Somewhere in the Skies - Extraterrestrial with Avi Loeb

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

On episode 195 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we welcome Harvard Professor and astrophysicist, Avi Loeb. Loeb made international headlines in 2017 when a strange interstellar object passed through our solar system for the first time in recorded history. He published a controversial paper theorizing that this object, named 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "scout") could possibly have been a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization. He expands on these theories in a new book titled, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. Loeb discusses his theories and then dives deep in to the lack of wonder and risks in today's mainstream scientific community and what must change as we move forward in the ever-changing world and universe around us. It's an episode unlike any other and a conversation that lay somewhere in our interstellar skies. Full video interview also available by CLICKING HERE Order 'Extraterrestrial' by Avi Loeb by CLICKING HERE  WARNING: Ryan's personal audio is very low-quality in this episode as he had major microphone and WiFi issues. Apologies in advance and the issues have been resolved moving forward! Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Episode edited by Jane Palomera Moore Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show, Harvard professor and astrophysicist, Avi, Loeb. You know, the frontier of physics is extra dimensions. The frontier of physics is string theory. But these are concepts for which there is no experimental evidence. And they have been working on these for several decades. If that is the mainstream for which awards are given, for which you can get a job, then something is distorted in the scientific culture. Because there is a significant component of the theoretical physics community,

working on things that the public doesn't really understand, that have no connection to reality because they were never tested, whereas the same mainstream community is dismissing a subject that is of interest to the public and on which we can get data. Something is unhealthy in the current culture of theoretical physics. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome everyone to Somewhere in the Skies. And today we are joined by Professor. Avi received a PhD in plasma physics at age 24 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he started to work in theoretical astrophysics. In 93, he moved to Harvard University as an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy, where he was tenured three years later. He was also a visiting professorship

at the Wiseman Institute of Science and a Sackler Senior Professorship by special appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University. He is the father of the Black Hole Institute, a member of many other organizations, has authored over 700 research articles

and has written five books, the newest of which is the focus of our discussion today. The book is extraterrestrial, the first sign of intelligence. intelligent life beyond earth. And the author is Avi Lobin. He is here with us today.

Avi, thank you so much for joining me today on Summer on the Skies. Thank you for having me. The fact that I have you here with me today, Avi, is a huge honor and pleasure. So I really had to roll out your resume there to show my audience the depths we're going to go into next discussion. I should say that all these labels do not mean much for me, because, you know, what really matters to me is, you know, in science is curiosity.

And just like kids, you know, they don't have labels. They just try to learn about the world. And that's what we are all doing, you know. And there was an article in the Gazette, the Harvard Gazette that I wrote, where I was asked, what is the one thing you would like to change about the world? And I said, I just want my colleagues to behave more like kids. That's all I want to change. I completely agree with you there.

I think, you know, as we age, we lose that inhibition, you know, that we have that inhibition, I should say. And curiosity kind of takes a backseat. So it's good to see people like yourself out there challenging the mainstream, challenging the norm, and theorizing, which is such an important part of science to begin with. Well, it's the unfortunate aspect of people changing the pattern of their behavior from being kids to being adults is that they are starting to care more about themselves and about their ego. And in academia, you see that a lot. You know, professors, once they get tenure, they have students and postdocs that behave as if they are in an echo chamber. They echo whatever the senior person says.

and that amplifies the message. But this is, you know, chasing awards and honors is really not what science is about. It's not about us. It's about understanding the world, nature. And that's what we do as kids. And I just refuse to change that attitude. And I don't really care about how many likes I have on Twitter

and whether I get prizes and whether, you know, the community around me applaud or not. It doesn't really matter because what we are after is figuring out how the world works. And, you know, if you look at the history, you see situations like with Galileo, Galilei, who is a hero of science, you know, he argued that the earth is moving around the sun. And the philosophers at the time said, no, we know the truth. the sun moves around the earth and that's consistent with our religion and everything

and they put him in house arrest as a result but that didn't change the fact that the earth moves around the sun it only maintain their ignorance so my view is that reality stays the same irrespective of whether you ignore it or not it's the one thing that persists

and if we ignore reality just because we are chasing our egos and, you know, trying to get honors and awards. That's the wrong approach for finding the truth, you know. That's such a good point. The truth does not care about our feelings, right? I think it's a good way to say it. Well, let's rewind just a little bit, Avi, if you don't mind. Could you tell us a little about how you first got involved and interested in astronomy, cosmology,

What led you to where you are today, that burning curiosity? When did that all start for you? Well, it was purely by chance or circumstances, I should say, because I was born on a farm, and then I used to collect eggs every afternoon and drive a tractor. I was mostly interested in philosophy because it addresses the most fundamental questions that we have. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer those questions. And then I grew up in Israel and you have to serve in the military. at age 18. It's obligatory. And I prefer to do intellectual work, the thing that is closest to

pursuing philosophy. And so I was good in physics, and they recruited me to an elite program that uses physics for the defense of the country. And I finished my PhD at age 24, the first one in this program. And actually, the project that I developed was the first international. project funded by the Strategic Defense Initiative of Ronald Griggen back in the 1980s. And as a result, I came to the U.S. for visits because we were funded by the U.S. government. And in one of those visits, I visited the Institute for Advanced Study, where Albert Einstein was a professor decades earlier, because someone told me that it's a very interesting place to visit.

