British physicist Stephen Hawking is all smiles after his flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
British physicist Stephen Hawking is all smiles after his flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida April 26, 2007. Hawking took a flight on Thursday that gave the renowned scientist, who is confined to a wheelchair, a taste of the weightlessness of space. Reuters/Charles W Luzier

In a recent interview, British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that he is a believer of aliens but doesn't believe in God. He said that for our species to be immortal, the best hope is space.

According to a Web site, Breathecast.com, in a documentary with the title 'Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking', he claimed that alien forms exist. He also believed that it would be too risky to communicate with them.

He imagined that the aliens might exist in massive ships, using up all resources of their home planet. He believed that these advanced aliens could become nomads and look towards conquering and colonising the planets that were of reach to them.

He said that he did not expect any divine intervention to happen. But he expected intervention from the alien worlds if human beings weren't careful enough.

He said that the visit from the aliens would be similar to that of Christopher Columbus showing up in the New World. He explained that his arrival didn't work out too well for the Native Americans.

Hawking had thrown around hints in the past that he wasn't religious. He added a level of mystery during his interview with BBC in 2007 by saying that he was "not religious in the normal sense."

In an interview with journalist Pablo Juaregui from the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, he said that before one understood science, it was natural to believe that the universe was created by God. The article by Pablo was a lead-up for the Starmus Festival taking place in the Canary Islands.

He continues that science offered a more convincing explanation and that his theories about the origin of the universe did not support that the world was created by a God. He said that religion believed in miracles which wasn't compatible with science. He confirmed that he was an atheist.

In 2011, he had mentioned to The Guardian that heaven or the afterlife was something that he did not believe in. He called it a fairy story that was for people who were afraid of the dark.

Hawking suffers from amylotrophic lateral sclerosis, the same disease for which the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had taken the social media by storm. Hawking communicated through a computer. The computer is controlled by the twitches of his cheek.