a little artificial intelligence we just invented (genetic algorithms) . . . yep - could be the very aliens that start treating us like cattle (yes - we may create the "aliens" ourselves folks.

Truly - is anyone really in charge of this planet? We need a lot more Hawking - as our leaders -- with a bigger view of things. We need to stop electing short-sighted leaders that think that bombing a bunch of Stone Age people living in total squalor (Afghanistan) is moving our species forward.

(Side note - is it just me - or has anyone else noticed that our new digital creations (software and robots) are very rapidly evolving and, with the help of our own greed (we'll all hire the $50/month robotic gardener over the $100 gardener - right?) will soon make us all unemployed? I'm talking 95% unemployment by 2025 folks -- engineers, doctors, and lawyers - all of us. I guess we can all get jobs quaintly serving drinks at the pool . . . .) Has anyone seen that FlexPicker robot thingy on YouTube -- it'll put 50 million factory workers on the streets. Hello - anyone there? Anyone thinking long-term -- beyond the next financial quarter? How are unemployed people going to buy the things the robots are making? Hello? Anyone?

From a "survival of the fittest" view -- which very likely applies throughout the universe -- I completely agree with Dr. Hawking. Any species that's killed ("survived") its way across 10,000 light years of nasty, unforgiving universe is really not something we want to mess with. It would likely be a very very brief exchange - and I'm betting the aliens win.

But how about this: Maybe they'll do what we should be immediately doing - learn somehow (soon) to truly control our digital newborns (robots and software) so they remain our tools and not become our masters -- and send THEM out multiple directions across the hostile universe - with the goal (yep - we need those) of increasing the chances of long-term human survival (scouting out additional / other places to live, becoming really good at diverting asteroids, etc.). Robots are perfect for the job - they can very economically tolerate a wide range of environments that humans just can't handle. They work really really hard - no sleeping, no breaks, no meals, no showers, etc. And they can do this for hundreds of years until they find what we want them to find, and do what we want them to, and then just send us images / videos - or better - let us virtually explore the universe. That makes sense to me. Send the robots first to colonize and prepare things - and only then send the much more resource-demanding humans.

And from an economic standpoint - that's probably what the aliens are doing too.

One last thought: Although survival of the fittest determines very brutally what exists today - it is interesting to note that all the cells within our body act in concert, in highly-focused fashion, toward the fixed goal of survival. Think "Darwinist battles between organisms" - yet "extremely cooperative complex systems within each organism". Humans seem to be more effective at survival than organisms with fewer cooperating cells. So . . . why not turn our entire planet into One Large Human? A single large, internally-cooperative organism. We might just create something very powerful -- and much more likely to support long-term human survival in the universe.

Nighty night. Don't let the asteroids bite.

- JAD

Of course - the robots we send out to explore the universe for hundreds of years . . . might just evolve and come back . . . as the aliens. Hmmm. They'll certainly know the way back to Earth.

We have a clock ticking with 280 million years left before we have to have intergalactic (not just interstellar) travel figured out. Cuz that's when our galaxy is expected to collide with Andromeda's.

I know Leo G. Carroll,
Was over a barrel . . . .

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there IS intelligent life. I'm also going to guess that when we see it, we initially won't recognize it for what it is. Aliens could look like rocks-we'd never know the difference until we landed on their planet, or vice versa. I also believe we won't destroy ourselves by war or overuse of resources.

Prepare ship... for ludicrous speed!

When I read the title I was thinking oh great Stephen Hawkings just lost all his health and is going crazy but I think he does actually make a great point. If theirs other species out there actively looking for other planets similar to us than they most likely would be interested in a planet with a climate like our own. And if they evolved in a way that's as greedy or more than us we could definitely regret looking for aliens...

My resource on health www.wisemensvitamins.com

From the comments I've read (though admittedly I haven't read most of them) While the "repeat of Columbus" argument is brought up, and has a valid point, I can defeat it with two words.

The first word is Japan.

The second word is China.
Both of these countries came into contact with a vastly technologically superior Europe, and as far as I can tell, CAME OUT ON TOP. We have greater similarity to them than to native Americans, since we've already reached an advanced civilization.

