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
May not be as nice as she looks
“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,” said the astrophysicist in a new television series, according to British media reports. The programmes depict an imagined universe featuring alien life forms in huge spaceships on the hunt for resources after draining their own planet dry.
“Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach,” warned Hawking.
The doomsday scenario is suggested in the series “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking on the Discovery Channel, which began airing in the United States on Sunday. On the probability of alien life existing, he says: “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.”
Glowing squid-like creatures, herds of herbivores that can hang onto a cliff face and bright yellow predators that kill their prey with stinging tails are among the creatures that stalk the scientist's fantastical cosmos.
Mankind has already made a number of attempts to contact extraterrestrial civilisations.
In 2008, American space agency NASA beamed the Beatles song “Across the Universe” into deep space to send a message of peace to any alien that happens to be in the region of Polaris also known as the North Star in 2439.
But the history of humanity's efforts to contact aliens stretches back some years.
The US probes Pioneer 10 and 11 were launched in 1972 and 1973 bearing plaques of a naked man and woman and symbols seeking to convey the positions of the Earth and the Sun.
Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977, each carry a gold-plated copper phonogram disk with recordings of sounds and images on Earth.
With acknowledgements to AFP and Sunday Times.
Comments
Apr 26 2010 11:05:56 AMAbdulhalli Shittu
Da aliens are going to take this country soon, they will enslave all the native idiots here to wash their dirty space ships and toilets now and to change da oil of the space ship engines and they like recycling so you guys will have to drink da old oil now - ROTFLOL - HAHAHAHA!!!!
Apr 26 2010 11:10:35 AM
TheVillageBoy_with a diploma
Abdulhalli Shittu
Your idiocy knows no bounds.
Just because Nigeria has been taken over by islamic corrupt invisible idiots, you also think that the land of the brave, the continent's capital, SA my land, will too be taken by the people of your kind. How so moronic.
Apr 26 2010 11:18:14 AM
Abdulhalli Shittu
Apr 26 2010 11:10:35 AM
TheVillageBoy_with a diploma
Your idiocy knows no bounds.
Just because Nigeria has been taken over by islamic corrupt invisible idiots, you also think that the land of the brave, the continent's capital, SA my land, will too be taken by the people of your kind. How so moronic.
I think people should primarily use the online comment service to make value-added comments about the article in question and not as a digital soapbox for talking nonsense and taking cheap shots at one another.
Regarding Hawking's hypothesis, statistically there is a possibility of there being other intelligent life in the universe, but their chances of getting to us must be slim.
Indeed if they are on their way to us they must have set off many millions of years ago. Even if they set off from the closest solar system at the very earliest beginnings of mankind, i.e. 5 million years ago, they would still take another 12 million years to get here travelling at Mach 5 (about 6 000 km/hour).
But the universe is so vast that if aliens are on their way here, then they probably are homing in on a man-made signal. Man only started making these kind of signals in the last couple of centuries, so we still have got another 17 million years for the aliens to reach us.
Although there is a history of longevity in my family I don't think that I'll be lucky enough to see the aliens.
Then if I do live long enough or my theory is wrong and they do appear on or near earth sooner than I thought possible, then it will be interesting to see how the global earth defence forces deal with these aliens.
My guess is that unless they surprise us, or they are made of something completely alien to us (no pun intended) then some high-explosive, thermo-nuclear or even fuel air weapon will vapourise them very quickly.
If these aliens are an aggressive lot, it'll be a kind of pleasure to see a real war without civilian or even human casualties. Unless they get us first.
Even if these clever aliens managed to sneak up on us without anything sensing them, if I found a couple of glowing squid-like creatures, herds of herbivores that can hang onto a cliff face or bright yellow predators that kill their prey with stinging tails milling about inside or outside the security fence, I'd give them all 20 rounds of SSG from the 12-gauge Protector and Atis fire weapons.
I wonder if the herbivores might make good biltong or droe wors?
Even a fillet or rump.
Then I would use the .308 or .223 to minimise flesh damage.
Surely there must be some flesh, even if a bit squidgy or bony?
I don't suppose CapeNature would require a hunting licence or impose a hunting season or bag limit on alien herbivores.
I think it'll be worth the wait.
Even if one has to die in the War of the Worlds in 17 million years time.
Maybe the SADF or SANDF will eventually award me my Pro Patria (with Bar).