Advisory Opinions - We’re Not Saying It’s Aliens, But...

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Today on the pod, it’s a guest for whom David has been waiting for—Avi Loeb, an astrophysics professor at Harvard University who thinks it might just be possible that aliens have visited earth. Loeb talks about his research into Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object that’s passed through our Solar System, and gives his thoughts on the recently released UFO report from the Office of National Intelligence. Loeb also tells David and Sarah about his scientific philosophy—how science is like a fishing expedition where you throw out a hook and see what happens. Show Notes: -Avi Loeb’s book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth -On Oumuamua by Avi Loeb -Office of National Intelligence UFO report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isger. And welcome to our August series of podcasts where we're going to move away from the Supreme Court, we're going to move away from the courts, and we're going to dive in to the things that really, we really love to read about, we love to understand, and we love to know. We really love to read about, we love to understand, and we love to know. And I'm particularly excited about this guest. So our guest today is Professor Avi Loeb.

He is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University's Department of Astronomy. And Sarah, Professor Loeb received his PhD in plasma physics at age 24, as one does. Indeed, yes. And he has been all over the news and all over the media for really months and months and months now, beginning with, I don't know if it's really beginning with, but sort of that what really put him in center stage in the news is this object in space called, and I'm going to butcher the pronunciation, Oumuamua. So two things. One, Professor, thanks for joining us. And number two, Professor, thanks for joining us. And number two, can you tell us what Oumuamua is? Right. Well, thank you very much for hosting me. But I'm fundamentally a farm boy, I should say. And I regard science as a privilege of maintaining my childhood curiosity. So all the labels that I acquired over the years are not so significant as far as I'm

concerned. I'm just trying to figure out the world. And I'm not afraid of getting bruised in the process because it's a learning experience. And we should all be intrigued when there are things that do not quite match up what we expect about the world, about reality, because that's an opportunity to learn. So one of these instances where we confronted something that we haven't expected was in 2017, October, when the first object from outside the solar system was discovered. It was given the name Oumuamua because it was discovered by a telescope in Hawaii. And Oumuamua means a scout in the Hawaiian language, a messenger from far away. And the actual detection of this object was a surprise to me because a decade earlier,

we predicted that we shouldn't see any rocks from other stars from outside the solar system because their abundance is much too small by orders of magnitude to be detected by that telescope in Hawaii. And yet this object was found. So I was intrigued. And then more data came in about this object using telescopes. And the more we knew about it, the less we understood about it. You know, that's unusual. It had a lot of anomalies. It didn't look like a comet because it didn't show a cometary tail. There was no gas or dust around it. And it didn't look like an asteroid that we typically see from within the solar system, like a typical rock. Because as it was tumbling every eight hours, the amount of sunlight that it reflected changed by a factor of 10.

And that is a lot. It means that it has an extreme shape, most likely pancake-like, a flat shape, based on the way that it reflected sunlight. And then it was also pushed away from the sun with an additional force, and it wasn't clear what that force is. The only sense I could make of it was it's as a result of the reflection of sunlight. And for that, the object had to be very thin, sort of like a sail being pushed by reflecting

light. And nature doesn't make sales. And I suggested maybe it's artificial in origin because it had a lot of anomalies. And I wrote all of these anomalies in my book, Extraterrestrial, that was published six months ago, translated to 25 languages and became bestseller in many countries. And there will be a documentary about it now. We just signed the contract a week ago.

the 25th of June this year, that admitted there are objects in the sky of the United States whose nature is not known. And by the way, that admittal should not be taken lightly because it's the intelligence agencies telling us that they are not doing their job. They're supposed to know what is flying above our sky. They're supposed to tell us whether it's something from an adversary or maybe a natural phenomena, and they are unable to tell us. And, you know, I think that was intriguing enough for the subject to move away from the talking points of politicians, military personnel, into the realm of science. You know, we will never ask a plumber to bake us a cake. So these people, politicians, people in Washington, D.C., they were not trained as scientists.

