Article by Kirsty Card August 2, 2021 (dailystar.co.uk)
• World-renowned alien hunter, author, and ex-CIA agent Derrel Sims appeared on the Into the Light paranormal podcast in 2015, where he spoke about his ground-breaking research during his 38-year career, hunting, researching, and collecting physical evidence left by alien contact and abduction to help victims to come to grips with their experiences.
• “What matters is what you do prove (is) what you actually can determine based on the available evidence. And we’ve… done 22 surgeries on people…(who) feel like they’ve been implanted with some type of device. [I]n some of those surgeries, we’ve actually removed objects that were actually terrestrial in origin.”
• Sims claims to have the largest personal collection of artefacts extracted from humans, including skin samples, DNA samples, X-rays, MRIs, sonograms, objects with possible forensic traces (glass, wall, etc.), and anomalous implants or artefacts.
• The 2015 podcast resurfaced just days after Harvard’s Professor Avi Loeb revealed that the Oumuamua object that tumbled through our solar system, displaying a self-generated propulsion from the Sun could have been an artificial intelligence probes visiting the planet from an alien civilization. “[M]ost stars formed before suns, billions of years before. Just imagine a civilization that predates us by a billion years,” said Loeb. “It’s enough time to send a chemically propelled spacecraft with artificial intelligence out into the world that is autonomous.” It has to behave autonomously because the distances between stars are very long. “All you need is one [civilization] …to populate the entire galaxy with self-replicating probes with AI.”
A former CIA agent confessed to collecting devices “found inside alien abduction victims” in an old podcast that has resurfaced on Twitter.
World-renowned alien hunter, author, and ex-CIA agent Derrel Sims appeared on the Into the Light paranormal podcast in 2015, where he spoke about his ground-breaking research during his 38-year career.
In the broadcast, which is available on Apple Podcasts, Sims claims he has been hunting, researching, and collecting physical evidence left by alien contact and abduction and helps victims to come to grips with their experiences.
He said: “Whenever I do my UFO investigations, a lot of people are always asking me to do that. And that’s a belief, it’s not what really matters in this business.
Avi Loeb
“What matters is what you do prove, it’s what you actually can determine based on
Oumuamua
the available evidence. And we’ve even done 22 surgeries on people latching on alien contact and feel like they’ve been implanted with some type of device.
“And then in some of those surgeries, we’ve actually removed objects that were actually terrestrial in origin.”
The investigator then added that he has the largest personal collection of artefacts extracted from humans.
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Article by Mindy Weisberger July 27, 2021 (livescience.com)
• The Galileo Project, a multi-institutional team of scientists led by Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb, will analyze data from astronomical surveys and telescope observations and design new algorithms using artificial intelligence (AI)
Article by Avi Loeb July 12, 2021 (scientificamerican.com)
• According to the article’s writer, the Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb, biological creatures are not functionally able to achieve interstellar travel. Even at the speed of light, travel between stars would take tens of thousands of years. Therefore, we would be more likely to find traces of alien technological debris accumulated in interstellar space over the past billions of years than we would finding aliens themselves.
• Most stars formed billions of years before ours did. Ancient civilizations could very likely predate Earth humans, and already dominate the Milky Way galaxy. The spread of alien technology that can persevere over long times and distances would multiply and spread at the highest speed with self-repair mechanisms that mitigate damage along their journey. Such technology artifacts could have already reached the habitable zones around all stars within the Milky Way, including our Sun. This is how we can expect to initially encounter evidence of intelligent extraterrestrials.
• Our own artificial intelligence technology is likely to supersede human intelligence within the coming decade. Our own autonomous AI systems connected to 3-D printers may replicate themselves and adapt to changing circumstances along their interstellar travels through machine learning. They could hibernate during long journeys and switch on as they approach stars where light radiation can recharge their energy supply. It is conceivable that the flat interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua’, was meant to collect sunlight and recharge its batteries. This technological artifact may have also served as a receiver for communication signals from probes already deposited on habitable planets like Earth or Mars.
• If any of the UAP/UFOs discussed in the Pentagon report to Congress is extraterrestrial in origin, then scientists have an obligation to decipher their purpose by collecting more data on their behavior. Owing to the long time-delay of any signals from their point of origin, these objects are likely autonomous.
• How can we tell whether an autonomous extraterrestrial AI system is a friend or a foe? To avoid a Trojan Horse scenario, we should first study the behavior of the alien probe to figure out what type of data they are accumulating. Second, we should examine how it responds to our actions. And with no choice left, we should engage its attention in a way that would promote our interests. Most importantly, humanity should avoid sending mixed messages to these probes, to avoid our own confusion in interpreting its response.
• Any decision on how to act with extraterrestrial AI technology must be coordinated by an international organization such as the United Nations and policed consistently by all governments on Earth. It would be prudent to appoint a forum composed of our most accomplished experts in the areas of computing (to interpret the meaning of any signal we intercept), physics (to understand the physical characteristics of the systems with which we interact) and strategy (to coordinate the best policy for accomplishing our goals).
• Ultimately, we might need to employ our own AI in order to properly interpret the alien AI. The experience will be as humbling as relying on our kids to make sense of new content on the internet by admitting that their computer skills exceed ours.
• So far, our fate on this planet has been under our control. This may not hold true after our encounter with extraterrestrial AI systems. Hence, there is a sense of urgency for our technological maturity in the global competition of galactic civilizations. Only by becoming sufficiently advanced can we overcome threats from alien AI technology. Our AI systems must outsmart the alien AI systems. Just as in the gunfights of the Wild West, the survivor might be the one who is first to draw a weapon without hesitation.
Avi Loeb
Despite the naïve storylines about interstellar travel in science fiction, biological
interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua’
creatures were not selected by Darwinian evolution to survive travel between stars. Such a trip would necessarily span many generations, since even at the speed of light, it would take tens of thousands of years to travel between stars in our galaxy’s disk and 10 times longer across its halo. If we ever encounter traces of aliens, therefore, it will likely be in the form of technology, not biology. Technological debris could have accumulated in interstellar space over the past billions of years, just as plastic bottles have accumulated on the surface of the ocean. The chance of detecting alien technological relics can be simply calculated from their number per unit volume near us rather than from the Drake equation, which applies strictly to communication signals from living civilizations.
On a recent podcast about my book Extraterrestrial, I was asked whether
Milky Way galaxy
extraterrestrial intelligence should be expected to follow the rational underpinning of morality, as neatly formulated by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. This would be of concern to us during an encounter. Based on human history, I expressed doubt that morality would garner a global commitment from all intelligent beings in the Milky Way.
Instead, a code of conduct that allows systems of alien technology to dominate the galaxy would also make them more likely to be the way we would first encounter extraterrestrials. Practically, this rule will act as a sort of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, favoring systems that can persevere over long times and distances; and multiply quickly and spread at the highest speed with self-repair mechanisms that mitigate damage along their journey. Such systems could have reached the habitable zones around all stars within the Milky Way, including our sun, by now. Most stars formed billions of years before ours did, and technological equipment sent from habitable planets near them could have predated us by enough time to dominate the galaxy before we came to exist as a technological species.
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Article by Avi Loeb April 15, 2021 (scientificamerican.com)
• Earth has been broadcasting radio waves into space for over a century, announcing our presence to any other technological civilizations within a hundred light-years that might monitor their sky with radio telescopes similar to ours. Our saving grace might be that these extraterrestrials may use chemical rockets, similar to our own, which would take them a million years to traverse that hundred light years to our doorstep.
• If extraterrestrials did arrive at our doorstep, how should we respond? There is no United Nations international protocol outlining what to do. Is it premature to contemplate a global policy long before it is required? How much advance warning will we have? Any alien spacecraft would at least reflect sunlight which we could detect from earth-based telescopes such as the Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii.
