Stephen Hawking's Alien Doomsday Warning Gains Attention as Comet 3I/ATLAS Nears Earth

Stephen Hawking famously warned against actively seeking contact with extraterrestrial life, cautioning that advanced alien civilizations could pose a grave threat to humanity, drawing parallels to historical encounters between advanced and primitive human societies that ended disastrously. He advocated for passive listening methods, such as projects like Breakthrough Listen, rather than broadcasting our presence, to avoid attracting potentially hostile beings. This cautionary stance has resurfaced amid recent studies on the so-called 'intelligence trap,' which suggests that overconfidence in contacting alien life could invite destruction by malevolent species. The concern has intensified following Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb's hypothesis that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, currently passing through our solar system, might be an artificially created probe, raising fears of a possible hostile encounter. Hawking’s warnings underscore the risk that advanced extraterrestrials may see Earth as a resource to exploit rather than a partner, emphasizing the need for humanity to proceed with caution in its search for intelligent life. These concerns have gained renewed attention as scientists continue to study 3I/ATLAS’s unusual trajectory near Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.