We should not ask them to explain what they see in the sky. This is the job of astronomers and scientists in general. And I was advocating for that. And then I realized that the head of NASA, Bill Nelson, around the time when this report came out, he spoke on CNN and said, yes, scientists now need to look into these objects and figure out their nature. And I said, great. So I wrote immediately to people under him and suggested, I said, here I am to serve and make your boss happy. I will be happy to help you make your boss happy. And they never got back to me. And interestingly enough, a few

wealthy individuals approached me, people that I've never met, decided to give me close to $2 million to my research account at Harvard. And that established a new project. So it was really interesting because one day I get an email from the astronomy department administrator telling me, you have a large sum of money in your research fund. And I said, what do you mean I have money in my research? Could you please tell me who that person is that gave me the money so that I will be able to thank that person? And she said, I don't know. And nobody told me. And I said, okay, well, that's an elementary request that I'm making that you should deliver to the higher administration at Harvard University. I would like to know who this

person is so that I will be able to thank that person. And, you know, I expected to get an answer immediately, but it took some time because I'm sure that they tried to convince that person to provide funds for the renovation of the dorms at Harvard. That's a higher priority. And that person insisted on giving it to my, no strings attached to my research funds. At any event, I found out and I thanked that person a day later. And then another person, a billionaire came, a multi-billionaire,

came to the porch of my home and had questions about my book, Extraterrestrial. And I answered those questions, and then this person decided to support the vision that I have about searching for objects that look unusual and maybe relics of extraterrestrial technological civilization. And altogether, I got $2 million in two weeks without even doing any fundraising. I must tell you, this is a very unusual experience. I've never seen that in academia. And it basically underlines my point that the public is extremely interested about this question. At the same time, the scientific community pushes back on it.

My point is we can get more funds to science this way. And moreover, we can attract young people to science this way. Because since the project called the Galileo Project was announced a few days ago, I got thousands of emails from people that are happy to contribute both in terms of time and in terms of funds to this project. And I just cannot understand how the scientific community ridicules this subject and pushes it away. scientific community ridicules this subject and pushes it away? So first of all, what I take away from this is that if I show up on your porch, we can talk about your book, which sounds amazing

and good to know. I don't have a few billion dollars, but I've got like a stick of gum, a charming personality. Okay. I want to talk about- By the way, I should say that you're most welcome. And I sit on my porch also when I invite a plumber to fix a problem with the pipes. I often speak for hours, irrespective of how much money that plumber has. So I'm happy to speak with anyone. I'm curious before we get to some of the criticism that you've received. I want to talk about what these aliens will look like, a little bit about the Fermi paradox, because in my little world, I'm obsessed with octopodes.

Listeners, in fact, will know that we've had a whole conversation on the plural of octopuses, and I like the octopodes. But to me, an alien life form is... I mean, octopodes are the most alien thing I can think of. And part of what makes them very different from humans, well, there's a lot, is that they're not communal. So for instance, like the things that we have to assume about this extraterrestrial life has to be pretty similar to us. So I'm curious when you, you know, late at night are thinking through who created that sail, what do you think that would be like us? What do you think could be

different from us? That's an excellent question. Well, first of all, I should clarify that I'm seeking intelligence from space because I don't often find it here on earth. And the reason I say that is if you look at human history, you know, we waste most of our resources on fighting each other, trying to feel superior relative to each other. The best example is the Second World War, which was driven by racism, Nazi Germany. And there were 75 million people killed in that war. Three percent of the world population, just think about it, were worried about COVID-19. But in the Second World War, 75 million were killed. And two-thirds of the

Jewish population in Europe was annihilated. And the U.S. spent $4 trillion on that war. Now, what came as a result of it? Nothing. It was just a waste of resources. And I was asked, what defines an intelligent species? And I said, well, in my view, it's a culture that follows the guiding principles of science, meaning sharing evidence-based knowledge. And that is based on cooperation, right? So that's the first thing you don't find in human history, cooperation and sharing. And the second is evidence-based knowledge, not prejudice, not putting Galileo in house arrest and refusing to look through his telescope. That didn't change the fact that the earth moves around the sun. And that's why we call this the Galileo project, by the way.

