PARIS: The fate of humanity if aliens were to discover Earth with its balmy climate and bountiful resources, has long been a concern for scientists — many of whom fear the worst.

Physicist Stephen Hawking is among those to have warned that ET and his friends may be much more intelligent than us, and may view human beings as little more than troublesome bugs.

Now a duo of astronomers from Columbia University in New York have proposed an innovative method to hide our planet from prying extraterrestrial eyes — using massive lasers.

And it’s not a joke, they say.

Alien scientists, argued David Kipping and Alex Teachey, may be trying to find habitable planets using the same technique we do — searching for a slight dip in light when a planet “transits” between the star it orbits and the telescopes watching it.

Planets do not emit their own light and, if they were visible to the naked eye, would appear as dark dots tracking across their bright stars.

But these exoplanets are too far away to see, and all our telescopes can pick up is a small decrease in the starlight emitted during transit.

If aliens spot us using this technique, Earth would be a logical target for alien settlement.

It orbits within the so-called “habitable zone” — not too close nor too far from the Sun — where the temperature is right for liquid water, the essence of life.

In a paper published Thursday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in London, Kipping and Teachey said Earth’s Sun transits could be masked by shining huge lasers to cover the dip in light.