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Famous British physicist Stephen Hawking recently issued a warning, stating that extraterrestrial beings may indeed exist, but contact with them could lead to catastrophic consequences for humanity. In the Discovery Channel's new documentary *Journey into Space with Stephen Hawking*, Hawking pointed out that extraterrestrial beings, after depleting the resources on their own planets, would board large spaceships to plunder resources from any planet they could reach, turning those planets into their colonies. If extraterrestrial beings were to visit Earth, it would be akin to the devastation brought by Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. At 68, Hawking discussed his latest thoughts on extraterrestrial life in the universe in the documentary. He believes that extraterrestrial life almost certainly exists in many other places in the universe—not only on planets but potentially even in the centers of stars or floating in the vast expanse between planets. Hawking believes the theoretical basis for the existence of extraterrestrial beings is extraordinarily "simple." He pointed out that there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars. In such a vast space, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved. "I think, purely from a mathematical perspective, the sheer magnitude of these numbers alone makes the idea of extraterrestrial life completely reasonable. The real challenge is to discover what extraterrestrial beings actually look like." The documentary *Journey into Space with Stephen Hawking* took over three years to produce, during which Hawking insisted on making significant revisions to the script multiple times. Discovery executive producer John Smithson said: "He wanted to create a program that could entertain both the general public and the scientific community. Given its complexity, this was a very challenging task." (Introduction courtesy of Dexter)