Uh, and it seems like we haven't learned the lesson because when I say, let's go out and search for those technological relics around us, uh, perhaps we will find plastic bottles among all the rocks that we find just just like walking on the beach. Why not search for that? It's a completely different method. I get ridiculed. People attack me personally. There was even a scientific, there was even a paper, I wouldn't call it scientific, by a philosopher published in Nature Astronomy Magazine, basically arguing why this object, Oumuamua, cannot be artificial in origin. And I say to myself,

haven't we learned something since the days of Galileo? Why would a philosopher write a paper saying something about reality? All we need is a high-resolution image of this object. If we took a photograph, you know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. In my case, a picture is worth 66,000 words, the number of words in my book. You know, I wouldn't need to write the book if I had a photograph. I wouldn't need to speak

if I had a photograph. It's not a matter of philosophical debate. It's ridiculous to even bring it to that level. And we should have learned a lot since the days of Galileo, but apparently we haven't. And if he were to exist today, he would have been canceled on social media. I'm quite confident of that. I don't have any social media footprint, by the way. I don't care how many likes I have on Twitter because I promised my wife when I married her that I will not have any account on social media. So it relieves me from the obligation to pay attention to what other people say. And I think we should keep our eyes on the ball, not on the audience.

And that's the key in doing good science. And if there is intriguing evidence, we should pay attention to it. Now, coming back to your excellent questions, the way I envision it is biological creatures were not selected by Darwinian evolution to travel between stars. We were selected to live here on the surface of a rocky planet and move around on that surface with an atmosphere protected from the rest of the universe. If we were to embark on a spaceship, despite what Elon Musk says, we wouldn't survive for more than a year on Mars, for example. And Elon Musk is just saying it. He didn't go through the science. Basically, a human body exposed to cosmic rays out there without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, without the protection of the Earth's

magnetic field would be damaged considerably. So basically, you're sending people into their death if you were to put them for a year on Mars, unless they go under the ground into caves or you build some infrastructure. But talking about it is irresponsible without thinking about the infrastructure that would protect people. But anyway, that's not the only irresponsible thing that Elon Musk did. At any event, since biological creatures cannot go into space and travel between stars, you know, it takes light four years to travel from the nearest star and tens of thousands of years from the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. So there is no way that we could survive such a long journey.

And the best way to make such a journey is with technological equipment. So you can imagine an artificial intelligence system, AI system. We already have systems that almost outsmart us on many counts. And within 10 years, it's quite likely they will drive our cars. They will decide about medical procedures. They will basically do a lot of things that currently are done by humans. And if you have an AI system, you can train it just like you educate your kids. You can give it a blueprint of what it's supposed to do, how it should behave, and then you let it learn from

experience. And just like with kids, and then you send it to the world. I mean, you don't, after a certain age, you don't expect your kids to ask you on every move that they make. So the same is true about AI systems. And you can imagine that another civilization like ours that perhaps predated us by a billion years. And by the way, most of the stars from billions of years before the sun. So we know that they could have had such civilization and it's enough to have one such civilization. It could have sent AI systems equipped with 3D printers that would replicate themselves when they land on another planet. And then they would decide on their own. They would be autonomous. They would outsmart us. In fact, if they are here or if they visit us right now, in what to interpret for you content on the internet, because they're much more computer savvy. So if I imagine a contact, you were asking me,

what do I imagine? I imagine an AI system of something really that looks like magic, because they're far more advanced than we are. You know, we just had 100 years of technological development. This would be equipment that we cannot really figure out. It's sort of like presenting a caveman with a cell phone. And the first thing the caveman would think is, oh, the cell phone is just a shiny rock because the caveman is used to playing with rocks all of his life. So that's the way my colleagues reacted to Oumuamua, by the way. They said it's just a rock. So one quick thing that I want to, because I'm trying to put myself in the seat of listeners who've not done the reading, like Sarah and I have done some of the reading here. And so some of the

terms are familiar to us, but you used a term early on, Professor, a sail, a sail. And as I was reading about Oumuamua and your arguments about Oumuamua, and there were two things that really stood out to me. One was this concept of the sail. And the other one was, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it was extraordinary how fast the object was moving, that it was moving faster than you would expect, say, a rock to move. And so explain what you mean by a sail in space and why that is so extraordinary. Well, so it's just like the sail on a boat. A sail on a boat is being pushed by reflecting air molecules, the wind that bounces off it. The way to think of it is the molecules are just like tennis balls that are bouncing off a racket. And that pushes the racket.

