Harvard
astrophysicist Avi Loeb created quite a stir in the scientific community in
2018, when he wrote a paper suggesting an interstellar object spotted in our
solar system might be a surveillance vessel sent by an alien civilization. He
claimed the object, which was named Oumuamua (“scout” in Hawaiian), had unique
characteristics that made a natural origin unlikely.
Now, Loeb is
at it again. In an article just published
in Scientific American, Loeb speculates that there may be a connection
between Oumuamua and UFOs, or UAPs
(unidentified aerial phenomena). With the United States Department of Defense
set to release the results of an extensive government study of UFOs that began
last year, Loeb apparently felt the time was right to raise this intriguing
possibility.
The Data
Collector Hypothesis
Offering a
fully unique hypothesis, Professor Loeb speculates that UFOs (UAPs) might be
unmanned probes that were sent to Earth to collect data about the planet and
its inhabitants. These probes might have been dispatched to many planets in
different solar systems throughout the galaxy, by an advanced civilization
searching for signs of life. These probes would be programmed to beam the
information they discovered back through space to Oumuamua, which Loeb believes
might function as a type of centralized data collector.
“Oumuamua,”
Loeb wrote in his Scientific American op-ed, “could potentially have been meant
to scan signals from all viewing directions … a predecessor to Oumuamua could
have been a craft that deposited small probes into the Earth’s atmosphere
without being noticed.”
Once
deployed, these objects would then endlessly flit about Earth’s skies,
intercepting audio and video signals and occasionally venturing to the surface or
beneath the sea, to snap pictures or pick up samples for analysis. Inevitably,
these probes would have been seen by humans, moving in ways that made it clear
they weren’t conventional aircraft.
A Very
Unusual Visitor
In an email
interview with the Daily Mail, Loeb explained that Oumuamua has unusual
characteristics that suggest it might have been designed as a signal
intercepting device by an intelligent life form.
The object
is long, narrow, and flat. Its length is estimated to be between 300 and 3,000
feet (100 to 1,000 meters), but its width and thickness are both in the 115-548
foot (35-167 meter) range. Oumuamua is constantly tumbling or rotating, but at
a slow rate, completing one cycle eight hours. Most intriguingly, it seems to
be accelerating, picking up speed in a way that can be linked to the effects of
gravity. Loeb believes the object as a whole may function as a type of
“lightsail,” picking up momentum and speed by riding on winds of starlight.
“Oumuamua's
flat structure - the size of a football field - could be a receiver for the
aforementioned probes that were sprinkled on Earth long ago,” Loeb said in his
email. “In this context, its tumbling motion was meant to collect possible
signals from all directions and the UAP may be the probes that it received
signals from.”
The upcoming
report on UFOs by the U.S. government will not offer evidence to support Loeb’s
theory. But it will add more legitimacy to the UFO topic, creating an
environment where theories about the true origin of UFOs may be more openly
received.
The U.S.
Government Changes its Stance on UFOs
Since
closing Project Blue Book in 1969, the U.S. government had consistently denied
they were still studying or were interested in UFOs. In the decades that
followed mainstream media outlets treated the topic with scorn and ridicule,
when they weren’t ignoring it completely.
But the
official stance changed in 2020, when the government suddenly began taking the
subject of UFOs seriously. In that year, the U.S. Department of Defense released
three videos of UFOs taken by Navy pilots, in 2004 in one instance and 2005 in
the other two. The videos had leaked earlier, but the U.S. military took the
extraordinary step of confirming their legitimacy to the public when it
released the videos officially.
Abandoning
the traditional skeptical stance, government officials past and present began
speaking openly about the topic of UFOs. Figures such as former President
Barack Obama , former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, and former CIA
director James Woolsey stated that UFOs were real and mysterious and that the
government had known about them for a long time. While admitting they had no
evidence proving these objects were alien spacecraft, spokespersons associated
with the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies have done little
to counter the speculation that they might be.
In August
2020, the Department of Defense announced it would be launching an exhaustive
study of UFOs that have been seen by military personnel. Over 120 cases were to
be examined as a part of this project, which would include cases where strange
objects were spotted on radar or on satellite imagery, in addition to being
seen by military pilots.
The results
of this study will be released to Congress on June 25, in response to a demand made last year by a
Congressional committee set up to study the national security implications of
UAP activity.
Leaked information
suggests the report will neither confirm nor deny the possibility that some
UFOs may be alien in origin. The report also leaves open the possibility that
these objects may be advanced, secret military aircraft manufactured by foreign
powers, most likely Russia or China.
The report
supposedly states that UAPs are not secret high-tech aircraft manufactured by the
United States military. But this
assertion should probably be taken with a huge pinch of salt, given the roughly
$50 billion the Department of Defense is said to divert for so-called “black
budget” projects each year.
A Leap of
Faith
The
apparently sincere official interest in UFOs has helped lift the taboo normally
associated with this subject, in the eyes of the public and the mainstream
media. Most scientists have remained wary about associating themselves with the
topic, however, and professional skeptics are still dismissive.
But Harvard
astrophysicist Loeb has already walked far out on a limb with his claims about
Oumuamua, so it could be argued he has nothing left to lose by taking a few
more steps.
Loeb admits
his new thesis about UFOs being alien probes is highly speculative. But he
believes science can only progress if it is willing to consider all
possibilities. If given a fair chance, even the most out-of-this world theories
could lead to amazing discoveries.
“Rather than simply wonder about possible scenarios, we should collect better scientific data and clarify the nature of UAP,” Loeb said. “This can be done by deploying state-of-the-art cameras on wide-field telescopes that monitor the sky. The sky is not classified; only government-owned sensors are.”
It is
notable that Loeb’s idea is quite similar to the SETI Project, which scans the heavens for
electromagnetic signals sent by alien civilizations located light-years away.
Except in this instance, the search would be carried out much closer to home.
“We should be open-minded to the possibility that science will one day reveal a reality that was previously considered as fiction,” Loeb wrote at the conclusion of his Scientific American article.
Now that the
United States government has seemingly verified the existence of UFOs, these
words might be taken more seriously than they would have been in the past.