Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens

Mr Hawking says it is 'perfectly rational' to believe in aliens

Aliens almost certainly exist but humans should avoid making contact, Professor Stephen Hawking has warned.

In a series for the Discovery Channel the renowned astrophysicist said it was "perfectly rational" to assume intelligent life exists elsewhere.

But he warned that aliens might simply raid Earth for resources, then move on.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said.

Prof Hawking thinks that, rather than actively trying to communicate with extra-terrestrials, humans should do everything possible to avoid contact.

He explained: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like Stephen Hawking

In the past probes have been sent into space with engravings of human on board and diagrams showing the location of our planet.

Radio beams have been fired into space in the hope of reaching alien civilisations.

Prof Hawking said: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational.

"The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

The programme envisages numerous alien species including two-legged herbivores and yellow, lizard-like predators.

But Prof Hawking conceded most life elsewhere in the universe is likely to consist of simple microbes.

In the recent BBC series Wonders of the Solar System, Professor Brian Cox, a physicist from the University of Manchester, also suggested life may exist elsewhere within our solar system.

He said organisms could be present under the ice sheet that envelops Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

Professor Cox added: "Closer to home, the evidence that life could exist on Mars is growing.

"We will only know for sure when the next generation of spacecraft, fine-tuned to search for life, are launched to the moons of Jupiter and the arid plains of Mars in the coming decades."

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Commentary

Statistically speaking, no one knows the probability of life on other planets and every model tried to justify such a claim has no evidence to back it's claim.

Many of the inputs in these models are, to be blunt, guesses. So yes when you input a guess, instead of scientific data, you get a weak answer.

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I've said this a million times in real life and I'll say it again:

"It's not about how many planets or how much space there is in our universe. Space cannot support life, not all planets can support life. It's about how many potential planets are out there that can support life.

Stars cannot support life, galaxies cannot support life. Only potential planets."

So when you tell me there are a trillion planets, for instance, and that the large amount of them means there must be life, I laugh.

There is no correlation or even bell curve between total planets and planets that are inhabitable. No one knows how many Earth's there are, and so far we have yet to find even 1 Earth, not that we've looked that far anyways.

The fact of the matter is:

• 1) If Earth was just 5% closer or 5% further from the sun, we wouldn't be here right now.
• 2) If Earth was twice as large, we wouldn't be here right now.
• 3) If Earth had no moon, we wouldn't be here right now
• 4) If Earth's Sun was much bigger, we wouldn't be here right now
• 5) If Earth lacked water, we wouldn't be here right now.
  

There are literally 100's of reasons why Humans might not have made it on earth, and yet you see that our world is like the Goldilocks effect: not too big, not too small, but just right.

Such worlds, are not inevitable Stephan Hawking. Such worlds have never been statistically computed to a definitive scientific standard. Such worlds have never been documented.

Yet you, as a scientist, a man of observation, are quick to jump to an insane conclusion of Aliens being inevitable?

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There may be a chance that microbes on another planet are indeed inevitable, but no such evidence, that can withstand scientific scrutiny, has ever been documented.

I will then act as scientists should on the subject, and not jump to conclusions. It's this jumping to conclusions that leads to a scientists downfall.