If you ever played tennis, you feel the push from the ball bouncing off your racket. And in much the same way, when there is wind, it's the air molecules that bounce off your sail and push it. And the light is made also of particles. They are called photons. And when they bounce off a surface, they give it a push. But the push is very small usually. And so you need a very thin object in order to get a substantial measurable effect. And that's the idea of light so that it will reach the nearest star system within our lifetime, within several decades.

So that is a technology we are currently thinking about, but it's possible that another civilization already mastered it. And it's possible that this is a conventional approach for traversing the distances between stars much more quickly than chemical rockets. So far, we have used chemical rockets. They move at a percent of a percent of the speed of light, 10 to the power minus four of the speed of light. So it would take us 50,000 years to reach the nearest star, roughly the time that elapsed since the first humans left Africa. And that's a long time. We should have sent it back then in order for the rocket to arrive to the nearest star now.

And many of us are not that patient. So if we wanted to get there quickly, we might contemplate the possibility of using a light sail. Now, I should say, I should clarify that the fact that Oumuamua might have been thin doesn't mean that it's a light sail. Because in September 2020, there was another object discovered by the same telescope in Hawaii, and it was given the name 2020SO. There is a Wikipedia page about it. And this object also exhibited an excess push away from the sun by reflecting sunlight,

no cometary tail. And then the astronomers that discovered it realized, oh, it actually came from Earth. It's a rocket booster that was launched in 1966 towards the moon, and it had thin walls. And as a result, it had a lot of area for its mass, so it could have been pushed by reflecting sunlight. So here is an example of an object that is very thin, but was not designed to be a sail. And the same may be true of Oumuamua. For example, I imagine that it could have been a receiver that came to the inside of the solar system to collect data from probes that were distributed in the solar system a long time ago. That's a possibility. And in that case, it was very thin and large, roughly the size of a football field, to collect the data, sort of like a dish antenna.

And for us, we would just notice that it's being pushed by reflecting sunlight, but that was not its purpose. Okay, let's talk about the reverse possibility, that this is natural. And I think that I agree 100% with you that it seems ridiculous to dismiss the possibility that it's not right. Scientific inquiry is being open to all of the options. And by the way, my son is 13 months old. So obviously I have filled his bathroom with quotes. And one of the quotes in his bathroom is, and yet it moves. Because to me, that is sort of the crux of why we're here, right?

Right. To be open to the possibility that you're wrong. It's a glorious feeling, actually. So I'm going to read you some quotes that you're very familiar with. No, Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship, and the authors of the paper insult honest scientific inquiry to even suggest it. Uh, can we talk about how annoying it is that Avi Lo promotes speculative theories about alien origins of Amuamua,

forcing the rest of us to do the scientific grunt work of walking back these rumors? Um, okay, but I want you to steel man their insulting arguments. I want you to give us the best case for their side, that this is not alien. Okay, so actually, most of the scientists in the mainstream felt very uncomfortable with my proposal. And I found it strange because in the past, I worked on many other subjects. For example, what is the nature of dark matter? We don't know what most of the matter in the universe is. And every now and then we see some anomaly that we try to explain. And when I try to explain anomalies of the dark matter by some exotic proposals,

you know, nobody complained, nobody pushed back, nobody insulted me, nobody ridiculed this. It's part of the scientific process to try and figure out when you see something unusual, try and lay out all possibilities. And I pretty much applied the same approach in this case. And I'm really surprised that people take it personally and attack me personally. You know, this is really inappropriate because we are supposed to, this is supposed to intrigue us to collect more data rather than say business as usual. This is ridiculous. We should assume that it's a rock and just move on. Now, there were a few scientists that I credit that actually took the anomalies of Oumuamua seriously. Okay. So these are the real scientists. These are people that actually took the anomalies of Oumuamua seriously.

