Stephen Hawking Says Alien Contact Could Be Devastating For Earth

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by Michael dEstries April 30, 2010
Categories: Film/TV
Tags: .

independence day movie

As if we don’t have enough to worry about, acclaimed professor Stephen Hawking says that all of our efforts to search and contact aliens could ultimately end in our own destruction.

Like something out of the movie Independence Day, Hawking tells in his new series “Into the Universe” on Discovery Channel how space-traveling extraterrestrials may be more interested in our resources than our friendship. “If intelligent alien life forms do exist out in the vastness of the space, they might not be the friendly cosmic neighbours the people of Earth are looking for,” he says. “Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach,” Hawking said. “If so, it makes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits would be?”

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” Hawking said in the new documentary. “I imagine they might exist in massive ships … having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

Since calling Hawkings a ‘genius’ is an understatement, such warnings that aliens may be more interested in kicking our asses than eating Reese’s Pieces should definitely be heeded. Nevertheless, any efforts to curtail our search for intelligent life may be damned by the millions of signals already leaked into space from our satellites, radar, radios, and televisions. Hell, we even sent a recording of The Beatles “Across the Universe” in 2008 towards the star Polaris. What’s to say that they won’t demand the entire “Let It Be” album — and all of our fresh water — as a result?

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →
  • Whoever…

    Yeah right…

    They’re already here… or so some say!

    “I imagine they might exist in massive ships … having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

    V (visitors) anyone?

  • Dan C

    Well, we should be worried. I’m sure that there’s not too many planets like ours. Our’s is a gem and here we are, suppositely an intelligent species constantly warring amoungst ourselves. At no time in our history have we been war free. Now we are aggresively distroying the Earth through our pollution and greed. Even if we are being observed and have been through human history, by an alien race, how much longer will they stand by and watch the destruction of the this gem of a planet, our Earth?

  • Donny

    If alien wanted to conquer us, they would have done it a long time ago..thank god they’re highly spiritually elevated. We will catch up soon though.

  • http://Starseeds.Net Yshatar

    I rather take my chances with ETs….we are a nation that rapes and kills 6 month old babies, waterbords people just for the fun of it….billions upon billions go missing every second on our planet, we have serial killers, kidnappers, people who pay to torture others, mothers who after giving birth don’t want they’re babies and so they put them in the microwave or oven, cults that brainwash people to be servants, people who skin animals alive or burn them alive….what can ETs do to us that we have not done to ourselves?

    • Wendy

      Heartbreakingly, I agree with all that you’ve said. Our species is a total embarassment. We have become blinded by greed and power and forgotten our purpose. We are supposed to be caretakers but we have sunk to being destroyers of all that is good and beautiful.
      What a waste….

      • http://www.veganjapan.net herwin

        :-P

    • Jason

      Still… just because we’ve done it doesn’t mean that I would want an alien race doing it in addition. There’s still a lot of good in this world. I doubt that any species in the universe is perfect and without criminals.

      But i do agree that some stuff I see in the news these days sicken me.

    • chuck

      how do we know is not them the very same people who commit this negative doing you mention, or sugested people or manipulated people and governments to do so, for crying out loud, we have enslaved ourselves since the beginning of times, why do I have to work for a low wage so somebody get richer by the day? why can´t I be free and have all the time I want to spend with my family, sons, friends, you see everywhere and is nothing but rules, regulations, taxes, police who beat and crack open your skull just because they are the LAW? The law of who, why spend a third of your life waiting in a car that moves slower than you walking just to do all of the above mentioned.
      Is the system they have built all around us, the film matrix is not so untrue, is just a different way to see it, we are inmersed in this matrix like never ending rat race life style (if can be called life style)people we are meant to be free to be happy to be ourselves, not a suit, noy an uniform, not a name tag…

    • Jessica

      Sadly, this is very true. Perhaps, the intelligent, extraterrestrial species out there are just watching us, delightfully entertained at our complete will to sacrifice our fellow beings for greed. If they were planning on killing us, I presume they stopped — we’re already doing that ourselves. That’s why I find it so funny how some people hate environmentalists and such because they “place trees above human lives.” Perhaps some eco-terrorists do, but not environmentalists (at least none that I’ve heard of). By saving a tree, we’re not just saving a tree, we’re saving our home — our home is planet earth. I think that’s what people don’t comprehend — it’s not “just” a polluted river, or “just” a destroyed ecosystem; it’s OUR river and OUR ecosystem because we’re all inhabitants of this beautiful planet. We shouldn’t destroy it or it’s species, unnecessarily.

  • http://www.veganjapan.net herwin

    since spaceships have limited space and limited resources one would argue and expect that these aliens also have the most economic form of cultivating their food. That means no waisteful producing of meat but growing vegetables and fruits, and mushrooms. In other words logic dictates that they are Vegans and grow their food organically.

    Since the Beatles are very populair with veggies, you sure can bet ten bucks that these veggie aliens are coming for the whole album ! :-P

    Mr Hawkings can tell nice things about the universe and maths, ok, but mr Hawkings isnt a vegetarian or vegan so his genius mind obviously never did see the importance of thinking about our fellow earthlings and that his daily meat intake means undeserved death and cruelty to our fellow earthlings. I would say his genius is very one way limited and only seem to cover limited areas.

    • joe

      well, i always kinda though that for one.

      but maybe they already have ships that have balanced ecotsystems so they wont need to.(over optomism)

      and really, have a small number of animals which eat the nfood thats not human(or inthis case alien) quality would probally be better.

      and if they are watching all we send out, all the futuristic movies weve made might confuse them. like what if thay watched star wars and though we we colonists from that galaxy? that might keep them away.

      on the flip side, if they only see the medeival movies and think we only have bow and arrows and swords..well, we might be in for a bit of trouble.