• The first interstellar visitor discovered by Pan-STARRS observatory was on October 19, 2017. It was named ‘Oumuamua’ or “scout” in the Hawaiian language. The object showed many anomalous properties that made it different from any natural comet or asteroid that we had witnessed before in the solar system, allowing for the possibility that it could be a product of alien technology, as the article’s author, Avi Loeb (pictured above), discusses in his new book, Extraterrestrial. The likelihood that the object was a probe intended to spy on us is small because Oumuamua more than 10,000 years to traverse the solar system to get here. We have only been transmitting radio signals for over a hundred years.
• Even if ‘Oumuamua’ is an artificial craft, it is ancient and likely too old to be functional. But we can learn a great deal from inspecting and photographing such relics, whether tumbling through our galaxy or resting on the surface of the Moon or Mars where such unusual objects may have collected over billions of years. The lack of an atmosphere or geological activity would make the moon’s surface, in particular, like a museum of extraterrestrial equipment.
• We should keep our eyes open and searching through our telescopes for unusual objects, taking precaution about a vessel possibly masquerading as a Trojan Horse. There might be many small, fast-moving objects traveling through the solar system or other anomalies that we fail to recognize given the limited sensitivity of our telescopes. We could search for them in data streams generated by the Large Survey of Space and Time (LSST) on the Vera C. Rubin observatory.
• Gravitational waves were discovered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) only after the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested $1.1 billion into it. Similarly, we should expect to find extraordinary evidence for ETs only after we invest major funds in a search. Taxpayer funding would be appropriate given the major impact that such discoveries would have on society—far exceeding the implication of discovering gravitational waves.
• Putting our hands on a piece of alien technology would change the way we perceive our place in the universe, our aspirations for space and our philosophical and theological beliefs. Or we could choose to stay ignorant about our neighbors until they show up. The possible existence of ETs will not go away if we ignore them, just like the Earth continued to move around the sun after religious authorities refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. The dinosaurs dominated the planet until the giant Chicxulub rock showed up in the sky 66 million years ago. We need to be watchful for the next ‘earth shattering’ encounter.
Avi Loeb peering through a telescope
When you’re in an unexplored wilderness, you’d better be quiet, because you never
Galileo peering through a telescope
know whether there might be dangerous predators lurking.
Unfortunately, Earth has not been following this cautionary principle so far: we’ve been broadcasting radio waves into space for more than a century. If there are technological civilizations within a hundred light-years that monitor their sky with radio telescopes similar to ours, then they may already know about our existence. We could hear from them in the future. Our saving grace might be that chemical rockets, similar to those used in the Voyager or New Horizons missions, would take a million
Oumuamua
years to traverse that hundred light years. And so, we might be out for prolonged suspense before encountering our cosmic neighbors.
If extraterrestrials eventually arrive at our doorstep, the question is: how should we respond? Clearly, interstellar affairs are not an imminent policy concern for any nation at this moment, so there is no international protocol issued by the United
Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii
Nations for what to do. We should keep in mind that within a million years, humans might reside on the moon, Mars or free-floating space platforms, and each community might choose to respond differently. It is premature to contemplate a global policy long before it is required.
Vera C. Rubin observatory in Chile
How much advance warning will we have? That depends on the size of the vehicle used by the ETs. Even without generating artificial light, any alien spacecraft would reflect sunlight. The Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii can detect reflected sunlight from objects bigger than a few hundred feet, the scale of a football field, that pass within the orbit of the Earth around the sun.The first interstellar visitor of such size was discovered by this telescope on October 19, 2017, and named ‘Oumuamua—“scout” in the Hawaiian language. The object showed many anomalous properties that made it different from any natural comet or asteroid that we had witnessed before in the solar system, allowing for the possibility that it is a product of alien technology, as discussed in my new book, Extraterrestrial.
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Article by Berny Torre January 23, 2021 (dailystar.co.uk)
• In September 2017, a Hawaiian observatory using the highest definition telescope available detected an object traveling at 450,000mph from direction of the star, Vega, some 25 light-years away, which had entered our solar system. The elongated space object was dubbed “Oumuamua”, Hawaiian for “scout”. The object was studied by Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb (pictured above). Loeb noted that Oumuamua “showed an excess push away from the Sun, in addition to the Sun’s gravitational force acting on it”.
• Comets are known to swerve wildly away from the Sun due to evaporation, creating their distinctive tails. But no tail was seen on this object which instead accelerated smoothly from the Sun. Professor Loeb noted that Oumuamua’s change of speed suggested it lost about a tenth of its mass, which is quite a lot. “[W]e should have seen a very clear cloud of gas around it,” said Loeb. But they didn’t. Loeb’s conclusion was that the object was ‘powered’ by the light of the Sun. Therefore, the most rational explanation for Oumuamua was that it held alien technology. It was, in essence, an extraterrestrial craft.
• Professor Loeb has written a book called, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. In it, Loeb says that the space object shot past Earth before “moving swiftly toward the constellation Pegasus and the blackness beyond”. Given the odds of such an extraterrestrial object traveling through our solar system, Loeb surmises that “there should be one in every volume roughly the size of the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. …So it means that there are plenty of them, a quadrillion of them, inside the Oort cloud. Inside the solar system.” A quadrillion extraterrestrial spaceships within our solar system – with humans outnumbered 140,000 to one.
• Professor Loeb believes more spaceships like Oumuamua are on the way, close enough so that human technology should soon allow us to detect these objects every month.
Oumuamua
A top Harvard astronomer says our Solar System could be filled with a quadrillion alien spaceships.
That’s one followed by 15 zeroes with humans outnumbered 140,000 to one.
Professor Avi Loeb reckons a space rock that visited Earth in 2017 was an alien – and believes more are on the way with a “quadrillion” similar objects within our Solar System alone.
The academic told the New Statesman that “there should be one in every volume roughly the size of the orbit of the Earth around the sun… it’s pretty small. So it means that there are plenty of them, a quadrillion of them, inside the Oort cloud. Inside the solar system. There are lots of them.”
Prof Loeb, who runs the Department of Astronomy at one of the world’s most prestigious universities, claimed an object travelled towards Earth’s solar system from the direction of Vega, some 25 light-years away, and intercepted our solar system’s orbital plane on September 6, 2017.
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Article by Jamie Carter June 19, 2020 (forbes.com)
• In the first NASA non-radio technosignatures grant ever awarded, and the first NASA grant in over three decades connected with SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), NASA has awarded the University of Rochester (NY), Harvard University and the Smithsonian funding for a study entitled: Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures, to find ‘technosignatures’ that would indicate the presence of life on exoplanets within another star system.
• Technosignatures are scientific evidence of past or present technology similar to the type that we produce here on Earth. “Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites,” said Harvard’s Avi Loeb. The study will focus first on finding evidence of solar panels and chemical pollution. The presence of chlorofluorocarbons in exoplanetary atmospheres could indicate the presence of industrial activity.
• “There are only so many forms of energy in the Universe,” said Adam Frank at the University of Rochester. Any alien civilization is bound to have thought of solar power generation. “The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, hosts a habitable planet, Proxima b. The planet is thought to be tidally locked with permanent day and night sides,” said Loeb. “If a civilization wants to illuminate or warm up the night side, they would place photovoltaic cells on the day-side and transfer the electric power gained to the night side.”
• Some astronomers believe that technosignatures may be simpler to find than evidence of microbial life—known as ‘biosignatures’ – which detect chemicals such as oxygen and methane. Says Loeb, “If another civilization had been doing it for much longer than we have, then their planet’s atmosphere might show detectable signs of artificially produced molecules that nature is very unlikely to produce spontaneously.”
