A space object that passed by Earth in 2017 was likely from aliens, according to Harvard professor, Avi Loeb.
Loeb's new book, Extraterrestrial, examines the cigar-shaped object named Oumuamua that flew by the Earth in 2017 at 196,000 mph and the professor believes the origin of that object to be aliens. He spoke to CBS News about this belief and said scientists didn't collect enough data from the object when it passed by our planet.
"At first people thought, 'Well it must be a rock, just like the asteroids or comets that we have seen before within the solar system,' but as they got more data on it, it looks very weird," Loeb told CBS News. "It's possible that there is a lot of space junk out there or it is a probe. We don't know because we didn't collect enough data, enough evidence."
Loeb said he's saying this so that the next time an object like the one from 2017 passes by, scientists examine it more carefully. He said the object didn't look like a comet, which is what some called it, but behaved like something with "an extra push." NASA said in 2018 that it was "the first object ever seen in our solar system that is known to have originated elsewhere," but stated the origin of the object was unknown.
Loeb writes in Extraterrestrial that the object was probably some kind of debris from an advanced alien technology originating from many light-years away, according to CBS News. Let's hope the aliens that disposed of it are the nice kind and not the bust-out-of-your-chest kind.
The Harvard professor said that scientists should look for potential "messages in a bottle" with objects like Oumuamua instead of focusing on radio signals as evidence of aliens. He also said these kinds of ideas aren't popular in the science community and that they are "out of the mainstream" and "should not be."
"We should be open-minded and search for evidence rather than assume that everything we see in the sky must be rocks," Loeb said.
For more aliens, read about these possible signs of life detected on Venus and then read about how a galactic federation of aliens might already be in contact with the US and Israeli governments. Check out this story about a study that claims alien civilizations destroyed themselves through progress after that.
Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