I actually have way too much time on my hands as I have read 99% of all coments. Most make really good points and really get me thinking.

Some indicate that at some technological benchmark aliens will suddenly reveal themselves to us. Most are saying interstellar travel or nuclear weapons. I disagree and say if they were going to step in and say "thats far enough" it would have to be the development of nanotechnology.

If I have nanotech at enough level I can disasemble anything you throw at me and assemble anything I need. Hence, robots are an archaic idea that would serve no purpose since complete manipulation of matter on a molecular level is possible.

No transformers or replicants that are macro devices. The real robots would be molecular scale and invisible to the naked eye. A superswarm of autonomus machines all networked together. A superswarem of nanotech could also repair tissue and organs at a molecular level so immortality is perfectly possible not to mention brain scanning and memory manipulation.

Conversley, if they have nanotech they do not worry about any of our weapons because they can disable any trigger to any weapon, make us forget that time they got caught or simply wipe us out in a matter of seconds (via single nanotech command to disasemble all matter above the celular level.) There would be no fight because we would never even see the enemy.

So, I see a couple of reasons why we are not kissing the boots of some alien race:

1)They ARE here and we have something of value to them. Maybe we just make them laugh or we are close to solving some otherwise obscure problem. Either way they would have to keep us from getting nanotech as that would reveal them once and for all.
2)They are not here and can't get here because space is much less hospitible than we predict and interstellar travel is as impossible as time travel. Life may be acutally so rare that interstellar interactions never occur.
3)Space is just so big that there just isn't enough time to explore it all. Seems likely but if they have nanotech the search would be fast because they could send nanoprobes throughout the universe searching for signs of life. They could simply have it conected to a quantam entangled particle and when life is detected it observes the particle which alerts them when the twin particle drops out of incoherence.

We could just as easliy wonder why we don't get visitors from the future or parallel dimensions as well. Of course, I believe there would be an infinity of parallel universes and perhaps crosstravel though time/probablity divergences that the only inhabbitable places of consious are where time/space/dimension travel are NEVER discoverd. Additionaly, the same could hold true for nanotech being always in the technology tree as the end of civilization. I am sure they said the same about the a-bomb but were still here.

Nah..."Mean Aliens out there?" Don't see how aliens could be any meaner than humans are to themselves.

-Space is all about destination, destination, destination for humans. (nuclearspace.com)

If aliens exsisdt, will they even be able to come to Earth? I mean, they'd probably breathe something other than our atmosphere...

Aliens: HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE (i.e. do not go in to "negotiations" with a GDUB attitude or you may very likely get your socks blown off)
(www.pilates-generation.com/)

I am sure we are screwed...think about it. we move into a new house and the back yard has ant hills the size of traffic cones in the back yard. What is our first reaction as a superior being among ants?? "Kill them ants!! They are not going to ruin my new home.".then it will be..."dang, now I have to clean up all their old mess!"

As we exist on Earth there is every possibility that Aliens exist in the other planets. As there is a huge universe sorrounding us, so we cannot rule out that option. But it is nice not to disturb them without knowing their power or else it may prove wrong for humans.
www.hindlist.com

What a bunch of mullarkey (sp?).....

And no, we have not come a long way from destroying other peoples (read the news once in a while and study history; think WARS). And we wouldn't want to destroy sub-human primate species???? We have all but done that. Again, read, study.

The Republicans are a prime example of a people who think that only they are good and true and they would like to destroy all others. Especially poor ones. They've already gotten rid of the 'middle'. Compare them to the fanatical muslims of the world. They both do their dirty deeds in the name of some god or other.

Grow up.

maybe they are already here and we just don't know it. It's not like we are the smartest. How was Australia populated eons ago? Prisoners and others banished from the homeland. Maybe we earthlings learned that little technique from somewhere else. Maybe we are the galaxy's Australia or even the Australia of the Universe. Not too far fetched.