• In the past five years, many thousands of exoplanets have been discovered, some of which are in their star systems’ habitable zones and could have water vapor in their atmospheres. “Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form,” says Frank. “The game has changed.” Loeb’s hope is that “[by] using this grant, we will quantify new ways to probe signs of alien technological civilizations that are similar to or much more advanced than our own.” The scientists eventually want to begin an online library of technosignatures that astrophysicists can use when gathering data.
• [Editor’s Note] This is just more time and money wasted by deep state-controlled institutions such as Harvard and the Smithsonian (and now add the University of Rochester to the list) who only want to hide the fact that since at least WWII, the US government and the cabal elite have known of the presence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings and civilizations permeating our galaxy and universe, and have been secretly studying and working with these beings to their own ends, which has nothing to do with elevating human development here on Earth. They have no intention of “discovering” and revealing to the public any extraterrestrial civilizations.
Space agency NASA has awarded a grant to a group of astronomers to search the Universe for signs of alien civilizations via “technosignatures”—and it will focus first on finding evidence of solar panels and chemical pollution.
Adam Frank
Technosignatures are scientific evidence of past or present technology, which of course would indicate the presence of life in another star system. Some think that these technosignatures may be simpler to find than direct evidence of microbial life—known as biosignatures.
Avi Loeb
“Technosignatures relate to signatures of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess,” said Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard. “Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites.”
Put simply, the scientists at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian, and the University of Rochester, will look for exactly the same technosignatures that we produce.
It’s believed that other civilizations would probably use solar panels to produce energy, and also probably pollute their planet’s atmosphere with artificial chemicals and gases.
How and why to find solar panels around distant planets
How does an astronomer look for sunlight reflected off solar panels around a distant exoplanet? As long as they know the wavelength band to search in—which is what this study will try to establish—astronomers training their telescopes on exoplanets may be able to spot these technosignatures.
Any alien civilisation is bound to have thought of solar power generation, think the scientists. “There are only so many forms of energy in the Universe,” said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the primary recipient of the grant. “Aliens are not magic.”
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• In his 2016 study, ‘Prior Indigenous Technological Species’, Penn State’s Jason Wright discussed possible origins and locations for “technosignatures” of a technological species’ civilization that could have existed in the solar system prior to humanity’s rise on Earth, or on nearby planets Venus and Mars. “From a purely scientific standpoint, it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask whether life may have existed elsewhere in the Solar System, or does today,” said Wright, who is also a member of the ‘Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds’ at Penn State.
• What could have ended a prior technologically advanced civilization within our solar system? “The most obvious answer is a cataclysm, whether a natural event, such as an extinction-level asteroid impact or self-inflicted, such as a global climate catastrophe,” says Wright. “[S]uch an event would only permanently extinguish the species if there were many cataclysms across the solar system closely spaced in time, (such as) a swarm of comets or interplanetary warfare, …an unexpected nearby gamma ray burst or supernova…”
• In the case of Venus, its global greenhouse and resurfacing might have erased all evidence of a prior civilization’s existence on the Venusian surface. In the case of Earth, erosion and plate tectonics may have erased most of such evidence if the species lived a billion years ago. Remaining indigenous technosignatures would be extremely old, limiting the places they might still be found to beneath the surfaces of Mars and the Moon, or in the outer solar system.
• In a 2019 study co-written by Manasvi Lingam (at Florida Tech) and Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb entitled, “The Moon as a Fishing Net for Extraterrestrial Life”, Loeb suggested that Earth’s Moon might yield traces of technological equipment that crashed on the lunar surface a billion years ago. “The absence of a lunar atmosphere,” wrote Loeb, “guarantees that these messengers would reach the lunar surface without burning up. In addition, the geological inactivity of the Moon implies that the record deposited on its surface will be preserved and not mixed with the deep lunar interior. Serving as a natural mailbox, the lunar surface collected all impacting objects during the past few billions of years. Most of this “mail” comes from within the solar system.”
Jason Wright
One of the primary open questions of astrobiology is whether there is extant or extinct life elsewhere the Solar System. Astrophysicists Avi Loeb at Harvard and Penn State’s Jason Wright have both explored the question, with Loeb suggesting that ancient technological artifacts from beyond the Solar System may exist on Earth’s Moon amounting to a letter from an alien civilization saying, “We exist.”
Wright, a member of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, has considered the possibility that a technological
Avi Loeb
species could have existed in the Solar System prior to humanity’s rise on Earth in his study, Prior Indigenous Technological Species.
In 2016, Wright authored a paper that discussed possible origins and locations for “technosignatures” of such a civilization while other astronomers have suggested looking for lights on Kuiper Belt Objects that “may serve as a lamppost which signals the existence of extraterrestrial technologies and thus civilizations.”
The origins and possible locations for technosignatures of such a prior indigenous technological species might have arisen on ancient Earth or another body, such as a pre-greenhouse Venus or a wet Mars. In the case of Venus, the arrival of its global greenhouse and potential resurfacing might have erased all evidence of its existence on the Venusian surface. In the case of Earth, erosion and, ultimately, plate tectonics may have erased most such evidence if the species lived a billion years ago. Remaining indigenous technosignatures, observes Wright, might be expected to be extremely old, limiting the places they might still be found to beneath the surfaces of Mars and the Moon, or in the outer Solar System.
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Article by Albert McKeon October 15, 2019 (northropgrumman.com)
• When people think of UFOs, they typically think of craft flying over their heads. No one talks much about the possibility that intelligent extraterrestrials may already be here among us on Earth. Last year, after writing a paper on theoretical ways for SETI to detect an alien presence, NASA physicist Silvano Colombano was accused by Fox News of claiming that aliens have indeed come to Earth. Colombano was quick to correct the Fox News story, saying that he believes an alien visit is only theoretically possible. However, Colombano also stated that “reports of unidentified aerial phenomena should be the object of serious study.” But mainstream scientists are loath to even discuss an extraterrestrial presence, much less study it.
• So the discussion about UFOs and extraterrestrials has been relegated to ‘claims’ and ‘theories’. Claims such as a New Hampshire couple being abducted by aliens one summer evening in 1961; or theories such as Harvard Professor Avi Loeb assertion that the rogue “asteroid” Omuhamuha may have been an alien probe, which “elicited some derision from scientists.”
• The vast majority of our efforts to discover intelligent extraterrestrials has been by looking out beyond our planet. The ‘Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence’ or ‘SETI’ employs more than 130 scientists, educators and administrative staff in a quest to “explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe and the evolution of intelligence.” They do this by monitoring telescope arrays that study the characteristics of red dwarf stars and newly-discovered exoplanets. Unfortunately, SETI has recently had to cross a large number of potential exoplanets off of their list for having “unsuitable environments”.
• [Editor’s Note] So this is where the line is currently drawn. The compromised media welcomes any news on a ‘scientific research group’ like SETI (also compromised) searching for life on other planets, but they will attack you as soon as you suggest that the aliens are already here. Organizations such as Fox News and SETI only exist to do the Deep State’s bidding, which in this case is to make it sound like smart people are doing everything possible to find other extraterrestrial life or even a viable explanation for UFOs, but alien civilizations beyond the Earth simply do not exist. They have most of the world believing this. The Deep State and the elite they protect does not want people to know that they have been fleecing the natural and economic resources of the Earth and its inhabitants for the past seventy years in order to develop advanced technologies and create a secret space program to rival the other space programs, both human and extraterrestrial, that exist all around us and throughout the galaxy. And they will stop at nothing to prevent the population from “waking up” to this reality.