And I met a person named John Bacal that gumbled on me, offered me a five-year fellowship under the condition that I'll switch to astrophysics. So even though philosophy was my true love, I said, well, you know, that's an unusual opportunity. I should not give up on it. So I went into astrophysics, had to learn all the vocabulary. I didn't know much. I didn't know how the sun shines. Let's put it this way. And so I learned it.

And then Harvard University offered me an assistant professorship. Nobody else wanted that position because the chance of getting tenured was very small. And so actually they chose someone else's number one. And that someone said, no, I don't want that job because I will not be promoted. So they gave it to me. And then I was promoted three years later. And after that, about a decade and a half later, I became the chair of that department. the longest serving chair, I should say, since 2011 until 2020 last year.

And at that point, I realized that, in fact, even though I had an arranged marriage to astrophysics, the person that I'm married to is actually my true love, because in astrophysics, you have very fundamental questions, philosophical questions, that we can address with scientific tools, such as, you know, what is our origins? How did the universe begin? And are we alone? Is there life out there?

You know, these are really fundamental questions that you can find a discussion about in almost all religions. If you look at the Old Testament, the Bible, the first chapter, discusses these questions. Now we can address those questions with scientific tools.

So I'm really happy to pursue astrophysics, even though I was forced into it by circumstances. Such is life. I completely understand that. Well, I mean, and you've come such a long way since then. You even started your own institute, which I'd love to talk to you about before we get to, you know, the elephant slash object in the room, oh, mua, mua. But before that, Avi, the Black Hole Institute. Could you tell us a little about what this is and why you decided to found this institute? This is fascinating to me. Yeah, so this Black Hole initiative started, was inaugurated in 2016. And the idea was to establish a center that brings together physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, and philosophers that are all interested in black holes.

Black holes are these extreme structures of space and time that represent the ultimate prison. Even light cannot escape from them. And Einstein wrote his theory of gravity in November 1915, published it. And then a few months later, Carl Schwarchel was the first to derive an analytic solution, a simple solution to those equations,

and that was a black hole. And a hundred years later, the first direct evidence for a black hole came in the form of gravitational waves when two black holes collided at the edge of the universe and sent ripples in space and time that our LIGO observatory detected, discovered, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded a couple of years later in physics. So it's quite remarkable that it took only a century between the idea of a black hole to when it was discovered. And that was just around the time when we established the Black Hole Initiative. We didn't know about the LIGO result when we decided to establish it, but then it came along. It was publicized around the same time. And since then, I should say this year, the Nobel Prize was given again to the study of black holes. So we should have, in hindsight, the 2020 hindsight, and 2020 is also the year when the Nobel Prize was awarded again for Blackholt, we actually forecasted that it will become a major frontier in the study of the universe.

And I should say that Einstein himself doubted that Blackholtz exists in nature. In 1939, he wrote a paper saying, black holes are just mathematical contracts. They don't really exist in nature. and he was wrong on that. But this just illustrates that, you know, science is a learning experience. Even Einstein was wrong actually three times late in his career. And it's a learning experience. When you work on the frontier, sometimes you make mistakes.

You have to take risks. And as I said before, it's just like kids. You know, you stumble. But through that process, you learn something new. And, you know, all these four-size, all these people in academia that try to, you to pretend as if they know everything or they want to protect their image by never being wrong, by never taking a risk.

They're betraying the promise of science because they're not considering possibilities that might be true and revolutionary. And for example, the detection of gravitational waves from black hole collisions, that was a revolutionary concept. And a lot of people in the mainstream doubted that it's possible.

But now we use it. So that's why I don't care about the number of likes I get on Twitter, because, you know, many of the people that pioneered things in science were not particularly liked. Their ideas were not liked at the time when they proposed it. Absolutely. And we're going to get into sort of that rebellious nature that I highly respect about the work you've done

and many other, you know, scientists in all different. fields as well, who aren't afraid to throw the darts at the wall and see what sticks, you know? I should say one thing, though, that just before we inaugurated the Black Hole Initiative, about four months before that, actually half a year before that, I met Stephen Hawking in London at some event, and his caretaker said, would you mind saying something to Stephen? He's bored. Would you mind speaking to him? And I went to Stephen and said, because everyone around was not really a scientist. So I went to him and said, look, we're about to inaugurate the Black Hole Initiative.

Black holes were the focus of his career. And I said, we would love it if you were to come and visit us for the inauguration. And then I left because it took him a long time to respond. And I was not patient enough to wait like 10 minutes for his response. So I thought, well, nothing will happen as a result. but then a few months later he asked his doctor to travel across the Atlantic for the first time in four years and come to the inauguration. The only problem was that this journey would cost half a million dollars. But I found a way.

There was a way to get that funding and he came and he actually visited my house for Passover. He's not Jewish, but he came for that. And it was quite remarkable to have him, to host him at our home. Wow. What a story that you'll always have to treasure. I mean, having Stephen Hawking in your home, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine what that would be like. Oh my gosh. Well, okay, so let's move to 2017. And this is when news broke of this object, oh, muamua, and the whole world was talking about this, whether it was in the world of science or religion or, or religion, or, us in the quote unquote UFO world, UFO community, and the possibility that, oh my gosh, this could be the first object to come into our solar system. So I guess would you mind kind of walking us through those first moments, Avi, of when it was discovered, you know, we heard about it later than when it was actually first discovered. So could you kind of walk through the entire, oh,

origin story, if you will. Yes, so it was spotted on October 19th, 2017. And by a telescope in Hawaii on Mount Haleakala called Pan Stars, and because it was discovered in Hawaii, it was given a name from the Hawaiian language that means a scout, a messenger from far away. That's the origin of the name. And it's because the object is the very first one that we spotted from outside the solar system.

