A chilling warning from late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has once again re-emerged after claims a mysterious 'alien spaceship' could be set to change course towards Earth.
If you've been following the story of 3I/ATLAS, an comet currently soaring behind the sun, you'll know it's been puzzling scientists ever since it was first spotted in July.
Despite NASA repeatedly suggesting the object is almost certainly a comet from another solar system, its unusual behaviour has left many people doubtful, including one Harvard physicist.
Avi Loeb has refused to rule out the idea the object could in fact be some kind of alien ship, even going as far as suggesting it could be 'potentially hostile', intentionally hurtling towards Earth.
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“I believe that we need an international organisation that will make policy decisions about such an object,” he recently said, while calling on world leaders to take the potential threat seriously.
"We are worried about existential threats from artificial intelligence, from global climate change, from an asteroid impact, but we never discuss alien technology."
Loeb is worried because 3I/ATLAS is currently at its closest distance to the sun (around 203 million kilometres away), which would be the perfect time for it to brake, accelerate or release probes.
It's also tricky as, because it's hidden behind the sun, on Earth we can't see what it's up to - and Loeb went so far as to claim this might be intentional.
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He's worried a hostile alien threat could have disguised their ship as a comet so we wouldn't know the truth until it's too late.
He wrote: "The fundamental question is whether 3I/ATLAS is a Trojan Horse with the external appearance of a natural comet but carrying a potential threat in its interior."
Noting 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the sun shortly before Halloween, he continued: "Is 3I/ATLAS wearing a costume of a comet or is it a truly icy rock of natural origin?"
All pretty scary stuff, and many people are thinking back to the worries once raised by Hawking when talking about the potential for an alien invasion back in 2010.
During a 2010 episode of Into the Universe, he said: "If aliens ever visit us, then outcome might be similar to when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.
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"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet."
The Cambridge researcher believed that an advanced alien civilisation capable of cruising through the cosmos would've likely have exhausted the materials on their own planet, and be on the lookout for other plants to colonise for resources or move to.
This wasn't the only time which Hawking warned against reaching out to alien civilisations, with the 76-year-old drawing a line between establishing that other planetary civilisations exist and offering an olive branch.
Hawking's warnings relate to a theory known as the 'dark forest hypothesis'.
'Dark forest hypothesis' explained
The 'dark forest hypothesis' suggests that several alien civilisations are out there, however no one wants to be the first to put themselves forward due to fears of alerting even more advanced civilisations to their location.
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Which means if aliens are out there and beginning to make themselves known, we shouldn't be welcoming them to Earth with open arms, unless we want to live out a War of the Worlds type scenario.
The name of the theory comes from the title of a novel by Liu Cixin, which tells the story of the various bad things that happen once humanity successfully establishes contact with an alien civilisation.
Before we get too carried away, most experts do not think 3I/ATLAS poses any threat.
NASA writes on its website: "Comet 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will remain far away. The closest it will approach our planet is about 1.8 astronomical units (about 170 million miles, or 270 million kilometers)."
Topics: Science, NASA, Stephen Hawking, Space
Emma Rosemurgey