Of course, whether extraterrestrial life has actually touched the soil of Earth — or floated above it, observing us all — has been a burning question for almost as long as humankind could look at the stars. The many claims of alien sightings, often buttressed by grainy photos of UFOs, and the many theories about outer space creatures already living among us could fill enough books to weigh down a spacecraft that’s collecting samples of our planet.
One thing is for certain: The public and private agencies that deal with all things space focus on finding life away from Earth. They are not researching, at least publicly, the scientific possibility of whether aliens have already been on our planet. For that matter, governments answer stories of UFO sightings on Earth by pointing to the weather or by saying the claim couldn’t be corroborated. There are no official records of aliens visiting Earth.
Claims and Theories of Aliens Visiting Earth
Discussion about aliens on Earth can be, for the sake of argument, placed into two camps: claims and theories. Claims are those that appear on the covers of supermarket tabloids or occasionally make for a fun feature in a mainstream news publication. For instance, a New Hampshire couple that spoke of being captured by aliens on a late-summer evening in 1961 as they drove through the White Mountains is the first widely-publicized alien abduction claim, a tale that started a legion of others.
Theories of alien visits can also spread like wildfire in the mainstream news if they are made by someone with authority. It happened only recently. Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard University’s astronomy department, didn’t propose that aliens were even close to Earth. Rather, he and a colleague posited that Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped comet or object that whizzed by the sun in 2017, might have been a probe sent to the vicinity of Earth by an alien civilization. The theory, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, elicited some derision from scientists.
Silvano Colombano
The minor controversy led NASA physicist Silvano Colombano to say that scientists essentially rock the establishment when they theorize about extraterrestrial life. “General avoidance of the subject by the scientific community” creates a catch-22, Colombano told Quartz. He means that scientists might appear crazy for posing questions about aliens, but society will never know about alien life or any possible alien missions to Earth if no one in the scientific community examines the concept.
Colombano himself got caught up in the debate last year, when Fox News reported he claimed aliens have indeed come to Earth, pointing to a document of his on the space agency’s website. But Colombano was quick to correct the Fox News story, saying it was taken out of context and that he believes an alien visit is only theoretically possible. “My perspective was simply that reports of unidentified aerial phenomena should be the object of serious study, even if the chance of identification of some alien technology is very small,” he told Live Science.
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• Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist in what they call the Abiogenesis Zone. Would it contain life? Intelligent life? Human-like intelligent life?
• At some point the cosmos must have harbored extraterrestrial life, argues astrophysicist Adam Frank in a New York Times article “Yes, There Have Been Aliens”, Frank reasons that with an estimated 10 billion trillion habitable planets residing in boundless star system’s Goldilocks Zones, and considering that there are two planets in our own solar system – Earth and Mars – that we know have contained water and vegetation in its history, the degree of pessimism required to doubt the existence of another advanced extraterrestrial civilization existing at some point in time, borders on the irrational.
• On the other hand, there may have been only a handful of civilizations that have come and gone throughout a timeline of billions of years, decreasing the odds of two of them running into one another. How long does a civilization typically exist? It took the human race 7 million years to get far enough just to build a radio. Adam Frank points out that we haven’t the slightest clue how life arose on this planet, and what series of happenstance allowed primordial ooze to evolve into an intelligent being. Who knows what sort of life might be spawned on a different planet under different circumstances? The development of life is quite an unreliable process which further decreases the odds of our finding another civilization.
• Colin Blakemore, a neurobiologist at Oxford University, estimates that 200,000 years ago the brains of some, but not all, of an ancient primate species mutated into an intelligent human species. As it is unknown how this could have happened, it appears that humanity is a genetic accident. Then suddenly, over mere hundreds of years, we’ve recently develop the technological means to destroy ourselves. Perhaps, as Harvard’s Avi Loeb hypothesized in his book: How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations, the explanation to Fermi’s paradox as to ‘where are all of the aliens?’ , is – from a cosmic perspective of billions of years – that they have all run the course of their brief existences.
• Paul Rimmer, an astrophysicist at Cambridge University, is pessimistic that life might exist outside of our own world. “You want to at least look at the places where the (building blocks of life) exist,” says Rimmer. “But they may not be sufficient. It’s possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens.” Rimmer speculates that life itself may have come as one big accident. If so, then we are probably the only intelligent life in the universe, and maybe the only life at all. But this seems highly unlikely.
• [Editor’s Note] Oh how the world yearns for the truth about how we humans came to this point. These academics and scientists, coming from Deep State institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, must adhere to the Rockefeller Deep State presumption that as hard as we’ve tried, we have yet to find any evidence of extraterrestrial life. This is to ignore and obfuscate the multitude of evidence all around us – from ancient rock and renaissance paintings of ETs and UFOs, to modern testimony of ET and UFO sightings and personal experiences, to leaks of classified government documents, to consistent reports by credible insiders that various extraterrestrial species have been working behind the scenes with the Deep State government and the covert development of various secret space programs over the past eighty years. When these mainstream “experts” are finally unshackled from the Deep State-controlled narrative, they will relearn a history that answers all of their questions.
The universe, our galaxy, and our local star cluster of 52 stars is teeming with intelligent and highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. In fact, we Earth humans here in third density consciousness are at the bottom of the developmental totem pole. The fossil records suggest that we suddenly appeared here on Earth because, well, we suddenly appeared here on Earth. Human-like species of a wide variety of races happen to dominate this region of our galaxy. For millions of years, Earth was used as a haven for some of these third density races to escape catastrophes or wars on their home planets. For hundreds of thousands of years, technologically advanced extraterrestrials conducted genetic experiments on these different human-like species to create a congruent human species made up of various races, genetically and physiologically adapted to this particular planet. Higher density beings sat back to allow the Earth humans to develop uninhibited, while technologically advanced negative beings did their best to infiltrate and control the planet.
Some of these refugees came here upon the destruction of their Super Earth home which blew up and became the asteroid belt about a half million years ago. It left nearby Mars a barren husk of what it once was. About 55,000 year ago they resettled on Atlantis, an island that was and is part of the Antarctica continent. Then they set out to conquer the planet, evolving from the Pharaoh priest class into the “church and crown” medieval rulers, and then into the modern Illuminati cabal. This bloodline of the “Sons of Belial” worked with the advanced negative extraterrestrials over millennia to fully control the planet. But we now happen to be at the precise point in our species’ history when a solar energy event will cause the planet, and those humans on the planet who are prepared, to ascend to a fourth density of consciousness, and take our place among our human star cousins. This will extract us from the control of the dark ET/cabal alliance. The dark forces want to maintain the status quo and prevent this shift in consciousness by keeping the human population ignorant of the truth. They do this through their official control over the mainstream narrative which denies that extraterrestrial life exists beyond this small planet, and propagating articles such as this one.
Insights from the world’s leading scientists on evolution, climate change, technology and extraterrestrial life. We are the only species of the billions of species that have existed on Earth that has shown an aptitude for radios and even we failed to build one during the first 99% of our 7 million year history, says Australia National University’s Charley Lineweaver.
Are Homo sapiens a one-off, genetic accident?
Adam Frank
Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same
Paul Rimmer
chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist in what they call the Abiogenesis Zone. It’s also possible that if there is extraterrestrial life, that it has, or will, develop in a totally different way than it did on Earth.
“I’m not sure how contingent life is, but given that we only have one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most like us,” said Cambridge University astrochemist, Paul Rimmer. “There’s an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient. The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient, it’s possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist.
Rimmer speculates that life may have come from non-life as one big accident. This seems highly unlikely, at least given the way our universe is set up, so if it’s that way, then we are probably the only intelligent life in the universe, maybe the only life at all.
For what purpose did the human brain evolve?