It was moving too fast to be bound to the sun. That was recognized immediately that it's an interstellar object, an invader of the solar system. It was spotted only when it was moving away from us. If we would have detected it in July that year, at that time it was moving towards us. As it turns out, I was visiting that mountain in Hawaii. In Maui, we were on vacation with my family, and I went to give a talk at that observatory, and they gave us a tour of that site.

So if at that time we would have spotted it, then it would have been possible to send a camera on a CubeSad that will meet it halfway and take a photograph of it. But since it was discovered only when it started moving away from us, it was too late. It's sort of like having a guest for dinner. And by the time you realize that the guest is strange or weird or interesting, it's already out of the front door into the dark street. That was the experience. Now, why was it strange?

At first, astronomers thought it's just like any other rock that we have seen before in the solar system. So most likely it's a comet. And then the problem was that there was no cometary tale. There was no trail of gas behind it as a result of evaporation of ice on its surface. So then people said, oh, well, okay, so it's not a comet, but maybe it's just rock, just an asteroid. The problem with that was that it showed an extra push in addition to the force of gravity coming from the sun. And such a push is given to comets from the rocket effect, from gases pushing them forward as the gas goes backwards. And just like in a jet plane, so there is this extra push,

but we don't see a cometary tale. So what gives it this extra push? The other peculiar fact was that the object was tumbling the brightness that we received from it as a result of reflected sun. light changed by a factor of 10. And that meant that the area of the object on the sky was changing, as it was spinning around, was changing by a factor of 10 every eight hours. And that means that its geometry is very extreme. Because even if you take a razor thin piece of paper and you let it tumble in the wind, you don't see it edge on most of the time. And a factor of change in the area of this piece of paper means that it really is quite flat and long. Now, the best fit to the amount of light that we received as it was tumbling is that from a pancake

shape, from a flattened object, not from a cigar-shaped object as it was depicted in many cartoons. So we know that most likely it was a flat object that was pushed by some force. And we suggested in a paper that we wrote in a scientific paper with my postdoc Shmuel Biali, we suggested maybe it's the reflection of sunlight that pushed it. And for that, you need the object to be extremely thin, sort of like a sail on a sailboat that is pushed by wind, except here it's being pushed by the reflection of sunlight. And if that is the case, then it must be artificially produced because you don't get such objects in nature.

And so the suggestion was that just like our civilization is developing light sails for space exploration, these are sails that are pushed by light where you don't need to carry the fuel with you in order to move the spacecraft. Perhaps another civilization already mastered this technology. Or maybe it's some surface layer of spacecraft that was torn apart and it's, it's very. just very thin. I should say in September this year, I mean, 2020, there was another object discovered that looked a bit strange in the sense that it also showed a push by sunlight. And except that it was bound to the sun moving roughly at the orbit of the earth. And so when astronomers extrapolated back in time, they found it in 1966. It actually, it actually,

actually came from the earth. And then, of course, they went to the history books and found there was actually a lunar lander called Surveyor 2, a mission that actually failed. But the rocket booster from that mission was kicked into space. And that is the object that was discovered. And that was a hollow, very thin object. And that's why it exhibited this push. So we can tell the difference between a rock that cannot be pushed by sunlight because it's

it's full. I mean, the area of its surface relative to its weight is not big enough. Only for a very thin object, you can get a push. We can distinguish a rock from a hollow

or a thin, artificial object. In the case of this rocket booster, it was made by us. In the case of Umuamua, who knows, and who knows what the purpose was. So, you know, we just put this possibility on the table.

And to me, the most surprising thing is we didn't arrange for any press release or going to the press. And then there was a huge, a viral response from the media. And at the same time, a big pushback from the scientific community. There is a taboo. You're not supposed to discuss an interpretation that relates some anomalies that you see to intelligence. extraterrestrial intelligence. And the question is why, to me, this is really unjustified, and I can explain why. Yeah, well, let's discuss that.

Now, you mentioned artificial and interstellar. So I think a lot of people's minds would not actually go to alien. And of course, this is what the media is going to latch on to. This is what the, I would assume, mainstream scientific community would push. against. So, I mean, I guess before we get into the possibilities of why this could be from extraterrestrial intelligence, what was the reception when you first published this paper by your peers and, you know, your colleagues and overall? How did they respond to these theories that you were bringing forth? Well, the strange thing is that the mainstream scientists

came together and most of them said, business as usual. Forget about it. They wrote a big paper saying, you know, there are all these anomalies, but in principle, there might be a natural process that explains them. But then a few of the mainstream people tried to explain these anomalies. And they came up with something that we have never seen before. They said, oh, maybe it's a dust bunny, you know, a collection of dust particles, a very porous object that is sort of like a cloud, you know, very porous, a hundred times less dense than air, a cloud. that is being pushed by sunlight. That was one proposal. The problem with that is such an object

would not survive the journey, most likely. There was another proposal. Maybe it's a hydrogen iceberg. We've never seen such a thing. And in a paper that I wrote subsequently with a colleague of mine, Tim Juan, we showed that such an iceberg would evaporate very quickly.

