In recent months, world-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has spoken out about alien life.
Now, the ‘smartest man’ on Earth has returned to speak about Alien civilizations, especially those who could potentially be smarter and more advanced than we are.
In his new half-hour program entitled Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, the astrophysicist makes a tour of the universe aboard an imaginary ship, reaching the exoplanet Gliese 832c.
In Favorite places, Commander Stephen Hawking pilots his space ship the SS Hawking on the journey of a lifetime, zooming from black holes to the Big Bang, Saturn to Santa Barbara. After all, why should astronauts have all the fun?
Exoplanet Gliese 832c considered a super-Earth, is located just 16 light years away and is closely followed by Breakthrough, an ambitious project supported by Hawking to search the cosmos for signs of alien life and then send small spacecraft to alien solar systems with potentially habitable planets.
“If intelligent life has evolved (on Gliese 832c), we should be able to hear it,” he says while hovering over the exoplanet in the animated “U.S.S. Hawking.”
“One day we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well.”
It’s not surprising. It’s something that Hawking has said on other occasions.
In fact, he has used the same metaphor in other television programs in which he participated.
However, that concern seems to not prevent the astrophysicist from being excited about finding alien life, whether it is intelligent or not, in other parts of the universe.
Interestingly, many people seem to disagree with Stephen Hawking when it comes to searching for alien life.
Not all share the notion that we should try to hide from aliens.
Doug Vakoch, president of METI International (dedicated to researching, composing and sending messages from Earth to potential alien civilizations), recently explained that “it is too late to hide in the universe.”
Why? Simply put we ‘compose’ to many tell-tale signs. It turns out that for over a century we have been transmitting radio signals, television signals, satellites and other traits of a technologically advanced civilization which are like a bonfire for alien scientists who just like us, could be studying the universe in hopes of finding other civilizations out there.
But… what happens if aliens already beat us to it and have found earth even before our civilization became technologically advanced?
Based on various pieces of evidence both of the past and present, contemporary researchers have highlighted the possibility that we have been, and are being visited by advanced alien civilizations.
This leads to the obvious question of why an open contact has not been established yet.
Experts like Vakoch have concluded that it is possible that aliens are waiting for a clear and concise sign by our species that we are ready to communicate with them openly.
Check out Stephen Hawking’s Favorite places and stay tuned for more.
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