“For what purpose did the human brain evolve?” It is a question that has puzzled scientists for decades, and was answered in 2010 by Colin Blakemore, an Oxford University neurobiologist who argued that a mutation in the brain of a single human being 200,000 years ago turned intellectually able primates into a super-intelligent species that would conquer the world. Homo sapiens appears to be genetic accident. Or are we?
1 hour video of Adam Frank “Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth” (Talks at Google YouTube)
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Article by Kate Knibbs July 17, 2019 (theringer.com)
• Believing in aliens used to automatically catapult a person into kook territory, but things have changed. Prominent public figures are treating the UFO and extraterrestrial phenomenon seriously, from Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, to aerospace billionaire Robert Bigelow, to the New York Times, to members of Congress demanding briefings. All of this has lent credence to a Facebook event called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” (see previous ExoArticle) Well over a million Facebook users have pledged to show up at a Nevada tourist spot, to invade en masse the secret military base known as ‘Area 51’ at 3 am, September 20th.
• A similar online phenomenon happened in 2017 as Hurricane Irma approached the Florida coastline. Ryon Edwards created a Facebook event called “Shoot at Hurricane Irma.” Over 80,000 people responded with interest in attacking the hurricane, though no one did. It was a way to diffuse a frightening situation with a lighthearted meme.
• Like the Irma event, this is an obvious stunt. The post reads: “If we naruto run (like an animated video game character), we can move faster than their bullets.” And the Facebook page itself is called “Shitposting cause im in shambles”. Many attendees responded tongue-in-cheek: “I only RSVP’d for the memes” and “Let’s see them aliens.”
• Samantha Travis, the manager of the Little A’Le’Inn tourist spot where the invaders are scheduled to convene, said people have been calling “nonstop, all day,” and all of their rooms are booked. University student, Jackson Weimer, imagines that it will turn into a big party. Travis noted that there is plenty of available campground space.
• While the vast majority of participants are openly kidding around and not seriously planning to attack a military base, the military itself appears to be treating this as a matter of real concern. An Air Force spokesperson told the Washington Post that it is “ready to protect America and its assets.”
• There’s a good chance “Storm Area 51” will be a distant memory by the time September 20th actually rolls around. In the same way that people took a moment to laugh at the concept of attacking a hurricane, the punch line to “Storm Area 51” is how cartoonishly futile life can feel. It is the sort of joke that can puncture the terrors of climate change and evil governments. The popularity of “Storm Area 51” reflects a larger mood of low-grade fatalism and hyperbolic violence that is percolating online this summer.
Over a million people have RSVP’d to an event on Facebook called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” The military has warned people to stay away. It’s just a gag—but one particularly well-suited to this summer.
In 2017, as Hurricane Irma twirled menacingly toward the Florida coastline, a young Floridian named Ryon Edwards coped with storm-related anxiety in a very modern way. He logged onto Facebook and created an event called “Shoot at Hurricane Irma.” Over 80,000 people responded that they were interested in staging an attack on the “GOOFY LOOKING WINDY HEADASS NAMED IRMA.” No one ever opened fire on Irma; at least, there is no documentation of such an event. The Facebook post was a joke, a way to diffuse a frightening situation with a lighthearted meme. Despite some hand-wringing by local authorities, it wasn’t actually worth fretting over.
In recent days, a similarly playful Facebook event has reached an even greater height of popularity. “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” an event scheduled for 3 a.m. on September 20 at the famously mysterious Nevada military base, has racked up over 1.4 million RSVPs over the past week, with more than a million other people expressing interest in storming Area 51 en masse. “We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets,” the post reads. (“Naruto” is a reference to Naruto Uzumaki, an anime character who runs with an awkward stride.) “Lets see them aliens.”
Like the Irma event, it’s an obvious stunt. The viral appeal is equally obvious, as it is fun to imagine a ragtag group of strangers liberating Martians from one of the most notoriously locked-down places in the country, like the plot of a pleasantly stupid action movie.
“Honestly I only RSVP’d for the memes,” one event attendee told me via Facebook Messenger. A Discord chat room created to “strategize” about the attack is filled with memes about adopting aliens and chatter about role-playing. “I think we need a division of vapers. To make an escape cloud,” one participant suggested. “I don’t think no one is going to this,” another said. When I identified myself as a journalist and asked people on the event page whether they’d speak with me, I was repeatedly called a “Fed”—exactly what I deserved for posting on an event page co-created by an account called “Shitposting cause im in shambles.”
But for all the jokes, the event has sparked real-world uptick in interest in traveling to the Area 51 region. People have been calling the local hotel and bar Little A’Le’Inn, for instance, “nonstop, all day,” manager Samantha Travis told The Ringer. “Our rooms have been booked for a few days now.” (Travis noted that the area does have plenty of available campground space.) “I think that people actually might go and have a party,” Jackson Weimer, a University of Delaware student who runs a popular meme account and accepted that I was not a cop, told me. “Some idiots will probably take it too far and try and rush the base but I hope everyone is smart enough to realize when a meme is a meme.” While the vast majority of participants are openly kidding around and not seriously planning to attack a military base, the military itself appears to be treating this as a matter of concern. An Air Force spokesperson told the Washington Post that it is “ready to protect America and its assets.” (The Air Force did not respond to The Ringer’s request for comment.)
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• In October 2017, a telescope at the University of Hawaii picked up a cigar-shaped object which had sling-shotted past the sun at 196,000 miles per hour. Scientists at the university dubbed it ‘Oumuamua’, Hawaiian for scout (depicted above). At first it was labeled an asteroid, and then a comet, but it certainly came from another solar system.
• Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard University’s astronomy department, and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters theorizing that the object could be “light sail”, floating in interstellar space as debris from advanced technological equipment. “Alternatively,” they wrote, “a more exotic scenario is that Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”
• While scientists theorizing about alien life may find a rapt public audience, they can also draw cynical, even hostile reactions from their fellow scientists. Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, tweeted: “No, ‘Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship, and the authors of the paper insult honest scientific inquiry to even suggest it.” Or they may draw sarcasm, as Neil deGrasse Tyson once quipped to CNN: “Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien.”
• The threat of being written off as a kook looms large for researchers. Many academics “won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole,” said Don Donderi, a retired associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal who now teaches a non-credit course called “UFOs: History and Reality” in the school’s continuing education department. No one at McGill seemed to mind when Donderi began writing about the paranormal in the 1970’s. But when he applied for a grant to investigate UFO sightings he was rejected. At his retirement, Donderi offered to give a free seminar on his UFO and alien abduction research, and was again turned down.
• Donderi notes that people who speak at UFO conferences “aren’t all equally good enough.” Meanwhile, those engaged in the search through bona fide organizations have come up with minimal results. Astronomers have been trying to communicate with alien life using radio waves since 1959, work that has continued by the SETI Institute to the present, but have found nothing. As a psychologist, Donderi believes that cognitive dissonance keeps the search for ET intelligence in limbo. “[A]cademics will bristle at conclusions that point to aliens,” says Donderi.
• Physicist Richard Bower of Durham University in England studies parallel universes. “We used to say that life is incredibly rare and we’re lucky to live on a habitable planet,’’ Bower said. “But we’ve now observed so many planets that are plausible habitats. It seems, based on scientific evidence, there’s no reason to think that planets like the Earth are rare.” Still, Bower is “less comfortable” with excessive speculation. Simply looking for alien life is too binary: if you don’t find it, you’ve got nothing. It is better to focus on questions that we may soon have the evidence to answer.
