Avi Loeb Claims to have found evidence of alien technology

Wayfarer July 02, 2023 at 09:57 8300 views 45 comments
Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor of astro-physics, claims to have dredged up remains of alien technology from the deep ocean off New Guinea using an undersea sled device. The objects in question are small (<1mm ) spherules apparently made from a special kind of alloy. Details here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-avi-loeb-alien-spacecraft-pacific-b2367956.html

You may recall that Avi Loeb has also made waves suggesting that the meteoroid-like object, ‘Oumaumua, which was picked up traversing the solar system in 2017 at a very high rate of speed, was also alien technology, in particular a kind of solar-energy sail that (coincidence!) Loeb himself has described as a possible means of interstellar travel in papers going back some years.

Going on what is said in the media, Loeb’s opinions on this event are not highly favoured in the scientific community, to put it mildly, and he has been engaged in some acerbic public disputes with other scientists, some of whom are also experts in the field of SETI and astronomy.

Don’t know what others think but it seems to me Loeb has become somewhat obsessive in his quest, to the detriment of his overall reputation. Of course, if the titanium-alloy spherules turn out to be the real enchilada, then I’ll happily eat my words.

Comments (45)

T Clark July 02, 2023 at 23:14 #819620
Quoting Wayfarer
Don’t know what others think but it seems to me Loeb has become somewhat obsessive in his quest, to the detriment of his overall reputation. Of course, if the titanium-alloy spherules turn out to be the real enchilada, then I’ll happily eat my words.


This is another of those situations you've discussed before - a qualified and respected scientist makes what appears to be an extraordinary claim in an area where he has specific expertise and experience. And like in the case of the psychologist who wrote about possible instances of past lives, we are left struggling to figure out what to say. Obviously, first comes strong skepticism. Then comes the obligatory genuflection to the need for openmindedness. Then comes a resigned shrug. What do we do now?

Something similar is going on with the current rush of news about the US military's knowledge about UFOs. In a bold step, the government has changed their name from unidentified flying objects to unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP).
L'éléphant July 02, 2023 at 23:38 #819624
Quoting Wayfarer
Don’t know what others think but it seems to me Loeb has become somewhat obsessive in his quest, to the detriment of his overall reputation. Of course, if the titanium-alloy spherules turn out to be the real enchilada, then I’ll happily eat my words.

I made a post earlier in this Illusion thread mentioning error in beliefs.

Avi Loeb is neither wrong nor right in his belief at this point. If he gathers more evidence of the existence of aliens and their technology, then at some point in our life, his hypothesis could be correct and his belief vindicated. But for now, he can't claim the truth or we can't claim the falsity of his belief.
Wayfarer July 03, 2023 at 00:01 #819629
Reply to T Clark Reply to L'éléphant I've been sporadically following Avi Loeb, even before all of this blew up, because he's an interesting scientist. (I've written him into my not-yet-finished sci fi novel under another name.) His Harvard homepage can be found here, and his Medium articles index here. What I noticed about his 'Ouamuamua coverage, which included a book, was his dogmatic insistence that this object must be an extraterrestrial artifact. That is what other scientists have taken him to task for. He seems to brook no disagreement, and has written polemical articles attacking critics for being narrow-minded and dogmatic.

Let's see. Of course, if he's correct, then it will be one of the greatest ever scientific discoveries.
L'éléphant July 03, 2023 at 00:20 #819638
Quoting Wayfarer
What I noticed about his 'Ouamuamua coverage, which included a book, was his dogmatic insistence that this object must be an extraterrestrial artifact. That is what other scientists have taken him to task for. He seems to brook no disagreement, and has written polemical articles attacking critics for being narrow-minded and dogmatic.

A cure for a dogmatic person is time.

Alien debris had reached the Earth, but the aliens themselves were nowhere to be seen? Unfortunately for him, he exhibits the same patterns as other alien flying object videos -- always grainy, unrecognizable, blurred, dark, and shaky camera.
180 Proof July 03, 2023 at 00:21 #819640
Reply to L'éléphant :up:
BC July 03, 2023 at 04:07 #819685
Reply to Wayfarer Quote: He believes the tiny objects, about half a millimetre in size, are most likely made from a steel-titanium alloy that is much stronger than the iron found in regular meteors.

He believes? How about testing the spherules to determine exactly what they are made of?

