Hawking: Avoid contact with aliens, they could be hazardous to your health

SHOOT: It does seem to make sense that aliens would have the same intentions and modus operandi as colonial powers. They'd have better technology, and they'd be on the hunt, or at least on the lookout for something precious, some resource that they could use. And they wouldn't really respect the present 'savage/low life form' consumers either as a threat against themselves or beyond a possible desire to place one or two specimens in a zoo.

clipped from news.yahoo.com LONDON (AFP) – Aliens may exist but mankind should avoid contact with them as the consequences could be devastating, British scientist Stephen Hawking warned Sunday. "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. 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."