• We may be finding nothing because we’re doing it wrong. NASA physicist Silvano Colombano maintains that long-held assumptions have limited the earnest search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and that the “general avoidance of the subject by the scientific community” means no one questions them. Colombano suggests the search for alien intelligence is based on “cherished assumptions” that are holding it back, e.g.: that interstellar travel is unlikely, that alien civilizations use radio waves, that other life must be carbon-based, and that UFOs have never visited earth. Colombano makes a case for discarding these dusty beliefs, and instead imagine how alien societies’ technology might have evolved.
• Donderi concludes that the evidence is rising and feels that cognitive dissonance is at the moment collapsing. “[W]e’re at the beginning of the change,” he stated. Researchers expect more data about interstellar objects when the Large Synoptic Telescope in Chile starts operating in 2022.
In October 2017, a telescope operated by the University of Hawaii picked up a strange cigar-shaped object (artist rendering in top image), which had slingshotted past the sun at a more-than-brisk top speed of 196,000 miles per hour. Scientists at the university dubbed it ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for scout, and at first labelled it an asteroid, then a comet, but agreed that it came from another solar system.
Avi Loeb
Around the world, telescopes were quickly aimed toward ‘Oumuamua’s path, and scientists dove into the data. One of them, Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard University’s astronomy department, published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters the following year theorising that the object could be artificial. “Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a light sail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from advanced technological equipment,” he and co-author Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, wrote. “Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilisation.”
Don Donderi
That’s not something you read every day in a serious scientific journal. The paper went viral, and Loeb began fielding an onslaught of media calls while fellow scientists weighed in. In terms of his colleagues’ reaction, Loeb said, “almost all of them reacted favourably, and they thought, you know, it’s just an interesting idea.”
Even so, he added, there were some adverse reactions as well. One cutting tweet by Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, reads: My publicist asked me for a quote on the ‘Oumuamua story making the rounds. Here it is:
“No, ‘Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship, and the authors of the paper insult honest scientific inquiry to even suggest it.”
Richard Bower
Feel free to use that, @fcain, @tariqjmalik! — Paul M. Sutter (@PaulMattSutter) November 6, 2018
Also read: India Planning to Launch Own Space Station by 2030, ISRO Chief Says
All this hubbub took place in the aftermath of news reports that the Pentagon had been collecting data on UFO sightings for years. Clearly, the hunt for alien intelligence is alive and well in our solar system, and it’s hot news. Indeed, Loeb’s article was approved for publication in mere days.
Silvano Colombano
But while scientists tossing around the idea of alien life may find a rapt public audience, they can also draw cynical, even hostile reactions from their fellow scientists, a response summed up by acclaimed physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who once quipped to CNN: “Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien.”
This paradox has ripple effects. The threat of being written off as a kook can loom large for researchers, especially young ones. A lot of academics “won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole,” said Don Donderi, a retired associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal who now teaches a non-credit course called “UFOs: History and Reality” in the school’s continuing education department.
Loeb says many discoveries have their roots in theories that were initially dismissed. He thinks open-mindedness keeps scientific inquiry moving forward while shutting down new theories “reduces the efficiency of science.”
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by Chabeli Herrera March 19, 2019 (orlandosentinel.com)
• Over the past two years, scientists, politicians and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject of UFOs and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.
• In December 2017, the New York Times reported that the U.S. had funded a secret, $22 million project to study UFO claims from 2007 to 2012. Declassified video taken in 2004 by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets off the coast of San Diego showed a craft with no apparent propulsion moving at alarmingly fast speeds. Navy pilot Commander David Fravor who witnessed the Tic Tac-shaped craft told the Washington Post that it was “something not from Earth.”
• Harvard’s astronomy department chair, Avi Loeb, along with colleague Shmuel Bialy, wrote in a publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters that an interstellar object seen passing through our solar system called Oumuamua “is a lightsail, flowing in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment.” Loeb theorized that, “Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”
• NASA’s Ames Research Center scientist Silvano Colombano went on record recently to suggest that NASA and the scientific community should be more open-minded in its approach to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. NASA is preoccupied with finding biosignatures through its Center for Life Detection Science than interested in analyzing alleged UFO sightings.
• MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) does analyze UFO sightings. It has 3,500 members in 42 countries. Barbara Stusse, 80, has been coming to MUFON meetings for three years. She says that her mother saw a UFO in 1947. In 1965, she read about Betty and Barney Hill and “believed it”.
• Kathleen Marden is MUFON’s director of experiencer research. She was 13 years old in September 1961 when her Aunt Betty Hill and her Uncle Barney Hill saw a UFO in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There were two hours they couldn’t account for, and Barney was sure he’d seen eight to eleven figures dressed in black shiny uniforms that were “somehow not human”. Under hypnosis, the Hills related how they were abducted and physically examined inside the UFO. “They examined their hands, they took their shoes off, they examined their feet, they did tests on them that appear to be testing their nervous systems, as well,” says Marden. She has written about the government’s ‘tampering’ with the Hill case. But lately Marden has seen a recent shift in the credence that people give to the UFO phenomenon, with the 2017 New York Times article being the turning point.
• Trish Bishop of Kissimmee, Florida, relates her story of March 2013 at dusk when she saw a tall, muscular man wearing a formfitting tan colored uniform, boots and gloves was lingering in her backyard at the edge of a forest. But his face wasn’t human. His eyes bulged far out of their sockets. His jaw was over-sized. And his skin was white as chalk. Paralyzed with fear, she pretended not to watch the man while she called for help on her phone. Then man appeared to be climbing invisible steps. When he was about 10 feet off the ground, he turned his back to her and pulled himself up “into a UFO?” she thought — and he was gone. After four years, she got the nerve to report the incident to MUFON.
• The challenge with UFO and alien sightings has always been the lack of evidence. Bishop said she was too scared to take a photo of her alien. Little to no consequential evidence exists in other cases. University of Central Florida psychology professor Alvin Wang thinks that people project their predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories, and seek out others who reaffirm that belief. “[T]hey get …confirmation support, when they are members of UFO believers community,” said Wang.
He appeared as if a hologram at first — then solid — suddenly there and clear as you or I, at the edge of the forest behind Trish Bishop’s home in Kissimmee.
It was a Thursday in March 2013, the glow of the afternoon tucking in for the day behind the trees. He stood tall, at least 6-foot-3, perhaps 220 pounds and certainly muscular, wearing a formfitting tan colored uniform, boots and gloves. He lingered by the crape myrtle tree in the middle of the backyard.
When he turned around, it was his face, she remembers, that stopped her.
Bulging eyes jutting so far out of the sockets that Bishop wondered whether he could close them. Skin white as chalk.
And a jaw so large, it dispelled any notions the government worker had of the visitor being human.
“If you compare a human jawbone to his, we would be a chihuahua to a pit bull,” Bishop said.
Paralyzed with fear, she watched as what she believed to be an alien appeared to climb invisible steps, stopping often to snatch glances at her from where she sat on her back porch, fumbling with her phone to appear as though she couldn’t see him.
Her finger was pressed on the number “9” to dial for help.
When he was about 10 feet off the ground, he turned his back to her and pulled himself up — “into a UFO?” she thought — and was gone.
Bishop sat stunned. “I’ve got a freaking alien in my backyard,” she thought.
It would be four years before she told anyone her story, before she’d discover the Mutual Unidentified Flying Objects Network, a nationwide organization 50 years old, and file her report under case number 84886 with the local Florida chapter.
But she worried: Who would believe her?
These days, more people than you’d think.
Across restaurants and meeting rooms in the United States, MUFON groups still gather every month to discuss cases like Bishop’s with the enthusiasm that once gripped the nation during the Cold War, when UFO sightings still made a splash on the front page.
The Space Coast group, made up of some former NASA employees and engineers, has 118 members, the largest in the state. Across the U.S. they number 3,500, with additional offices in 42 countries.