Quoting Wayfarer
this object must be an extraterrestrial artifact


It is saying nothing surprising that this object speeding across the solar system and then heading back out is "extraterrestrial". How could it be otherwise? A "made object" of course would be a big deal; unfortunately we didn't get enough information about Oumaumua to make an intelligent guess (as far as I know).

Presumably, there is stuff zooming around 'out there' that was flung into motion by various entirely natural events -- things blowing up, things running into each other, smash ups, etc. The fragments will keep moving until some other object or force interrupts their travels.

Can learnéd men of science go off the deep end? Of course they can. Smart people are as capable of believing their own bullshit as anybody else is.

All that aside, I might wish it were true that we had found evidence of other highly intelligent beings. But so far, it always seems to take a lot of common sense bending to believe the "evidence presented so far".
Wayfarer July 03, 2023 at 04:35 #819697
Quoting BC
It is saying nothing surprising that this object speeding across the solar system and then heading back out is "extraterrestrial". How could it be otherwise?


Sorry my bad. From ‘outside the solar system’, I meant. Different class of object.
180 Proof July 03, 2023 at 04:56 #819705
Quoting BC
Smart people are as capable of believing their own bullshit as anybody else is.

:up:

e.g. Newton was an alchemist, etc
BC July 03, 2023 at 05:30 #819713
Reply to Wayfarer Sometimes it's hard to put things just right. It came from outer space, right; but where we are is ALL outer space. Probably its source is in our own galaxy. Things whizzing by from other galaxies... hmmm, more disturbing.

Reply to 180 Proof Some people long for alien contact in the same way that some people (not necessarily believers) long for god. God made manifest or sentient beings from another star system materializing before our eyes would be approximately equally shattering.
Wayfarer July 03, 2023 at 05:40 #819716
Quoting BC
Sometimes it's hard to put things just right. It came from outer space, right; but where we are is ALL outer space.


Sorry, not 'extraterrestrial' but interstellar. That was the term I got wrong. The significance being that almost every meteor or space object known originates from inside the solar system (usually the Asteroid Belt.) 'Oumaumau was thought to be of interstellar origin because of the orbit - it looped around the Sun and then took off again out of the solar system. Remember Rendevouz with Rama? One of my all time favourite sci-fi stories. (Nothing to do with this graphic but I've always just liked it.)

User image
180 Proof July 03, 2023 at 06:28 #819721
Reply to BC No doubt.
RogueAI July 03, 2023 at 06:30 #819722
Every time we think it's aliens, it's never aliens.
BC July 03, 2023 at 06:36 #819724
Reply to Wayfarer Rendezvous With Rama was mentioned in a news story about Oumaumau. Yes, great sci fi novel, and the sequels were (like many sequels are) not great but not that bad.

Tom Storm July 03, 2023 at 06:36 #819725
Quoting RogueAI
Every time we think it's aliens, it's never aliens.


DItto god/s. :razz:
T Clark July 03, 2023 at 16:29 #819773
Quoting Wayfarer
One of my all time favourite sci-fi stories.


I read dozens, hundreds of science fiction books and stories when I was a kid. Most of them have just mixed into the general science fiction memory sludge. "Foundation" and "Rendezvous with Rama", are two that really stand out even now.
Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 00:33 #833817
A follow-up to this thread. The NY Times has published a very long piece on Avi Loeb, for which I provide here a gift link. It's a balanced piece, the journalist obviously spent a lot of time talking to Loeb and gives him a fair representation, but it's also upfront about his tendency to rub other scientists up the wrong way.

“You don’t leap to ‘it’s alien technology’ before you’ve exhausted everything thoroughly,” Meech (Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii and the lead author on the Oumuamua discovery study) said, “and I get the feeling that Avi’s so excited about his ideas that he picks out bits of the observations that fit and discounts the others that do not.” She continued, “That’s what we’re trying not to teach young students to do, because that’s not science.”

... His sense of being slighted, dismissed or overlooked bubbles up frequently and spontaneously. If you get him talking for more than an hour or so, invariably his mood turns dark, his eyes narrow and he starts listing resentments and perceived injuries.

.... Loeb says he doesn’t care what his critics say, but he spends far too much time complaining about them for that to be entirely true. It’s probably more accurate to say that he’s betting that if he’s right, any transgressions against scientific norms and protocols will be forgiven. That’s a sentiment that I heard in various forms even from some of Loeb’s harshest critics. They were tired of Loeb’s antics, his bullying, his delusions, but it was hard not to wonder ... what if? A good scientist can never completely dismiss a nonzero possibility. When I spoke to Karl Gebhardt, one of the astrophysicists who discovered the M-sigma relation, he told me wearily that he wished the news media would stop indulging Loeb’s over-the-top ideas and let the field get back to doing science. Then Gebhardt paused. “Now, that being said, if he finds something, it’s life-changing,” he said. “It will change everything.”


