Stephen Hawking believes aliens would ‘conquer and colonise’

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant theoretical physicist, has always believed that humans might not be alone in the universe, but he’s warning against trying to contact any aliens we might come across.

“Meeting an advanced civilisation could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus,” Hawking says in the documentary, Stephen Hawking’s Favourite Places. “That didn’t turn out so well.”

The debate about the possibility of alien life has been raging for years, but with gradual technological advancement, the worry of meeting extra-terrestrials will only continue to grow.   

Hawking believes, for example, that planet Gliese 832c, which came to our attention in 2014, could potentially host alien life.

It does, after all, have relatively similar conditions to Earth; it’s even been described as inhabitable for humans, which leads to another of Hawking’s concerns: that we will one day need to vacate Earth due to the effects of global warming and seek refuge on another planet.

“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it’s one we can prevent if we act now,” Hawking told BBC earlier this month. 

“We’re close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible,” he continued, adding that “inbuilt greed and aggression” may prevent humans from being able to stop the planet from crossing that line.

Hawking also believes that President Donald Trump’s decision to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement was ill-advised.

“Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”

Do you think Stephen Hawking is right to be worried about our future, or is he blowing it out of proportion?