It will not survive the journey as well. So you can tell that people that thought about the anomalies and tried to explain them as a natural product of some natural process, had a very difficult time doing that. And yet, the majority of people that didn't really look at the details

were dismissing it. And we're ridiculing the actual possibility that it might be artificial. And that I find inappropriate and unhealthy. And I'll explain why, because to me, the existence of another civilization is not a speculation, We know that roughly half of the sun-like stars have a planet of the size of the Earth, roughly at the distance of the Earth from the sun, so that it can have liquid water on the surface and the chemistry of life as we know.

So there are billions of such Earth-Sun systems in the Milky Way galaxy alone. And if you arrange for the same circumstances, what's the chance that you will not get the same outcome? If you roll the dice billions of times, you know, you definitely should have a lot of systems in which you have life, as we know it. I would find that to be the most conservative assumption to say, we are not special. We are very common. You know, when my daughters were young, they thought that the world centers of them, on them, that they are very unique and special. Then they went to the street and saw other kids. And then as a result of that, they got a better perspective and matured.

Many of my colleagues and our civilization is not mature yet. Many of the people think that we are unique and special. And the only way to change that misconception is to find evidence for others out there. And I not only believe that we are not alone, but I don't think that we are the sharpest cookie in the jar. that we are the smartest kid on the block. We are probably typical, and there are things that are much smarter than we are. Because, you know, if you open the newspaper every morning, you know, humans may make a lot of mistakes. We waste a lot of time and energy and money, fighting each other, doing things not necessarily for the better good of everyone.

So we certainly do not behave as the smartest kid on the block. And, you know, if you just think about it, if you look at recipe books for cakes, and you can see that out of the same ingredients, you can make very different cakes, depending on how you mix them and under which condition and what order and so forth. So what's the chance that if you take the soup of chemicals that was on earth, that by random processes made us, what's the chance that we are the best cake that you can imagine? Very small.

So we are one of those typical cakes. You know, there are cakes that are much more intelligent, much better than us in many respects, I'm sure. And we just need to find evidence for them. Now, of course, you can bury your head in the sand and say, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to consider that possibility. that will only maintain your ignorance, but reality will not go away.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we're so young as a species, as a planet. And I tend to agree with you that we base everything, obvious, seems, in the sort of mainstream perception of science on our limitations here on our planet, our limitation of our own physics, our own dynamics, our own science. where the possibilities are literally endless of what kind of life could be out there, how it originated, how it thrives, and how it survives. So I agree with you. It may be very different than we are. You know, when you go on a blind date, it's a fair assumption to assume that the person

you would meet would not be very different from you because we share a common genetic heritage, you know, all humans. but when you meet life from another place that had nothing in common with us, you know, it could be very different. And the technologies could be much more advanced than ours, that they would look like magic for us. But the lesson from Omuamua is similar to what I experience when I go on vacation on a beach. You know, most of the time I see seashells that were swept ashore,

and each of them looks different and they were naturally produced. But every now and then, I stumble across a plastic bottle that implies that there is a civilization out there that produced it. It's an artificially made object. And my point is, rather than just looking for radio signals from space, we might check objects that come to us from outside the solar system and perhaps we'll find a message in a bottle. So the search for other civilizations could go in many different directions.

It's possible that many of those civilizations that existed are not around anymore, that they are dead by now. But that doesn't mean that we cannot find evidence for their existence. We could search just as we do archaeology where we dig into the ground and find. evidence for civilizations that are not around anymore. We can do the same thing in space. You know, finding planets with burned up surfaces where the civilization did not take good care of its climate or went into a nuclear war.

So we can find artifacts that are left behind. We can find evidence for dead civilizations as well. And that would teach us an important lesson to behave better so that we will not share the same fate. Altogether, I think we can learn from the sky. If we see evidence for other civilizations out there, we can learn from them. If we see a technology that we can import to Earth, it would be huge. It could be very profitable, you know, instead of going to Wall Street or the Silicon Valley,

if you learn something from the sky, looking at the sky. What's up guys, Ryan Sprague here, and I'm just dropping in to remind you about our Patreon campaign. Somewhere in the skies is always free to consume, but it's not free to create. So if you want to help the show on a monthly basis, we have tons of rewards for you in return, including shoutouts on the show and website, bonus content and episodes, and free merge. Want to be my guest or pick a topic for the show? You can do that too. So if you'd like to learn more and to help support the show, visit

Patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you and keep looking up. The technology that we see displayed by, I'm talking about those who claim to have seen unidentified aerial phenomena here on Earth, the technology being displayed by these craft or these anomalies or phenomena. If we could harness that technology, like you said, I can only imagine how it could benefit humanity instead of being weaponized, instead of being used for bad or for destruction, like you said,

a fake that we might have someday that another civilization had. So I just kind of closing... I should add to what you just said. I participated in a debate about just a month and a half ago about the question of whether the space race between the U.S. and China is good for humanity. And all of the debaters were focusing on the military threat from space.

