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Stephen Hawking, for One, Does Not Welcome Our Potential Alien Overlords

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking warns that the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence may attract dangerous alien civilizations.

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In a half-century of hunting, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has turned up nary a whisper from E.T. But for renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, the non-success of SETI and others who hope to contact alien life might be for the best: Aliens, he says, might not like us. Hawking caused waves with this suggestion in his new Discovery Channel special, which debuted last night. He has long believed that extraterrestrial life exists, simply because of the sheer vastness of the universe. While much of what's out there might be simple microbial life, there may indeed be new civilizations far more advanced than our own. But that doesn't mean they'll be friendly. Said Hawking:

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from ...

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