Well, if you read the latest from Avi Loeb as reported on the Daily Best -yes. https://www.thedailybeast.com/harvard-astronomer-avi-loeb-says-there-might-be-4-quintillion-alien-spacecraft-in-our-solar-system?ref=home
Here is what David Axe's article reports:
Five years ago a very strange object—maybe a thousand feet long, oblong, shiny and fast—streaked across space, tens of millions of miles from Earth. Its course and speed indicated it had come from outside the solar system. A visitor from another star.
Astronomers dubbed the thing ‘Oumuamua—Hawaiian for “scout”—and started arguing about it.
On one side are an overwhelming majority of scientists who don’t know what ‘Oumuamua is, but aren’t willing to speculate as to what it might be.
On the other side, are a much smaller camp led by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who argues that we should at least consider the possibility that ‘Oumuamua is an alien spacecraft.
Why One Harvard Astronomer Believes This Asteroid Is an Alien Ship
Now Loeb is asking the next logical question. How many other ‘Oumuamuas could there be in and around the solar system? In a new study that appeared online on Sept. 22 and hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, Loeb and his coauthor Carson Ezell, also a Harvard astronomer, concluded there are as many as 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 4 quintillion) of them.
Each is a visitor from another star, and each, possibly, artificially created.
That might seem like a lot. But the solar system is vast. And the space between our star system and our closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, is even more vast. Actually finding any of those 4 quintillion possible mysterious objects for closer study could be really, really hard.
To be clear, Loeb isn’t claiming there are quintillions of alien craft zooming around our corner of the Milky Way. After all, he’s never said that ‘Oumuamua is definitely a robotic probe or crewed craft—just that we should be open to the possibility.
So what Loeb and Ezell calculated isn’t the population of alien craft. It’s the population of possible alien craft or other possible artificial objects. Leftover ET rocket parts. Unexplainable fragments of alien technology beyond our understanding. That kind of thing.
The math is simple. “One can use recent rates of detection of interstellar objects and known capabilities to estimate the density of similar objects in the solar neighborhood,” Loeb and Ezell wrote.
They started with all the objects astronomers have detected that have come from outside the solar system. These are objects that, in other words, could have originated with or near an alien civilization just beyond the sight of our probes and telescopes.
There are four: ‘Oumuamua, of course, but also the interstellar meteors CNEOS 2014-01-08 and CNEOS 2017-03-09,plus the interstellar comet Borisov.
That’s four interstellar visitors in eight years. Loeb and Ezell factored in just how much of the galaxy we can observe with our instruments—which is not much—in order to arrive at an estimate of how many more objects like ‘Oumuamua might be out there in the darkness, having arrived from a neighboring star system.
They actually came up with two numbers. One for all interstellar objects, including those that are zipping randomly around and across the solar system and aren’t likely to pass within view of our instruments. That’s a staggering 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 40 decillion).
The lower number, 4 quintillion, is for objects that seem to be directed toward the “habitable zone” of the solar system, close to the sun. That’s where Earth orbits, and where astronomers have some chance of spotting a passing object.
That lower number is the exciting one, and not just because the closer objects are much easier to detect. They’re also the objects that are most likely to be extraterrestrial craft. After all, they seem to be aimed in our direction. They’re objects with a purpose.
But even Loeb isn’t proposing there are 4 quintillion objects exactly like ‘Oumuamua. That object is notable not just for its apparent origin, but also for its size. It’s big enough to be a very large, crewed spacecraft. Judging from the interstellar comets we’ve detected, there’s a good chance that most of the interstellar objects in the habitable zone around the Sun are tiny—likely no bigger than 3 feet across. There are probably a million of the latter for every single ‘Oumuamua-size object, Loeb explained.
That still leaves a lot of potential ‘Oumuamuas out there, somewhere in the habitable zone of the solar system. Each one a possible alien craft, if you share Loeb’s open-mindedness.
But actually pinpointing these objects, not to mention closely inspecting them, is extremely difficult. It’s so difficult that a close encounter with a passing alien craft is the least likely way we’ll make first contact with extraterrestrials, according to Edward Schwieterman, an astrobiologist at the University of California, Riverside.
“In my view, we are much more likely to detect life that originates outside of our solar system through remote observation than by physical encounters,” Schwieterman told The Daily Beast.
We got lucky with ‘Oumuamua. It’s really big, really shiny, and it passed around 21 million miles from Earth.
But the solar system is more than 9 billion miles across. And it’s another 20 trillion miles to Proxima Centauri. Small and very far away, most interstellar objects—even the ones crossing the habitable zone—will be a lot more difficult to find than ‘Oumuamua. “Space debris is hard to see from far away,” Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the California-based SETI Institute, told The Daily Beast.
Artist’s impression of the interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua.
We’re getting better at it, though. New telescopes including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope help us look farther into the darkness of the outer solar system, find ever-smaller objects, and separate the local stuff from possible interstellar visitors.