      • http://blog.babyganics.com Linda

        whoa! I can’t stop laughing with that idea about Star Wars. Lol

    • Steven

      Please, give me a break! Trying to criticize Stephen Hawkings because he isn’t a vegan is sickening! Saying that alien beings must be vegans is sooooo closed minded! Please stop bashing people because they are not vegans.

      Alien beings may not even have to worry about food. If they are advanced enough to somehow travel faster than the speed of light, which is really the only possible way they can ever come in to contact with us, unless by some crazy chance, then I would think they would be able to survive off stuff that we wouldn’t even consider food. They probably could just inject some kind of substance in to their bloodstream, if they even have a bloodstream, and survive off that. To use this as another lame way to argue for vegetarianism is absurd!

      Just because people eat a chicken sandwich once in a while doesn’t make them stupid or a criminal. Stop treating them as such. You fit the vegan stereotype too much, and are actually turning meat eaters off from even considering vegetarianism because of your stupidity.

      • http://blog.babyganics.com Linds

        Lol. I’m vegetarian, Steven, but I seriously thought Herwin’s comment above was just plain silly. It’s actually quite comedic, whether he intended it or not :D

  • nick

    No intelligent life form would demand the complete “Let It be” LP so horribly produced by Phil Spector.
    It would be “Abbey Road” if they had ears.

    • Jason

      Abbey Road??? Are you trying to get our species killed? If anyone put out a copy of ‘abbey road’ pray that the aliens do NOT have ears!

  • http://blog.babyganics.com/ Joe

    If there is alien life-forms in our universe, I would say that there is little chance that they will be friendly because if they wanted to become friends with humans, they will come down here and say “Hello!”. If they exist, maybe they are still waiting for the right time to invade our planet. That is just my perception about the matter. Everyone is invited to speculate right?

    • Steven

      Actually, as they watch us, they make like some of us and want to keep us as pets or integrate them in to their civilization. This may be why many theories and religions indicate that there will be a “chosen” set of people that will survive some kind of immense event for humankind.

      They may like the Beatles, and while some of you joke around about that, it’s actually very important. If they are highly advanced, then they, like us, may have a high appreciation for art and entertainment.

      Which is why we must destroy Hollywood and MTV. Because they are ruining the art of entertainment, and if it’s ruined enough, it may piss off the aliens and they may destroy us.

      • http://blog.babyganics.com Joe

        Lol @ Hollywood and MTV.

        I think if someone needs to be worried about somebody else, Aliens should be the ones worried about us.

        I can’t see why the Avatar plot can’t come true in the future. Afterall, humanity’s greed and lust for power is really outstanding.

        We need only see how we are destroying the lives our fellow humans to see what we can do to aliens who happen to have a less advanced form of technology.

        Let’s just pray they don’t develop laser blasters before us though..

  • inator99

    Dont worry, steven will invent a super powerful forcefield to protect earth from invaders!

  • Ken

    Those aliens will come all right, and soon. Stephen Hawking, while admittedly not a vegan, is correct….they will be resource hogs.

    Fortunately, Earth has one contingency in an unlikely potential alliance…. the state of Texas, Alberta-Canada, Israel, and north Germany. Since there are less vegetarians in these locations, that means at least some aggressive meat-eating males are left.

    Ironically, these savages would apply all the useless fighting and destruction everyone is rightly whining about to save the planet.

    Then there would be peace.

    Funny huh?

    • Jessica

      You’re right. After all, what better way to combat intelligent alien life-forms than with meat-eating, aggressive males?

      Advanced weaponry? Science? Communication? No way! Brute force is the way to go! I hope you at least possess the intelligence to realize that what I just wrote is sarcasm.

      I find it entertaining how you just implied that vegetarian males are less aggressive (which, I believe, you find to be a bad thing), yet you also called meat-eating males savages. You either are very confused or have awful grammatical skills.

  • Jessica

    That’s probably true. However, assuming that these alien species have a higher intelligence than human beings and they want our resources, I think their attacks would be more subtle. If they were to invade our planet with full-force, fighting, and other forms of physical violence, they would most likely harm our resources. Unless they had some sort of “green” warfare, their weapons (and ours) would taint our resources. I think they’d first study our history, current events, and then our anatomy. They’d probably study a couple of people, maybe do experiments. I’m guessing they’d want to breed with us or mix our DNA with theirs and raise hybrid babies. This way, when the baby looked human enough (it would, however, have alien values and ideals), it could enter society. Once it did, it would raise to positions of power (politicians, doctors, lawyers, and anyone else who controls your fate and well-being).

    They’d get rid of us in a more cunning manner. Think about it — if they’re doctors, all it would take is a misdiagnosis and one person is dead. If their kind are reporters or anyone else in the media, they’d control our flow of information, and we would have no clue as to what’s going on on our planet. Eventually the human species would die out, and they’d be able to inhabit our planet with no loss on their side. If all the stories about alien abductions/breeding are true, then it’s probably already happening.

  • Paula

    Aliens are alreay here on earth. Alien greys are holograming themselves down to earth to people from their space crafts. The reptilians aliens are here and have been for years as they are inside the human beings and they are very unpredicatable people and cannot ever be trusted. Their traits are no compassion & no love. Should you think someone is one think of love and blow your breath towards them and this creates them to get agitated and also may start changing into reptilian in front of you. My friend has one inside him and he is told that their will be a time that they will be required to take over control as man is on his way to destruction of our planet. Looking at the haarp war that is happening to many countries weather and disasters proves their is some sick people trying to control earth so Im looking forward to some outside intervention with weapons beyond human knowledge

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