So if there is this race between China and the U.S., you know, it brings the risk to national security and so forth. And I just couldn't understand it because space is all about going away from Earth in the third dimension. You don't just hover above the surface of the earth. That's not where most of the space is. It's very far away. it's going to Mars, it's going to another star. And there is no military risk from that. If you go very far from Earth, you're not risking what's going on on Earth.

And to me, it was very narrow-minded, the view to think about space as a military threat. You know, it's actually it's the one thing that can unify us. You know, we can have an ambition going to space that will benefit the global economy. So rather than fighting among each other, other space, I think, could be a unifier. Right. And that kind of connects to my last question here in terms of what Omuamua could represent and what these possible artificial objects could be coming into our solar system is techno signatures. Avi, I know you've done heavy research on this in the past as well.

We covered this on a website I worked for called the Debrief recently as well. scientists, members of SETI, now working in this field of techno signatures. So for any of our audience who might not be familiar with what this is, could you maybe give us kind of the clip notes version of what techno signatures is in, I guess, how it could benefit our search for extraterrestrial intelligence? Yeah, so let me give you an example that will illustrate the point. Astronomers are willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars in the next generation of telescopes that would search for

oxygen in the atmospheres of planets around other stars because the argument is that life produces oxygen that's a signature of life the problem with that argument is that in the first two billion years of Earth, roughly half of the life of the Earth, was spent with the atmosphere having very little oxygen in it. Even though there was life on Earth in the first two billion years, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere was very low. So you can have life, microbial life, on a planet without oxygen in the atmosphere. We know it from Earth. Another point is that you can make oxygen by natural processes. You can break water molecules and make oxygen. So it wouldn't be really conclusive. But thus the mainstream of astronomy is willing to invest a huge sum of money

pursuing that signature. My point is simple. There is actually the same instruments can actually detect something that will tell you beyond any doubt that there is like. If they detect CFCs. These are molecules that indicate industrial pollution that we, for example, produce here on Earth. These CFCs are molecules produced by refrigerating systems, by industries that deplete the ozone layer on Earth. This industrial pollution can be looked for by the same telescopes. Yet the mainstream of the astronomy community is not discussing them at all. So I wrote a paper about five years ago talking about searching for industrial pollution. What is the problem?

I mean, we are using the same instruments we just have to open our mind to the possibility that industrial pollution exists on exoplanets. And once we do that, if we detect it, that would be beyond any doubt an indication for life because such molecules are so complex that they cannot be produced by natural processes. So here is an example of a techno signature, a signature that is a marker of technology that would indicate that an industrial civilization exists on a planet. That's one example. You can think of, for example, seeing evidence for photovoltaic cells on the surface of a planet or artificial illumination of the surface of a planet, both subjects on which I wrote the paper. papers, you can think of megastructures, things that are big that do not look like planets.

You can think about satellites orbiting a planet. For example, SpaceX is planning to launch tens of thousands of communication satellites in the next few years. And you can imagine that in the distant future there would be even more. And the question is, can we detect evidence for so many a swarm of satellites around the planet. So all of these are technological signatures that, you know, we can search for if we only open our mind. And the problem is really, when you're not open-minded to find wonderful things, things that you don't expect necessarily, you will never discover them. So it's a catch. If the mainstream of the astronomy community is bullying and dismissing, even a discussion on the

possibility that Umuamua was artificial or that there are these civilizations out there. If they say it's never aliens, like if you go to Twitter, you will find it a lot of times being said, it's never, don't talk about it. And they, you know, a lot of people ridicule anyone that discusses this. Then of course, young people will worry about their job prospects. They will never enter this field. You will never have fresh talent working on these subjects. and it will never be funded.

So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, all these no-sayers, they will look at it and say, oh, look, there is nothing being found. Of course there is nothing being found. If you don't fund the search and if you don't allow young people to get into it because of the intellectual climate that suppresses it, then there will never be progress. It's just like bearing your head in the sand.

And my point is that the public is extremely interested in this question. The public is funding science. How dare the scientists say we have the technology to search for such things, but we don't want to discuss it? I think it's completely inappropriate. If the public is interested and the science community can address this subject, it should be mainstream. And then when you look at the theoretical physics right now, A huge community of very talented young people work on concepts that have no connection to reality, no experimental verification. They work on extra dimensions.

They work on string theory. And, you know, many popularizes of science talk about, you know, the frontier of physics is extra dimensions. The frontier of physics is string theory. But these are concepts for which there is no experimental evidence. and they have been working on these for several decades. And my point is, if that is the mainstream for which awards are given, for which you can get a job, then something is distorted in the scientific culture, because there is a significant component of the theoretical physics community,

working on things that the public doesn't really understand, that have no connection to reality because they were never tested, whereas the same mainstream community is dismissing a subject that is of interest to the public and on which we can get data. So how can you have both things at the same time? That makes no sense. Something is unhealthy in the current culture of theoretical physics.

And, you know, I am just straightforward in that. I'm saying these things based on what I see, and of course that will not be a popular view because all these people that work on these things will push back. But that's the truth. If you ask practitioners, they will tell you that's the reality of the situation.

And this is unfortunate, especially for young people because you want young people to be independent, to think about things for which you can get data and to be excited about it so that we can make progress. You know, quantum mechanics, a central pillar of physics, was never imagined until experiments told us that it exists. So how can we think that we will come up with the correct notion of nature just by, you know, sitting in our offices without any experimental feedback? You know, physics is a dialogue with nature.