(C) HUDSON.NET.NEWSWIRES (redistribution cleared with HNNEWS credit)



Hawking Alien Invasion Comment "Drive-By Science" Says R&D Engineer



by Clarence Cleary



The world has had time to digest the latest pontification from eminent physicist Stephen Hawking, but what they didn't know is that the man who claims to have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex is prone to make "quips" that are less science than they are satire. So says noted research and development engineer Marshall Barnes who has published a new article about Hawking's proclamation that we shouldn't broadcast signals into outer space for fear that alien armadas could arrive and be as about as good for us as Christopher Columbus was for the Native Americans.



(Read the full story at www.topix.com/forum/tech/space/T8QGD5N7VV5B8KNRC )

If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe it is wisely avoiding us. We are the black smear on the jewel of creation and we will face our own judegment day from which no other intelligence can rescue us and if such intellient life existed it would gladly stand by as we are rightly exterminated and our blot removed so that the purity of the universe is restored.

How can anyone say that Earth is not unique? We have yet to find another planet with life on it, or even find life living anywhere in space PERIOD. We have yet to even find a planet that is suitable for life to inhabit as is. There are so many parameters that have made life on Earth possible. You've got our proximity to the sun, too close we'd burn too far we'd freeze. The orbit and rotation of the earth allows for a global transfer of energy that sustains life...ocean currents which control the saline concentration and temperatures of the oceans, global transfer of water via weather patterns, temperature differential which is the engine that moves all that water vapor. The amount of land mass in relation to water covering the earth allow for a relatively even global temperature as water heats up 5 times slower than land. The magnetic field and atmosphere protect us from lethal doses of radiation and help to retain heat. The wobble of the earth in its orbit ensures the frozen lands of the poles stay there. You've got jupiter whose gravitational pull often diverts asteroids and meteors away from Earth, the moon not only helps also act as a shield from meteors and asteroids but causes tides to occur supporting intertidal ecosystems. Our sun, the type of sun it is and stage that it is at, its relatively young when talking about stars, it provides exactly what we need to survive. The very fact that we're in the outer 3rd part of our galaxy where there are safe levels of radiation and a minimal effect of the gravitational pull toward the center of the galaxy. If you ask me it looks like it was planned that way. With all those parameters being necessary to sustain life, at least carbon based life (of which is the only kind that we know exists), I am willing to bet there are no other life forms in the universe...no matter how many [insert ridiculously large number here] of planets there are out there. And the time and energy spent speculating about, looking for, preparing for, and fearing 'aliens' is wasted. Therefore I will not comment on what aliens would do if they did exist or anything of sort. It is extremely careless, imprudent and unprofessional for someone of Stephen Hawkings stature to tout these wild speculations in a tv show as though they were completely conceivable. Shame on you Mr. Hawking for not only wasting your intellect and time on such drivel but wasting ours. Have a good and God bless! Jim

I totally agree with Jimp's comment. Who says the earth is not unique? We have a suitable star, distance from it is perfect to allow life permitting plants and animals, including us to exist. In my view alien life is not abundant in the universe. This is an unique planet we are living on and it's complexity only points to an Intelligent Designer with infinite power and wisdom. The probability of life existing elsewhere in our universe is small if not impossible.

For all we know we could be the "advanced life form" who said humans didn't take earth from the previous inhabitors the so called "dinosaurs" and the metor shower wasn't at the time an advancement in the weapons at the time before we came to inhabit earth for our own advancement. Or whsays the advanced life form isent already hear or the notso advanced such as things u incounter through out the day certain animals. Could b the aliens that everyone is worried will kill us an rape us of our resources think about it. How do u know u are already not inslaved by these aliens I mean think of wgat u do for your pets every day feed them bath them cut there hair toe nails pamper them spoil them sounds like being inslaved by a less advanced being

that's too bad for people who support the "lets stay away from them alien's" idea. bye the way you Mr. hawkings you really believe in a mythical creature- littile green martion=today classified as aliens.Amzing mr.hawkings reasons like a littile two year old littile boy who believies santa claus is real!! and at the same time gets nobel prizes,let me restate the fact that he's older than fifty years old..........i still respect your work Mr. hawkings.

"Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans,"

All earth links aren't Same if i were coloumbus still America will be belong to them. And the world will be more green and less war.