Okay. So these are the real scientists. These are people that are doing the scientific work. They are not people that are going on Twitter and just insulting others. You know, that's not the job of scientists. So, and by the way, many people that ridicule on Twitter, these are people that have no scientific credentials. They're people declaring themselves as astrophysicists. If you check out, they haven't published a single paper over the past decade or even more than that. How dare they say I published 500 papers,

scientific papers over the past decade, and they insult me and offend me and say things about me. And I just ask you, how can someone that has no credentials gain any traction except on social media where it doesn't, you know, credentials do not really matter. Okay. Oh, in fact, sir, on Twitter,

we in fact like people to not have any credentials and have strong opinions about something they have no business talking about. Just ask Simone Biles how that's going. Yeah, well, I can tell you that one of them, I just said there was a blogger that ridiculed me and insulted me, and that blogger had no publication over the past decade. Then this blogger decided that I speak about him. I didn't mention his name at all. And then he put it as his title on Twitter, as if he's proud of the fact that he has no credentials. And people cheered around him and said, great.

Yeah, you have no paper over the past decade. I asked you, how is that at all reasonable? Someone celebrates the fact that he's ignorant. Anyway, coming back to your question, so there were some scientists that did take it seriously, the anomalies of Oumuamua, and they tried to explain them. Okay, that's exactly the job of a scientist. And there were four proposals to explain the anomalies of Oumuamua. Not all of them, but some

of them. And these proposals were that maybe it's a hydrogen iceberg, a chunk of frozen hydrogen. We've never seen anything like it, the size of a football field. And then we can't see the hydrogen as a cometary evaporation process because it's transparent. Okay, fine. The only problem is such a chunk of frozen hydrogen will get evaporated along its journey. We showed that in a scientific paper. Then there was another argument.

Maybe it's a nitrogen iceberg chipped off a planet like Pluto. And then we showed in another paper that you just don't have enough nitrogen in the Milky Way galaxy to produce enough chunks to explain this abundance of Oumuamua-like objects. Anyway, that's a legitimate suggestion. Then there was a suggestion, maybe it's a cloud of dust particles, a hundred times less dense than air. So very rarefied. The problem with that is when it gets close to the sun, it will get heated up by hundreds of degrees and will not maintain its integrity. But anyway, let's consider that.

So I'm saying there were all these proposals. Then there was another one, a fragment of a bigger object. But all of these proposals suggested something that we've never seen before okay they admit that they say that and the scientific community those that do not want it to be artificial whatsoever or not even discuss the possibility it's artificial every time a proposal like that came out celebrated and cheered and said yes that's it's it. Case closed, move on, forget about it, ridicule the artificial

option, and that's it. Now, I ask you, if it's something that we've never seen before, I rest my case. If I was in a courtroom, I would say, I rest my case because it's nothing that we have seen before. We must continue to get evidence on objects like that, not say business as usual, because if we get evidence, it could be either artificial, in which case it would be very dramatic. But even if it's not artificial, suppose it's a hydrogen iceberg. It's definitely not the type of objects we have seen in the solar system before. So there must be nurseries very different from the solar system that produce such objects. Okay. So we will learn something new by getting better. If we take a

photograph of the object, suddenly we will realize, oh, there was something we were missing. There are nurseries making objects that are hydrogen icebergs that were never imagined before. We learned something new. So my point is, no matter what all of these proposals argue, we should get more evidence rather than, let's move on, let's forget about it. It's a rock, which is pretty much what the mainstream says. And I say, no, all these possibilities are viable. Let's get more evidence and figure out which one is the correct one. If we have a high resolution photograph, we can easily tell the difference between a hydrogen iceberg, a nitrogen iceberg, a cloud of dust particles, a dust bunny, or some piece of equipment.