For many years, they were alone entertaining UFO theories. No more.
In the past two years, scientists, politicians and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.
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by Dirk Schulze-Makuch March 11, 2019 (airspacemag.com)
• A remarkable meeting occurred over the weekend of March 9-10 in Tutzing, Germany, just outside of Munich. Its theme: Are we alone in the Universe? Eminent German astrobiologists and scientists were invited to give presentations, including Karl Menten, Director of the Max Planck Institute, Gerhard Haerendel, recipient of the Allan D. Emil Memorial Award for pioneering achievements in space sciences, Andreas Losch from the Institute of Systematic Theology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the article’s author, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, who spoke on the Cosmic Zoo hypothesis.
• The meeting was hosted by the evangelical academy, underscoring the continuing interest of religious groups in the possibility of extraterrestrial life and what it might mean for faith communities. The Catholic Church appears to me to be the most interested group of all. In 2014 the Vatican Observatory even co-hosted a conference in Arizona on whether we are alone in the Universe.
• Earlier this year, the discovery of a new source of Fast Radio Bursts suggested that they could be messages from advanced technological civilizations. Tabby’s Star, which suddenly dips its light curve, has been linked to alien megastructures.
• Last November, Avi Loeb of Harvard University suggested that ‘Oumuamua’, the first object seen to enter our Solar System from interstellar space, could be a lightsail built by an advanced intelligent civilization. Its motion seems to indicate that something other than simple gravitation might be at work.
• The longest unresolved enigma is the Wow! signal, which has all the hallmarks of an alien transmission but unfortunately was only received once. It may have been a transmission from one starship to another, or perhaps from a ship to its home base, and Earth just happened to be in the way.
• However likely or unlikely these anomalies, it is clear that interest in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is on the rise again, as shown not only by this latest conference near Munich, but by NASA’s renewed interest in what’s now called “technosignatures” of advanced life. Many people, beyond just scientists, understand what a detection of extraterrestrial intelligent life elsewhere would mean – nothing less than a complete re-assessment of our place in the Universe.
A remarkable meeting occurred outside Munich, Germany this past weekend. Its theme: Are we alone in the Universe? The most eminent German-speaking scientists in the field of astrobiology were invited to give keynote presentations, which included talks by Karl Menten, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, on the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life; by Gerhard Haerendel, recipient of the Allan D. Emil Memorial Award for pioneering achievements in space sciences, on messaging to extraterrestrial civilizations (METI); and by Andreas Losch from the Institute of Systematic Theology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, on the scientific, philosophical and theological consequences of the presence of extraterrestrial civilizations. I also gave a talk, on the possibility of complex life on other planets based on the Cosmic Zoo hypothesis.
The meeting was hosted by the evangelical academy in Tutzing, Germany, underscoring the continuing interest of religious groups in the possibility of extraterrestrial life and what it might mean for faith communities. The Catholic Church appears to me to be the most interested group of all. In recent years I’ve seen many of its representatives at scientific meetings. In 2014 the Vatican Observatory (yes, they have their own observatory) even co-hosted a conference in Arizona on whether we are alone in the Universe.
So, are we?
If you were to ask Avi Loeb of Harvard University, he would likely direct your attention to ‘Oumuamua, the first object seen to enter our Solar System from interstellar space. Last November Loeb pointed to six strange facts about ‘Oumuamua, suggesting that it could be an artificial object, possibly a lightsail built by an advanced intelligent civilization. Most puzzling of all is its shape: long, shiny and unusually thin for a rock. And its motion seems to indicate that something other than simple gravitation might be at work.
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by Abraham Loeb February 15, 2019 (scientificamerican.com)
• Because the Earth is prone to catastrophes from time to time, it would be prudent to spread Earth-like terrestrial life to other worlds. Yet, as On Walden Pond author Henry David Thoreau wrote, “…we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed…”. Thoreau raises a fundamental question in space exploration. Should we allow ourselves to terraform planets in an effort to make them habitable and seed objects in space with life as we know it, or should we leave nature out there to its own devices, intact and pure?
• Rather than descending upon a ‘new world’ in order to annex and appropriate it to our own designs, as the Spanish did when they invaded South and Central America in the early sixteenth century, perhaps we should be mindful of the natural aspects of existing extraterrestrial “Walden-like” ponds. Perhaps we should take advantage of the opportunity to appreciate other life-forms that have existed before our arrival.
• As we explore nature in extraterrestrial ponds, might life there resemble what we see on Earth, or take new forms? Could it follow a different chemical network? Could it flourish in liquids other than water? Could it adjust to conditions more extreme and longer lasting than on Earth?
• It would be particularly shocking to find out that our new pond included creatures far more intelligent than we are. For if alien civilizations had been already come there, they would have already contaminated its nature by artificial intent. There is no denying that it would be more poetic to find unspoiled the nature of our new extraterrestrial pond.
• At the same time, nothing done by humans really matters in the big scheme of the universe. Humans have access to an extremely limited fraction of the cosmos. So the human imprint on the cosmic stage is destined to remain negligible. Perhaps we should limit our cosmic ambitions in light of this perspective. As Thoreau said, “Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves.”
• Cosmic modesty would leave us with the sole desire of embedding ourselves in the true nature of an extraterrestrial world, soaking in its beauty as spectators not reformers, and suppressing ego-motivated plans for space colonization.
In his celebrated book On Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau wrote: “We need the tonic of wildness…. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
Thoreau raises a fundamental question in space exploration. Should we allow ourselves to terraform planets in an effort to make them habitable and seed objects in space with life as we know it, or should we leave nature out there to its own devices, intact and pure?
On the one hand, it would be prudent not to keep all our eggs in one basket; we might choose to spread terrestrial life to other worlds in an effort to reduce the risk of it being eliminated by catastrophes on Earth. But at the same time, one might worry that by doing so we could unleash unforeseen forces that would modify natural ecosystems in ways that could get out of hand. Moreover, artificial seeding of Earth life would muddy the waters in extraterrestrial “Walden-like” ponds. It would deprive us from the opportunity to find out if other life-forms may have existed before our arrival.
Such an impact might resemble the effect of the Spanish invasion of South and Central America, which decimated the rich culture of local populations such as the Maya. For this reason, NASA enforces tight regulations on the sterilization of space vehicles in an effort to avoid contamination of space targets with terrestrial microbes.
As we explore nature in extraterrestrial ponds, the key question is whether life there resembles what we see on Earth or takes new forms. Could it follow a different chemical network? Could it flourish in liquids other than water? Could it adjust to conditions more extreme and last longer than on Earth? But most important, how intelligent is it? It would be particularly shocking to find out that our expanded habitat includes creatures that are far smarter than we are.
Our loyalty to Thoreau’s legacy would depend on whether we are alone, for if alien civilizations had been already engaged in such activities, then nature had been contaminated by artificial intent and there is no way to find it pure and primitive.
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by Corey S. Powell December 25, 2018 (nbcnews.com)
• In 2017, an enigmatic object from beyond our solar system, named Oumuamua (depicted above), startled astronomers when it came streaking past the sun. In November 2018, Avi Loeb, the head of the astronomy department at Harvard University, co-wrote a paper with a post-doctoral student, Shmuel Bialy, reporting that Oumuamua is so unusual that scientists should consider the possibility that it could be an interstellar craft built by extraterrestrials. Oumuamua is a Hawaiian word meaning “messenger from the past.”
• Some of Loeb’s colleagues were intrigued. Others were disconcerted. But suddenly mainstream scientists were seriously talking about alien spaceships. Loeb is well aware that most scientists recoil from anything that sounds like UFO craziness. But he believes an overabundance of skepticism has cut them off from out-of-the box ideas. Says Loeb, “Why have a prejudice? Why argue that it must be natural? What do we gain, other than putting blinders on our eyes?”