Let's see. It must be close to crunch time for a definitive analysis of the Pacific Ocean spherules. But it's hard to believe that he's not on what, in sixties terminology, would be described as a major ego-trip.

jgill August 27, 2023 at 04:19 #833862
It's always seemed to me that visitation by an alien would have had to be one of absolute desperation. Whereas - due to time dilation - their voyage might have lasted a year, their home planet would have aged by thousands of years.
Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 05:06 #833864
Reply to jgill My take has always been that if there are interstellar visitors, they can’t have gotten here by any known physical means. They would have to be able to traverse the distances involved in some way other than literally travelling from there to here - something which would appear to us as supernatural, but which would in reality be a form of science unknown and probably inconceivable to humans. Otherwise the time involved, and the exposure to interstellar radiation, would be just too great to be feasible. (You encounter these kinds of ideas in sci fi, but then, the topic lends itself to that kind of speculation - like ‘wormholes’ or spacetime portals and the like. None of which seem remotely feasible in terms of current science.)
Tzeentch August 27, 2023 at 06:14 #833871
Fantastical news stories are usually pushed to disguise failing US policy.

So really it's an exercise in finding the fuck-up they're trying to cover up.

My guess would be the fact that US foreign policy is failing across the board has something to do with it.
Tom Storm August 27, 2023 at 06:21 #833875
Quoting Wayfarer
They would have to be able to traverse the distances involved in some way other than literally travelling from there to here - something which would appear to us as supernatural, but which would in reality be a form of science unknown and probably inconceivable to humans.


No question. I think we tend to set odd limits on our speculative thinking when it comes to potential alien technology. I keep hearing people talking about human understandings of time and space as if these would necessarily apply to an advanced civilisation.
Tzeentch August 27, 2023 at 06:45 #833884
Reply to Wayfarer If you're willing to entertain the thought that aliens exist and have visited Earth, you should be willing to entertain the thought that your government is trying to deceive you - something which it has the power to do, the institutions to do, a vested interest in, and has been caught red-handed doing several times in the past.

I know which one I find more far-fetched. :smile:
Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 07:23 #833893
Reply to Tom Storm One of the uncanny things about the various pilot reports on UAPs is the way they accelerate from nothing to extremely fast in an instant without leaving a trail or sonic boom. It does seem like some form of visual illusion but some of the reports seem to have a kind of first-person veracity, these guys really did see something. I have an open mind about it, I’m prepared to accept it if any actual evidence comes to light that isn’t classified top secret - but so far…..
Tom Storm August 27, 2023 at 07:38 #833895
Reply to Wayfarer :up:
Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 07:46 #833897
Quoting Tzeentch
you should be willing to entertain the thought that your government is trying to deceive you


I don’t buy any of that conspiracy theory stuff. Governments can barely organise the quotidian things they’re supposed to organise, let alone conspiracies to deceive. That is the province of internet trolls and fringe media and I have zero interest in any of it (or in arguing about it, so don’t bother.)
Tzeentch August 27, 2023 at 10:46 #833928
Quoting Wayfarer
Governments can barely organise the quotidian things they’re supposed to organise, let alone conspiracies to deceive.


The CIA's track record is out there for all to see, and most of it isn't even being disputed - it's accepted history.

As is the United States' self-evident history of lying and deceiving its population.
jgill August 27, 2023 at 21:51 #834066
Quoting Wayfarer
the topic lends itself to that kind of speculation - like ‘wormholes’ or spacetime portals and the like. None of which seem remotely feasible in terms of current science.


Yes, SF can be speculative philosophy. There is the question of human understanding. I used to try to teach my Corgi, Jake, elementary calculus. You can guess how that turned out. :cool:

Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 21:53 #834067
Reply to jgill I’ve set a Google alert for ‘Avi Loeb Spherules’. I’m genuinely interested in finding out if the analysis proves they’re of extra-terrestrial, manufactured origin.
Tom Storm August 27, 2023 at 22:28 #834072
Quoting Wayfarer
I don’t buy any of that conspiracy theory stuff. Governments can barely organise the quotidian things they’re supposed to organise, let alone conspiracies to deceive.