You have to listen to nature. You have to see what nature tells you. It's a learning experience. Many times you are wrong. So without this feedback, if you make it. a monologue where you say what you think nature is, then it's not different from the philosophers that told Galileo. We know that the sun moves around the earth. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I mean, I can hear the excitement in your voice, Alvi, which is inspiring. I know there are several

aspiring astronomers that listen to the show and were really excited that I was having you on. Because I think they share that same wonder as you do of why you got involved with this and the endless questions that can be asked of the universe. Yeah, I should tell you in this context that what I do in the context of the search for life is no different than what I, than the approach that I took in the context of studying the universe. For example, most of the matter in the universe is not known. It's called dark matter because we don't know what it is. It's dark. There is no interaction with light. And, you know, there are various possibilities for what, you know, the composition of the dark matter is.

And over the years, over the decades, people suggested all kinds of possibilities. And many of them were tested, like weakly interacting massive particles. You know, there are very tight constraints on the properties of these particles by now. So hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on expense. that prove that the original notion of weakly interacting massive particles is not correct. Nobody blames those people that suggested it because it's part of science. As I said, science is a learning experience. It should be completely natural to sometimes have the wrong idea, test it experimentally,

and show that it's wrong. That is part of science. It's a learning experience. But the point is that moving from that, you know, and I wrote like two years ago a paper talking about the dark matter perhaps being made of particles that have a small electric charge, I found that a speculative idea, but there was no complaint about it. Then when I see anomalies of an object in the sky and I write a paper about these anomalies and try to explain them with one possible explanation, I don't see that any different

than saying the dark matter is made of particles that are electrically charged. It's just a hypothesis that you can test with getting more evidence. What's the problem? Then I get a backlash of people saying, how dare you discuss it? Now, the only reason that I appear in the media, as unusual, you know, I get a lot of media attention,

you know, it's because my colleagues are not sharing my behavior. You know, if everyone was open-minded, and if we were to discuss an artificial explanation for Oomu'amua naturally, just, you know, one of the possibilities, no problem. and what, you know, then it would be just like discussing various possibilities for the dark matter. So that the media would not pay too much attention, you know, there is this possibility, another possibility, fine. It's part of science.

We rule out. We get more evidence on other, you know, we will collect more data on other objects like, umu, mua, and that we move on. But the fact that there is this pushback makes me unique. And that's why I appear on your show. And frankly, I don't understand why I should. be unique. But the way I view it, you know, as I mentioned, I was in the military early on. And, you know, when you go into combat, they often say that, you know, one soldier has to put his body on the barbed wire so that other soldiers can go across that. And, you know, even though it's

painful for me to see the reaction of some people. And by the way, most of these people that make nasty remarks are not particularly good scientists. And I'm not really offended by those because I know that they are not really good scientists. And that's why they make the remark because they don't really understand the subtlety of the anomalies. But at any event, it's a painful experience sometimes. And I just feel, you know, I'm putting my body on the barbed wire so that the younger generation of tomorrow will be able to explore this subject freely. That's my thinking. I love that.

Trial blazer through and through, man. I mean, that makes perfect sense. And like I said, there are young people that are going to watch this and listen, who I think appreciate and respect that work that you're doing to build off of that as they progress in their own understanding of the universe and fighting back against the norm when it comes to mainstream science. But I would love... Just to say, that's the second message of my book.

The first message has to do with Umoa-Mua, being potentially artificial. But the second is what I learned in that process of exploring about the scientific community, which is a rather unhealthy situation right now. And I very much hope we will change. Me too. It's become very stigmatic and, I think, dogmatic as well. And again, I think that's why you shaking things up is so refreshing, not just for people who believe in UFOs.

That's a whole different conversation to be had. But for people who want that wonder and that amazing possibility of there being something else out there, either we are completely alone in the universe or we're not. And both answers are equally as terrifying if you really look at it. So I do hope, and I hold out that hope with people like you blazing those trails. And I do have a few listener questions here. Oh, go ahead. To stick around.

I'd love to ask you some of these. Yeah, go ahead. Any question you want. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. You mentioned the pancake shape of Omuamua.

Now this question comes from Ian, and he wants to know how did scientists make this analysis? And I guess kind of building off of that question, why didn't we have any? images taken from this, whether through wavelengths, radio frequencies, infrared. Yeah, can you maybe clarify some of the misconceptions? So the answer to the second question is easier. Let me start with that.

Basically, the size of the object can be inferred based on the amount of sunlight that it reflects, if you assume something about the reflectance. And so the sizes of order, the size of a football field, it's 100 meters, a few hundred feet. And given that size and distance, you know, the distance is roughly the Earth's sun separation at the time that it was detected, at that distance the object occupies a very small angle on the sky that we cannot resolve with existing telescopes on Earth. So it's just, it looks like a point of light. You can't really resolve it.