Loeb also highlighted the Vera C. Rubin Observatory that’s under construction in Chile. Set to open in 2023, the observatory with its 3.2-billion-pixel camera should be able to survey the entire southern sky every four days. “A high-resolution image could reveal bolts and screws on the surface of an artificial object and distinguish it from a nitrogen iceberg, a hydrogen iceberg or a dust bunny,” Loeb said.
‘Oumuamua was a missed opportunity. Sure, Loeb is open to the idea it’s an alien probe, but most astronomers aren’t. If we can get a closer look at the next ‘Oumuamua, maybe more scientists will come around to the idea it might be an alien craft.
In theory, we’ve got 4 quintillion opportunities.
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Only 4 quintillion? I thought it might have been more 😏 There was a joke -it may still be one- that people opt into "theoretical sciences" because you can speculate and hypothesise about a great deal without actually having to prove anything. Avi Loeb seems to be of the theoretical persuasion: Oumuamua was an inter-galactic space probe (at the least). Yes, there are some aspects that need to be looked at deeper but no one detected anything that pointed to it being such. Certainly there were no flourescent lights declaring "Space probe #876564e6".
I know, I know: "But, Terry, if that is true and a scientist says so that validates your work of 50 years!" No. It does not.
NASA is launching a UFO investigation and here are Mystic Tel's prediction: "We were able to identify a large percentage of the objects but a small percentage escaped explanation and are worthy of study." We can predict (know) this because NASA is not going to go near any UFO landing reports or observations of entities close to a landed UFO. They are not going to re-assess the Hill, Higdon, Liberty or Walton case because that is dealing with UFOs. Elizondo and his buddies have tried to subvert terminology in Ufology so that they control the narrative as secrecy kicks in even tighter -we are not getting any evidence from AATIP, AAWSAP or ASWIPE or whatever they want to call their 'study'.
There are, in the modern era, reports from 1944 up to 2021; not just solo but 2-3 or more percipients/observers but these will never be looked at because "it's UFOs" and the fact that there are so many con men, fakers ands worse in Ufology means that any search and investigation would need to be very careful and check all details and Ufology has made that difficult after 70 years of creating anti-establishment feeling. Also, if NASA looked into an abduction case it would have 30+ years of Hopkins/Jacobs driven fakery and even if they bypassed abductions and went just into landing cases the Ufologists would be jumping up and down and whoring themselves out to any and every media outlet screaming "See? We were right! How many $ do you pay for interviews?"
You would need a team dedicated to sceptically investigate reports and by sceptical I mean open-minded and following the evidence. Sitting back and talking about what “high level” observers report or some dubious official footage is not an investigation or study really but just another free lunch with extra merits to add to the curriculum vitae.
The same applies to Loeb and his claims. In fact, someone reports encountering a landed UFO and an octopoid entity is a more solid fact that can be physically followed up than the statement that our star system “may have, could have, might of” been passed through by 4 quintillion probes or whatever. It sounds great but here is the thing: just because you are a scientist and good at the math does not your theory correct.
In September, 2022 Scientists have corrected a significant math error in a theory used to describe human color perception for over 100 years. Oopsy
And then we have the serious statement from a number theorist who says it's possible that all published math could be wrong, and makes the case for A.I. to double-check proofs. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a29252622/is-math-wrong/
This is all theoretical math with nothing solid to back it up other than the theorist’s imagination and the math and I would hate to be hanging off the edge of a cliff and depend on math. If it could be proven that 1-2 alien objects (constructed) passed through our solar system I would be happy but with the vast distances between objects such as asteroid belt, planets, etc. it is very unlikely that we would spot them -most of our SETI seems to be far more interested in the “safe” checking out of distance galaxies and planets.
Now, were Loeb and his team pushing for something like the launching of Starlink probes to journey through our solar system and listen out for/ look for alien signals or technology I would be far more impressed.
We know that a high percentage of UFO reports and encounters can be explained away easily or after some study.
We also know that people on our planet have had encounters that cannot be simply dismissed as “imaginary”, “Ruth syndrome”, “dream state” or “They are bout of their frickin’ gourds!” They have suffered mentally (including post traumatic stress) and physically (radiation burns, etc) and traces have been left behind (Falcon Lake, Canada) and all while out for a quiet stroll down the lane or through the fields or woods not to mention while simply driving home. And a number have independent observers and even local radar tracking to back them up.
That is far more evidence of an “alien presence” that fairy dust in space. When people like Loeb stop, assess the actual data we have then it might means our making some headway. However, what Loeb is doing is SETI.2 and I would argue it is attention-seeking publicity for a new “SETI” and the one we already have is bad enough.
Ufology may be taken in by Elizondo and crew. It may well be taken in and start quoting Loeb and his 4 quintillion number but it makes no difference at all to people whose entire world view has been shattered because they encountered something, here on Earth, that they were told does not exist.
Do the math on that one, Loeb.
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