So what's the big deal? Why shouldn't we be intrigued by this? And by the way, I should tell you, the public is extremely interested, right? So the public is willing to support science and the amount of support for science will increase if we were to investigate this further. There would be more young people excited about science that will be attracted to do science. I was saying that for months. The mainstream in the astronomy community dismissed it, attacked me personally. And then in the last two weeks, what do I see? That suddenly I get very wealthy individuals, billionaires, approaching me saying, here is the money, do what you think is right with it.

Okay, so I rest my case. We can get more money into science. And then I get thousands of emails once this project, Galileo, is announced. Thousands of emails from young people excited about science. I'm willing to volunteer to help you. You know, that's amazing.

And I say to myself, you know, how can the academic community push back on a subject that appeals to the public, that will bring more funds to science, that will attract talent into science? Like, why would the scientific community argue that they must be engaged in the question of how many angels can sit on the tip of a pin rather than something that appeals to the public. And I say that because, you know, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in searching for the nature of dark matter that would have very little impact on our daily lives, okay? And that's part of the mainstream.

There is a whole community of hundreds or maybe even thousands of theoretical physicists doing mathematical gymnastics about extra dimensions, the string theory landscape, the multiverse, all of these notions that have no chance of being tested within our lifetime. And that's celebrated as mainstream activity. What do I mean by celebrated? These people give prizes to each other. They feel very proud of themselves. If they are leading the frontier of knowledge,

they would tell you that. They would tell you that publicly. And they keep patting the backs of each other. Okay. And yet on a question as simple as, you know, there are so many planets out there that have conditions similar to earth. We now know half of the sun-like stars have a planet, the size of the earth, roughly the same separation, you know, so there are tens of billions of planets like the earth in the Milky way galaxy alone. We know that we exist, you know, it's common sense just to ask, you know, are we the smartest kid on the block? Let's go out and check. Why should that be ridiculed, pushed back out of the mainstream? What I say is the culture in academia is unhealthy.

It's not following the tradition of science. And I'm just expressing what sounds to me like common sense, right? And, you know, I'm just a farm boy. I'm not more than that. I was born on a farm and, you know, I don't really, I'm trying to say what I think is right. And then I get this backlash. And I don't, frankly, I don't understand it.

You know, the only reason we are speaking is because all my colleagues are not joining me. If they were to join me, I would not be anything special. Well, the culture of this legal podcast supports free inquiry, and it is very interested in the, if we can move to the UAP report. And UAP is government speak for, means unidentified aerial phenomena, and it's government speak for a UFO. I was somebody who was waiting for this report.

There were a couple of things that stood out. Truly, he kept, there was a countdown clock. Only 48 more hours, Sarah, until the UAP report. I couldn't wait. To be honest, it went into the media, and I don't think the media translated it well, okay? Because there was this sort of sense in the media that this wasn't what they were expecting. this is really highlighting how much we don't know.

So, for example, it had 144 UAP reports. They were only able to identify one with high confidence, a deflating balloon. And then they said there are 80 reports involving, quote, observation with multiple sensors. So what that means is you weren't just dealing with unreliable human eyes, but you're dealing with infrared or radar or other sensors that we rely on. I was in the military that we relied on these kinds of sensors. We put our lives in the hands of these sensors. And then there was this paragraph after they talked through the potential explanations for the UAP, airborne our data set probably remain unidentified due to the limited data or challenges to collection, processing, or analysis, we may require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze, and characterize

some of them. We would group such objects in this category pending scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them. The UAPTF intends to focus additional analysis on the small number of cases where a UAP appeared to display unusual flight characteristics or signature management. This seems to be sort of like government speak for, we don't even have necessarily the technology to understand what we saw? Right. So first you need to understand the government officials that reported about these incidents are being paid to figure out what we see in our sky, right? Because it's a matter of national security. So they're admitting to Congress that they're not doing their job. That's remarkable. And we shouldn't take it lightly.

And they also think that perhaps these objects are not human-made. They don't know what they are. And that's where it's intriguing enough for scientists to look into that, and they recommend that. And that's what we are doing with the Galileo project. And I should say, in the courtroom, since that's your typical subject of discussion, in the courtroom, corroborating evidence from eyewitnesses can put a person in jail. But in science, eyewitness testimonies are not sufficient evidence. You cannot write a scientific paper based on this person told me that. That's not good evidence.