• Penn State astronomer Jason Wright shares Loeb’s desire for open discussion. “There’s a real culture change. SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence)is becoming a serious scientific discipline,” he says. Wright raises the possibility that a now-defunct alien civilization may have left behind artifacts on the moon where they could have survived, even if deposited there billions of years ago. Almost all such searches are destined for failure, Wright says, and all it takes is one success to change the world.
• Oumuamua’s unusual trajectory meant it had to have come from outside the solar system — and that it could have been traveling for millions of years. “It’s very elongated, with an axis ratio of at least 7 to 1,” astronomer Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii said. It’s at least seven times as long as it is wide — shaped like a cigar. Or, as Loeb proposes in his paper, maybe a flattened disk. At only 1,000 feet long it is too small to be a comet. And it has no distinctive comet tail. Also, it seems to be much more reflective than the typical comet.
• The biggest puzzle about Oumuamua was the way it moved. (see previous ExoNews article here) As it zoomed away from the sun, it sped up slightly, as if given an invisible push. Comets often accelerate that way when gases boil off their surface under heat from the sun. But observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope showed no such material coming off of Oumuamua.
• At this point, Loeb thought it was time to consider a more radical interpretation. Perhaps Oumuamua isn’t a comet at all, and that the acceleration was caused not by boiling gases but by the pressure of sunlight against a very wide, thin lightweight structure. Loeb and Bialy suggested that such an object could be technological debris or even “a fully operational (alien) probe.”
• Loeb anticipated a harsh reaction to his paper. One anonymous researcher disparaged the Bialy and Loeb paper as “irresponsible,” and “just out to grab attention.” Loeb shrugs off the reflexive dismissals, saying that his lofty academic position actually obligates him to be a pot-stirrer, “I can say these things other people can’t because I have tenure at Harvard. The whole idea of getting tenure is to allow you to be free in your mind. I used the opportunity of Oumuamua to make a statement.” “All I’m doing is following the standard scientific process, looking for explanations,” Loeb says.
Last year, an enigmatic object named Oumuamua startled astronomers when it came streaking past the sun, giving humanity its first close-up look at an object from beyond our solar system. This year, the interstellar visitor did something even more remarkable: It made it respectable to talk about alien spaceships.
The turning point came in November, when Avi Loeb, the head of the astronomy department at Harvard University, co-wrote a paper saying that Oumuamua is so unusual that scientists should consider the possibility that it’s not a far-out comet or asteroid, as his colleagues assumed, but rather an artificial structure.
Avi Loeb
In other words, maybe it’s an interstellar craft built by extraterrestrials.
Some of Loeb’s colleagues were intrigued. Others were disconcerted. But suddenly mainstream scientists were talking about how to tell if Oumuamua is a natural object or — as Loeb raised as a possibility in his paper — an alien spacecraft designed to capture the force of sunlight (a so-called lightsail).
Loeb is well aware that most scientists recoil from anything that sounds like UFO craziness, but he believes an overabundance of skepticism has cut them off from out-of-the box ideas. “The point of doing science is not to have a prejudice,” he says. “A prejudice is based on the experience of the past, but if you want to allow yourself to make discoveries, then the future will not be the same as the past.”
Shmuel Bialy
Jason Wright, a Penn State astronomer who recently launched a graduate program in SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), shares Loeb’s desire for open discussion — and offers an upbeat assessment of the field’s growing respectability. “There’s a real culture change. SETI is becoming a serious scientific discipline,” he says.
STRANGE VISITOR FROM THE STARS
It was clear from the start that Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-uh-MOO-uh) would shake up astronomy’s status quo. Shortly after its discovery, scientists realized that the object’s unusual trajectory meant it had to have come from outside the solar system — and that it could have been traveling for millions of years. They quickly dubbed the mysterious object Oumuamua, a Hawaiian word meaning “messenger from the past.”
There were more surprises. Oumuamua was too far away for astronomers to observe its shape directly, but they could tell by the extreme way its brightness shifted as it tumbled through space that it wasn’t like any space rock they had ever seen.
“It’s very elongated, with an axis ratio of at least 7 to 1,” astronomer Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii said in an email. In other words, it’s at least seven times as long as it is wide — shaped like a cigar, perhaps. Or, as Loeb proposes in his paper, maybe a flattened disk.
Astronomers’ models predict that most of the small bodies wandering in interstellar space are comets. But when Meech and others examined it, Oumuamua showed no sign of the expected comet-like tail. It’s also quite small, on the order of 1,000 feet long, and it seems to be much more reflective than the comets we know.
Intrigued by its oddities, several groups of SETI researchers listened for possible radio transmissions from Oumuamua — and heard nothing.
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• Harvard astrophysicists Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam are exploring the universe looking for ‘exo-civilizations’ using “bio-signatures” and “techno-signatures” that are more technologically advanced than the radio waves that SETI depends on. Loeb and Lingam have explored a number of different ways we might find markers of another civilization.
• For instance, light reflected from a planet covered in power-generating solar cells would carry a techno-signature “signal” of all that silicon. Loeb was quick to point out that a civilization need not be alive now for us to find the techno-signatures that they left behind.
• As our technologies gets better we might suddenly find lots of signals from the activity of technological civilizations. Even a slight change in gravitational waves would create a techno-signature. There also may be artifacts existing in space rather than on planets. “These ‘messages in a bottle’ would be very difficult to detect because they would be putting out very low power,” Loeb said.
• “We humans are probably not special,” Loeb says. With so many planets in the universe, the rise of civilizations may not be so usual. And what makes this moment in history so unique is that we are now poised to start observing exo-planets and their environments in all kinds of new ways.
We’re entering uncharted territory.
For more than 2,000 years, we humans have been arguing about life and, in particular, intelligent life in the universe. But arguing was pretty much where it always ended.
For all that time, we never had any evidence or any data that could raise the discussion above two people with different opinions yelling at each other.
But this era may well be nearing its end.
The “exoplanet” revolution of the last 20 years has shown us that the universe is awash in alien worlds. More exciting, we now have methods where the atmospheres of those worlds may provide indirect evidence — called “bio-signatures” — for the existence of life.
Over the next few decades we may finally have data relevant to the question of other life in the universe.
But what if we want to ask about intelligence? What about alien civilizations — or, as I like to call them, “exo-civilizations”? This is something I have been thinking about a lot over the last few years (it’s the subject of my new book). In carrying out my own studies, I have often been drawn to the work of Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb.
Avi Loeb
Loeb works on a variety of subjects, including black holes and early cosmic history. But together with collaborator Manasvi Lingam, Loeb has carried out work that is simultaneously deep and expansive on the topic of astrobiology and exo-civilizations.
When we think of aliens and science, we usual usually think of the Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This has often meant radio telescopes being used to search for messages purposely beamed at us from an exo-civilization. But unlike these kinds of purposeful signals, a “techno-signature” is an unintentional marker of the civilization’s existence. With the discovery of so many exo-planets, astronomers will now be spending a lot time staring at these other worlds in many different wavelengths of light (not just radio). This is how they hope to find bio-signatures.
But what about techno-signatures?
Manasvi Lingam
Loeb and Lingam have explored a number of different ways we might find markers of another civilization. What, for example, would be the consequences of a civilization covering large portions of its planet in solar cells to generate power? Lingam and Loeb have shown that light reflected from such a planet would carry a “signal” of all that silicon on the planet’s surface, making it an intriguing example of a techno-signature.
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A former CIA agent confessed to collecting devices “found inside alien abduction
victims” in an old podcast that has resurfaced on Twitter.
On a recent podcast about my book Extraterrestrial, I was asked whether