Yep. That's about it.
Wayfarer August 27, 2023 at 22:48 #834075
Reply to Tom Storm Although, thinking about it some more, I would concede that there may well be Government efforts to conceal facts from the public, under the guise of confidentiality, for their own reasons. The problem is that the whole subject of extraterrestrials does attract attention from conspiracy theorists and cranks (queue X Files theme music). And Avi Loeb is not really helping much, as he seems inordinately keen to have his ardent hope for the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence validated and highly dismissive of anyone who feels differently.
jgill August 27, 2023 at 23:27 #834087
Reply to Wayfarer I look to AI rather than SF to open conceptual doors. I was more or less active as a mathematician for many years, and I witnessed a huge increase in topics more and more sophisticated, complicated, abstract, and generalized to the extent I gave up long ago trying to keep up with the subject - over 25,000 Wikipedia pages - and hundreds of research papers appearing daily on sites like ArXive.org . Perhaps AI will take us into realms beyond human comprehension, where visitation by aliens makes more sense. We may be at this threshold regarding quantum theory, where the math overrides human understanding - the ability to recognize analogies from everyday life, even from the vantage point of advanced science.

Of course, AI comes from human minds. So what may appear might be simply concepts that are too complicated to understand, rather than concepts beyond what an idealized human mind might conjure up.
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 00:16 #834096
Reply to jgill I've watched a few scientifically-informed presentations on interstellar travel, and the figures involved - the amount of energy that has to be used, the threat of radiation in deep space, and above all the immense distances involved - seem to rule it out. I mean, aside from 'faster than light travel' which I'm sure is not possible as a matter of principle, you simply can't bridge gaps of 10's or 100's or 1000's of light-years in any meaningful time-frame. I'm of the view that terrestrial organisms such as ourselves are inexorably earth-bound, and that although we might get boots on Mars - very big 'if'! - we'll never escape the bounds of the solar system. And there's no other planet that seems remotely habitable (even Mars would be an enormous stretch).
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 00:35 #834101
although it's probably worth mentioning another initiative Avi Loeb is involved with - the Breakthrough Starshot project founded by Yuri Milner. The Starshot concept envisions launching a "mothership" carrying about a thousand tiny spacecraft (a 'swarm', each one on the scale of centimeters) to a high-altitude Earth orbit for deployment. After deployment a phased array of ground-based lasers would focus a light beam on the crafts' sails to accelerate them one by one to the target speed within 10 minutes, with an average acceleration on the order of 100 km/s2 (10,000 ?), and an illumination energy on the order of 1 TJ delivered to each sail. A preliminary sail model is suggested to have a surface area of 4 m × 4 m develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail interstellar probes named Starchip to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star system 4.37 light-years away. The chips that the sails are carrying will only weigh a few grams.

Breakthrough Starshot was founded in 2016 by Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking, and Mark Zuckerberg. Avi Loeb chairs an advisory board. See the wikipedia entry for more details; current news wrap here.
RogueAI August 28, 2023 at 02:05 #834112
Quoting jgill
So what may appear might be simply concepts that are too complicated to understand, rather than concepts beyond what an idealized human mind might conjure up.


Can't any concept be broken down into smaller understandable sub-concepts? Is there a theorem on that?
jgill August 28, 2023 at 03:58 #834131
Quoting RogueAI
Can't any concept be broken down into smaller understandable sub-concepts? Is there a theorem on that?


Not that I'm familiar with. I often bring up trying to teach my late Corgi mathematical concepts, to no avail. He passed away with not an inkling of calculus. Perhaps we are like Corgis, cute but limited as to intellectual depth. What is beyond our comprehension may remain that way. However, AI, coupled with the human mind might find a way to break the barrier. Even then we might just be relegated to following instructions, like "roll over". :cool:
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 05:24 #834145
Reply to RogueAI Nobody would have been able to guess what, say, quantum theory would turn out like, prior to the pioneers actually doing the investigations and devising the math. A whole new conceptual vocabulary had to be developed along the way. And it was exceedingly difficult. Werner Heisenberg said he was reduced to tears in some of his dialogues/debates with Neils Bohr. Bohr and Einstein debated for 40 years and never really saw eye-to-eye. When you're dealing outer limits of understanding, it would be impossible to break it down in such a way that the untrained could fathom it.
RogueAI August 28, 2023 at 06:01 #834151
Quoting Wayfarer
Nobody would have been able to guess what, say, quantum theory would turn out like, prior to the pioneers actually doing the investigations and devising the math.


