HAWKING HITS ROOF OVER ASTEROID ALIEN PRANK EXCLUSIVE

SPACE CRAZY: Professor Hawking ‘ went ballistic’ YOU’RE NOT ALONE: Asteroid with porthole and waving moonman SPACE boffin Stephen Hawking “went f** king ballistic” when a research graduate faked “proof” that a cigarshaped object hurtling through the solar system is an alien spaceship.

Professor Hawking is leading a team of experts using top- notch technology to scan “Oumuamua” – a vast asteroid – for signs of alien life.

But a bored researcher used high- tech computer wizardly to put a “porthole” in the side of the space rock – complete with a moonman staring out and waving.

He then put the image on the team’s computer server, so everyone could join in the joke.

But an insider told Sunday Sport: “Professor Hawking did not see the funny side at all. He tore a strip off the researcher.

“It must have been a massive effort for the Prof, as he has to write every word with his eyelids.

“I can tell you, the sound of someone being bollocked in that robot voice is chilling.

“Professor Hawking likes a gag, but when it comes to the search for extra- terrestrial life, he’s deadly serious.”

Oumuamua is about a WE’RE LISTENING: Radio telescope in West Virginia quarter- of- a- mile long, 260ft wide and zooming through space at 196,000mph.

Professor Hawking’s team, named Breakthrough Listen, are using the world’s largest manoeuvrable radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia, to track the celestial object for 10 hours.

The boffins are listening for electromagnetic signals that would indicate that extra- terrestrial intelligence could be involved.