Stephen Hawking Gives Out Another Warning Against Contacting Aliens

Stephen Hawking has recently warned humanity against contacting aliens or inviting them to our planet. This is the second such reminder that the celebrated physicist has issued out against the perils of contacting extraterrestrial life or alerting them to our presence in the solar system.

The warning came in a half hour online film 'Stephen Hawking's favorite places', where the physicist talks about travelling to a potentially habitable exoplanet located 16 light years away. As per Hawking, the planet called Gliese 832c could host intelligent life.  

Hawking stated that we should be able to detect if intelligent life has evolved on Gliese 832c, and one day in the future could also receive a signal from it or a similar exoplanet. However, humanity, in turn, should be cautious about answering back because the situation of meeting an advanced civilization would be similar to the encounter between Christopher Columbus and Native Americans, which did not turn out well for the latter.

This is not the first time that Stephen Hawking has issued a warning against exposing our presence to aliens. According to the physicist, advanced aliens are like nomads who are on the lookout for planets to conquer and colonize. If such extraterrestrials reach our planet, they can exploit the earth and harvest its resources to build more spaceships, with which they can go on to other worlds in search of more places to exploit.

Furthermore, as per Hawking, in their quest to harvest our planet, aliens could also wipe out humanity just like a colony of ants. The scientist has previously also mentioned that in human history, more advanced cultures have mistreated and massacred those who were less technologically advanced, so why would aliens be any different. Incidentally, Gliese 832c is a super-Earth which is five times as big as Earth and is located in the habitable zone of its star, which makes it at the right distance for liquid water to occur on its surface, a phenomenon that is believed to be a precursor of life.