However, if we were to discover it on its way towards us, we could. could have sent a spacecraft that would meet it halfway and come very close to it so that it's big enough in terms of the angle that it occupies for a camera to take a photograph of it. So you basically need to come close enough to the object so that it's big enough for the camera to resolve it. But we didn't have that luxury in this case. So we don't have a photograph of it. And of course, a photograph would convince us beyond any doubt what the nature of the

object is. And I very much hope that in the future, you know, when we see more objects of this type that look very peculiar, we'll be able to send a mission that will take a photograph from up close. So that's the answer to the second question. The first question, how do we know that it's pancake shaped and not cigar shape? That's based on a model for the reflected light. So as it was tumbling around, the amount of light that it reflected from the sun changed. And if you try to obtain a fit to the change, the variation in the amount of light that we see as a function of time, the best fit model was one that had a flat shape, a pancake-like shape. If you were to take a cigar-like shape, it would not give you as good of a fit.

And the confidence that was inferred is 90%. So at the 90% confidence level, it was flat. There was another argument that was actually in the original discovery paper, which had to do with the fact that a flat object would be more likely to be associated with the light curve because it would represent the largest amount of energy that the object gets as it moves through interstellar space. So if there is a tumultus journey where it gets kicked around, then based on the way that it tumbled, you can say that it should be pancake shape

because that represents the most likely state that it would be in given the light curve that we saw. And if it was cigar-shaped, it would be the minimum energy. So if it was cigar-shaped, the light curve that we saw would represent an object that was barely kicked around, you know. So that's a separate. argument. So at any event, we don't know for sure, but most likely it was not the way depicted in those cartoons, a cigar-shaped object, but more like a pancake. And that is more

consistent with a light sale idea. So in fact, when we wrote our first paper with my postdoc, Schmuel Biali, there were free of the paper. And by the way, the paper was accepted for publication within a few days, which is a record for me. The referee of that paper said, And by the way, it seems like a pancake shape is indeed more likely based on the light curve. So that's another interesting point that goes in the direction of the object being unusual. Because most of the rocks that we see are not really flat. See, and I'm glad you clarified both those for us because I think the number one question I got is, why, why didn't we get images of this thing? And I mean, you explained it plain as day. We didn't make it in time. We didn't have enough advanced knowledge. And I mean, I know there's even companies out there. I believe it's Riga University that I recently researched who are inventing technology to try to deflect asteroids before they possibly could cause catastrophic events on our planet. So if we're able to know that,

enough ahead of time and have the technology to deflect it, we could feasibly save the planet. So I mean, time of everything. I should say that the Pan Star Telescope that discovered Oumuuma, its main purpose is to find these killer asteroids. Those are asteroids that endanger the Earth that have a size larger than the size of Oumuumuwa. But if they happen to intercept the Earth could cause a lot of damage. And Congress, about 16 years ago, decided that astronomers should search for all of these dangerous rocks that can fly. And we know that the dinosaurs died as a result of a giant rock that was much bigger, you know, tens of kilometers in size.

And of course, the dinosaurs didn't have astronomers to warn them. They didn't have science. So they just saw this giant rock approaching them and boom. You know, and it must have been an amazing experience to see this rock getting bigger and bigger and eventually hitting the earth. But they died as a result, and we came in their place. And we have science to warn us in advance with these telescopes like pan stars surveying the sky. And in three years, there would be a much better telescope doing that called the Vera Rubin Observatory that we have a survey of the sky. guy called LSD aimed at finding things.

That survey could find or more and more like objects every month. So my point is, in a few years, we could have many of those discovered and then study them in detail. We don't need to wait very long. We just need to collect the evidence, unless we decide to bury our head in the sand again and say, we don't care about these objects because we know what they are. So altogether, I see a lot of prospects for making progress in this context. And it's just a new way of searching for civilizations that was never used before,

not based on radio signals or looking with telescopes at other stars, you know, just searching our backyard for objects that came along. Yeah, right. And, you know, I mean, a lot of people know the very visible work of setting. using radio signals to try to find life when there's literally a million other ways we could be searching. Right.

And you know, we sent out Voyager 1, Voyager 2, New Horizons, we are sending space junk. And so, you know, it's quite natural to imagine there being objects in space that were sent by other civilizations. And, you know, currently all our eggs are in one basket here on Earth. Everything we care about is here.

And if something catastrophic happens, we will lose everything we care about. And I wrote actually an essay to Scientific American recently talking about Noak's spaceship, which relates to the biblical story in the Old Testament that talks about Noah, who was worried about the great flood killing all the animals. So he built an ark. And by the way, the dimensions of the ark are given explicitly in the Bible. They are not very different from the dimensions of Omu, Mu, I should say, by chance. But the story goes that he put animals in the ark and saved them from the Great Flood.

So we can have a similar concept, saving life on Earth from a catastrophe by sending out a spaceship. Now, that doesn't mean that the spaceship needs to be huge. so that you can dock elephants and whales and birds. Actually, all you need to know is the DNA of those animals, put it on a computer, all this information, and have a 3D printer, and just go to other places and reproduce life synthetically out of the knowledge that we have about the DNA of all forms of life on Earth.

And so in principle you can send the CubeSat. It doesn't need to be a giant arc, a giant spaceship. It could be a small thing that goes to another planet and reproduces what we care about here on Earth. Right. We've come a long way from gold disks, right, and sending those out. I think we're making progress. By the way, about making progress, you know, there is this question. Could humans survive in space?