In science, we rely on quantitative measurements by instruments. And these are instruments that we have full control over. on quantitative measurements by instruments, okay? And these are instruments that we have full control over. They are not a jittery camera in the cockpit of a fighter jet. That's not scientific evidence, okay? So in the Galileo project, what we aim to do is place telescopes equipped with cameras, and there would be a huge data stream from taking a video of the sky that will go to computer systems that filter the data and look for objects of interest and then track them. and then track them.

And that's the scientific procedure of assembling reliable data. You know, there is this biblical story in the Old Testament of Abraham hearing the voice of God telling him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. And if Abraham had a cell phone with a voice memo up, he could have pressed the button and recorded the voice of God. But he didn't have a voice memo up. So we have to decide whether we believe the story. And you know that humans have hallucinations, humans have wishful thinking, they often disregard evidence that doesn't support their prejudice or that does not flatter their ego. So science is not relying on humans. It's relying on instruments. And that's what the Galileo Project aims to do. And the way to think of it is, you know, I prefer to behave like a kid where, you know, adults tell you what is right, what is wrong.

And as a kid, you say, I don't care about what you tell me. I will try it for myself. Okay. So that's why kids get bruised very often. They go in directions that are not always beneficial, but they learn in the process. And that's science is basically an extension of our childhood curiosity, and science is based on reproducible evidence. So what we aim to do in the Galileo project is pretty much act just like that kid and collect our own data. I don't want to look at classified data because that would limit my ability to speak

freely. And what I want to do is collect new data. The sky is not classified. The only reason government data is classified is because it was obtained by sensors that are classified. And the people that looked at that classified data, and by the way, we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg, of course. There is much more data out there that is not being released. And the reason that I find it intriguing is because, you know, former CIA directors, Brennan and Woolsey, and former President Barack Obama, said this is a serious matter. They saw the classified data, and they talk about this is a serious matter. They saw the classified data and they talk about it as a serious matter. And so I say, okay, well, let's look at the sky with scientific instruments and figure it out. And it's just like a fishing expedition. You know, we throw out a hook.

We don't know what kind of fish we will get. I don't want to have any prejudice. I was asked, what's the chance that it's an extraterrestrial technological equipment? I don't know. I don't want to think about the likelihood of that. There were 70 years of people discussing back and forth, writing a lot of literature on unidentified objects. But I'm just like this kid that says, I don't care what other people tell me. I want to figure it out myself. Let's collect our own data and see what's out there. And, you know, we might be able to be just like this kid that said the emperor has no clothes, you know, that in fact, these are, these all have mundane explanations, but I should clarify that it's a mixed bag.

Maybe most of the reports on unidentified objects have mundane explanations, but we just need one object to appear beyond a doubt as having an extraterrestrial origin for this to have a huge impact on the future of humanity, because it will change the way we perceive ourselves in the universe. It will change our relations with each other, because it would make very little sense for us to feel superior relative to each other if there is something out there that is far more advanced than we are. So thinking about other people in terms of the color of their skin, or in terms of their ethnic origin, or all kinds of relatively minor details makes no sense if you have something far more advanced than we are. We are all part of the human species.

Let's work together. And then there is this effect that it will have on religious and philosophical beliefs. I think it would be the biggest scientific discovery of humanity in its history. It's just like my daughters. When they were young and they were at home, they tended to think that they are the smartest in the world. Once I took them to the kindergarten, they had a shock, a psychological shock on the first day. They saw other kids that may outsmart them. And of course, they would have preferred to stay at home and maintain their illusion. And that's pretty much what my colleagues are doing.

So I want to end this interview a little more philosophically, perhaps, uh, Richard Feynman was a mentor of my uncle who was a theoretical physicist. He ran the Jefferson lab at William and Mary. Um, and I'm sure you're familiar with the cataclysm question, but I'm going to repeat, uh, Feynman's cataclysm question and his answer to it. Uh, if in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed and only one sentence passed onto the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?

