space buff's intervention comes after claims by US Congressman Andre Carson’s that UFOs are “a potential national security threat”.But speaking on the BBC's Sunday Morning show, the professor and former D Ream member offered a more bleak outlook to those wanting to seek out extraterrestrial life.Asked if there was a chance intelligent lifeforms had found their way to Earth, he replied: “If you forced me to guess, I would say there may be microbes all over the place, that’s why we’re looking for life on Mars, for example."But in terms of intelligence, one thing to think about, the origin of life on Earth, it looks like we have good evidence life was present 3.8 billion years ago and the first civilisation to appear on Earth was about now, give or take."“So it took the best part of four billion years to go from the origin of life on Earth to a civilisation.