Would humans adapt to a habitat that floats in space? Well, you know, humans adapted from the environment of Africa to an apartment building in Manhattan. It's a very different environment. Only over 100,000 years. Within 100,000 years, instead of being in the jungle, you find people living comfortably, well, until the pandemic, in an apartment building.

So the leap of living in space, may not be much bigger. Yeah, if I can attest to that living right now in New York City during a lockdown with the terrain outside my window, I will take space any day over that, I'll be for sure. All right, well, I guess I got two more listener questions, if you don't mind. Do you acknowledge any probability of our bombs that we set off in the 40s and whatnot? Was this some sort of beacon, if there is an issue? intelligence out there of acknowledging us and kind of like Omaloomou says, scout us out and

monitor what we're doing. That's one possible signal that we can look for, but I would say, you know, like signals of radiation, like radio waves. We've been transmitting for a century, radio waves. And that means that for a hundred years, there is a sphere of radio waves that went a hundred light years away. And if there is any civilization within a hundred light years that has radio telescopes like we have, they will know about our existence. I actually did this calculation.

And with our technology, it's possible to tell that we exist out to a distance of tens of light years. Of course, it will take a lot of time for us to hear back, but it's already possible that we were careless, that we were not careful enough not to announce that we exist. And the reason I say that is I think it's much more prudent, much smarter to be quiet and listen first before speaking out. Because you never know what the risks are out there.

And we were not careful. Once again, a sign of us not being very intelligent. So who knows? Yeah. There are some predators out there, and we will hear from them at some point. Yep. Yep, I think if everyone just listened a little more, our world would be better off in, hopefully, the many universes out there as well, Avi. But last listener question here comes from Mike on Twitter.

He wants to know, what is your favorite episode of Star Trek? Any incarnation? Do you have an answer for that? Yeah, well, unfortunately, you know, I don't like science fiction because it's, you know, in books of science, many of the books or films on science fiction, the laws of physics are violated. And I just cannot enjoy it.

When I see something that makes no sense to me as a physicist, I just give up. You know, I don't follow the plot. It makes no sense to me. So I don't like science fiction, actually. I enjoy science and I enjoy fiction. But I, well, there are some. exceptions, I should say. There are some very good films that are not far from being scientifically

accurate, but they're a small minority. Yeah, they truly are. I know what you mean. I'm the same. I'm a playwright here in New York City, and there's many times I go see a play, and I can't enjoy it because I'm too busy, and my mind is reeling about the dialogue being terrible or the structure of the play not being right. So I completely understand. I'm also a Star Wars guide, so most part that for me. But in closing, Avi, I'd love to ask, you know, the book covers more than just Omuamua. I want to make that very clear to the audience.

You were kind enough to give me an advanced copy to look over. And I was amazed at how it started with that and just moved into many directions. So besides Omuamua, what do you hope that readers will take away from the book? except just about this one interstellar object that could be alien. What else did you really want to say with the book? So it's really interesting that thinking about alien life teaches us about ourselves. And, you know, the way we behave right now, not even considering that possibility within the mainstream of science, tells you something.

It tells you why, you know, we don't. behave in a more collegial way and we don't cooperate as much. And I give the example in the book of the amount of money that was invested in the Second World War that could have been used for science. And in fact, Churchill wrote a paper just before the war started in which he discussed the possibility of life around other stars. but he became the prime minister and didn't really pursue this interest of his. Instead, he had to worry about fighting the Germans that were killing a lot of the people in England.

So there were a huge amount of resources dedicated to a destructive purpose. And if instead it was dedicated to Churchill's vision of searching for life around other stars, we would perhaps know by now the answer whether we are alone or not. So my point is with a better perspective, you know, we can make much more progress as humans, you know, as science. And I really wish that more people will accept that and that we can all work together towards a better future and not pretend that we know the answer in advance and not fight each other. Let's just try to figure things out together. you know, just as if we are kids trying to learn about the world. And I should say that the one thing that surprises me about the book at this point in time

is that it's ranked number one on Amazon in the astronomy section three weeks before publication without any reviews. So I'm really surprised by that because it means that there is, as you alluded to, there is hunger or interest in this subject. And partly it's because the scientific community is starving the public, intentionally, suppressing any discussion that is open on these issues. And I'm trying to break this barrier in the book. So I very much hope that people will enjoy it.

I mean, thank you for feeding us. That's really all I can say. As one of those hungry people, I'm glad that there's someone out there thinking of us, thinking of humanity over military, over mainstream perception of science, and really shaking things up, man. You are a rebel. And, you know, as someone who grew up on punk music, those are the people I respect. So tell us where we can get the book.

And please tell us where we can find everything you're up to. Well, you can find a book in any outlet that sells books, for example, on Amazon. It's already out for sale, and it will come out in three weeks on January 26, 2021 in the US, and then it will be published in more than 20 countries worldwide. Oh, wow. And I should say, over the past couple of days, I had a few filmmakers from Hollywood would contact me. And I told my literary agent that if it ever becomes a film,

I want Brad Pitt to play my role. I can see it, man. Hey, he's done Interstellar before. I'm sure he'll do it again. I could see it. I could definitely see it. Well, those, I know after the book comes out, those phone calls are going to keep coming, man.

So thank you for all the work you've done, all the work you will continue to do. Again, the book is called Extraterrestrial, The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. Avi, thank you so much for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Thank you for having me. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.