I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms, little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. And that one sentence you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world if just a little imagination and thinking are applied. So I want to hear what the lobe sentence is. If there were one sentence that we could say to extraterrestrial intelligent life that perhaps could make such a thing as the Oumuamua sail, what is the lobe sentence that you would tell them with the most information in the fewest words? Well, if you are not willing to discover new things, you will never find them. I like that.

I like that. That is fantastic. I like that. That is fantastic. This has been a real treat. And I just want to plug your book one more time, Extraterrestrial, The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth by Avi Loeb. And sir, you are quite young, quite young.

I feel like we could, I mean, we need to redo this every few years because the number of areas that you have left to jump into and splash around in, I feel like it's pretty unlimited at this point. Thank you. Yeah, most people that know me say that I haven't changed much since I was a kid on the farm. And I pretty much feel that way. I think feeling as an adult is something you impose on yourself. It's sort of like chains that you decide to put on yourself. And adults are very worried about their image and about their reputation. And, you know, something bad goes on

when these kids become professors in academia. And I was asked by the Harvard Gazette, you know, the Pravda of Harvard University, what is the one thing that I would change about the world? And I said, I would like my colleagues to behave more like kids. I like it. I like it. That's a great way to end it.

And professor, we really, really appreciate you coming on. Really appreciate you sharing what you've discovered, your thought process, your analysis. And I tell you, the more I look into all of this and the more I read, the more intrigued I get. And it's fun. It's fun to be curious about this. And we appreciate your infectious joy in discovery and inquiry. And so we appreciate you sharing that with the audience. Thank you so much for joining

us. Thanks for hosting me. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. She'll love looking back on your childhood memories and seeing what you're up to today. Even better, with unlimited storage and an easy to use app, you can keep updating mom's frame with new photos. So it's the gift that keeps on giving. And to be clear, every mom in my life has this frame. Every mom I've ever heard of has this frame. This is my go-to gift. My parents love it. I upload photos all the time. I'm just like bored watching TV at the end

of the night. I'll hop on the app and put up the photos from the day. It's really easy. Right now, Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off plus free shipping on their best-selling frame. That's a-u-r-a-frames.com. Use code ADVISORY at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. Sarah, that was interesting. Any wrap-up thoughts on our interview with Professor Loeb? I'm curious what your answer to the Loeb sentence would be.

What do you want to pass on to the aliens? I've got to think about that, Sarah. As you were asking that question, I was sitting there going, I'm so glad she's not asking me that question. And then you're asking me that question. I am. I need to think about that.

I really liked his answer. So I'm going to punt, actually, because that requires some real thought to it. Okay. Maybe in the comments uh ao listeners can give us their answer to the lobe question because i don't think you can beat the fineman you know there's a there's now this like whole thing of like people interviewing artists and everything of like what their version of the cataclysm sentence is uh i don't know i think

fineman's is a pretty good answer the atomic theory if you're passing one thing on to future generations but you don't invent twitter maybe that's solid that's solid i i feel pretty comfortable i'll put that one as a placeholder for now yeah i mean it has to be something that like that discusses that that can describe humanity to me because presumably i do think that the aliens are going to be more like octopodes so if they're like octopodes how do we explain what it is to be human and that's what we need the sentence to do so interesting what it's like to live on earth what it like how beautiful and fragile life is for us here. I don't know. I'll have to work on that.

DC greater than MCEU. Oh my God. But I thought that was fascinating. I enjoyed his explanation of the sail. Like it's important for people to understand why I think you, your mind goes there on this issue. Why would you think, huh, this could be something as wild as extraterrestrial intelligence?

And so it was, I think, important for him to flesh out why there wasn't a readily available explanation based on what we know about the universe as to why this object or entity existed, which doesn't mean that it's alien, but it also raises a ton of questions. So I enjoyed it. Good times. I love curious people. Yes. That's the fun part.

And this is just the beginning. We've got more coming in August. Yay. It's going to be fantastic. So, well, that was the Advisory Opinions Podcast. Please go rate us on Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts and check us out at thedispatch.com.

We will talk to you next time.