Are you claiming that QM would have been impossible to understand for the Greek atomists using nothing but their language and concepts?

Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 06:10 #834153
Quoting RogueAI
Are you claiming that QM would have been impossible to understand for the Greek atomists using nothing but their language and concepts?


I'm sure. I mean, we'll never know, but how would someone transported between two completely different epochs respond? I don't think they would be able to cope. You'd have to break their whole worldview right down and build it up again from scratch. Einstein had trouble coping with quantum physics.
RogueAI August 28, 2023 at 06:12 #834155
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm sure. I mean, we'll never know, but how would someone transported between two completely different epochs respond? I don't think they would be able to cope. You'd have to break their whole worldview right down and build it up again from scratch.


I think you could explain the double slit experiment to them without too much trouble.
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 06:29 #834159
Reply to RogueAI 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' ~ Arthur C Clarke - especially true of the application of quantum physics, because nobody really understands how it works. So maybe there's something as far ahead of quantum physics as we are ahead of the technology of the ancient world.
RogueAI August 28, 2023 at 06:43 #834161
Reply to Wayfarer There's also nothing new under the sun. If an advanced intelligence that has figured it all out tried to explain it to us, could we understand the explanation? Or at least get the gist of it?
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 06:47 #834162
Reply to RogueAI You seen Contact? That's one pretty amazing attempt to explain what it would be like. Geez, even Close Encounters, and 2001: Space Odyssey have a go at it. One of the reasons I love a good sci fi film, although there's also a lot of trashy sci fi.

But, on a more serious note, I think the only plausible explanation for interstellar visitors, is they find some way to get here without actually travelling the distance. They dissappear there and turn up here. How that would be done, of course, is completely unknown to us. But I don't believe in interstellar travel, as I said, the distances are just too great to traverse with actual physical vehicles.

PBS SpaceTime has a good video on the logistics of interstellar craft. 'We don't see aliens because intestellar travel is just too hard.'

🔗 Media content
Tom Storm August 28, 2023 at 09:01 #834175
Quoting RogueAI
If an advanced intelligence that has figured it all out tried to explain it to us, could we understand the explanation? Or at least get the gist of it?


I doubt it, but how could we know? I did see an interview with (I think) Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins talking about potential alien intelligence with them suggesting that the difference between us and aliens might be comparable to the difference between us and chimpanzees. I guess it all hinges upon whether useful communication would even be possible between an advanced species and us.
Wayfarer August 28, 2023 at 23:21 #834323
Reply to Tom Storm There was a segment on last night's Media Watch about a respected Australian journalist, Ross Coulthart, who has gone all-in on the testimony of a UFO whistleblower, David Grusch. Grusch has made sensational claims that the US has, and is concealing, actual alien technology and even bodily remains. Grusch invariably deflects questions about his actual first-hand sighting of these, saying either that he's relying on other's testimony, or that he can't answer because it's classified. But one answer I did notice, was Coulthart saying that UFO's travel 'from another dimension'. Presumably, they can kind of materialise or de-materialise. (Which makes you wonder, as one of Grusch's congressional questioners asked, why they could be careless or incompetent enough to leave anything behind for the US Airforce to peruse.) I personally try to be open-minded, but I have to say I am extremely sceptical about this guy's testimony, short of actual proof.
Tom Storm August 28, 2023 at 23:36 #834330
Reply to Wayfarer As you would imagine, there's a good deal of money to be made out of the UFO speaking/writing circuit. I've watched Ross's various 'documentaries' he is careful, but it's clear he has an audience in mind and seems to have re-launched a flagging career. But some of his research is intriguing.

Nevertheless I am interested in the claims. There are several high profile whistle blowers - the other notable one is Luis Elizondo - Coulthart has used him too.

Quoting Wayfarer
Presumably, they can kind of materialise or de-materialise.


I think this is becoming accepted in the 'lore' now. And it goes back to earlier accounts. A famous one I have a slight connection to is Westall, which also seemed to feature 'vanishing and 'reappearing' back in 1966.
Wayfarer August 29, 2023 at 00:03 #834337
Reply to Tom Storm Well, the ability to materialize and the suggestion of 'other dimensions' which is what puts these claims in the category of occultism. Maybe I should revisit Carl Jung's book on it.