Episode 174 – Dr. Avi Loeb – Theoretical Physics, Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Oumuamua

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Ladies and gentlemen,

got a broadcast set up for you guys.

So sorry, it's been a little bit of a delay.

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check in on the show.

But we've got a phenomenal guest set up for you tonight.

The human experience is in session.

My name is Xavier Catano.

And my guest for tonight is Dr. A.V. Loeb.

Dr. Loeb is a world-renowned theoretical physicist.

Dr. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University,

chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy,

founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative,

and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation

within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

He also chairs the advisory committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative

and serves as the science theory director for all initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation,

as well as chair of the board on physics and astronomy of the National Academies.

He's author of over four books and over 700 scientific papers.

In 2012, Time magazine selected Dr. Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space.

In June 2020, Dr. Loeb was sworn in as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology at the White House.

Wow, Dr. Loeb, I mean, what a list of credentials.

Thank you so much. Honored. Welcome to HXP.

Thank you for having me.

Your story is so intriguing.

And we're talking about this book that you've written called Extraterrestrial, in which you're talking about life in other places.

But before we get to that point, lay the foundation for us in how science became important to you.

How is that a mission for you?

Well, I was born on a farm.

I used to collect eggs every afternoon.

And I was primarily interested in philosophy when I was young because it addresses the most fundamental questions.

philosophy books after driving the tractor to the hills of the village. And when I got to the age

of 18, I was born in Israel. I had to serve in the military. It's obligatory. But they provided

me with two options, either to be a regular soldier or to pursue physics, because I was good

at physics. And so circumstances led me to physics. I finished my PhD at age 24. And then

I was offered a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton

under the condition that I'll switch to astrophysics. And five years later, I was

offered a faculty position at Harvard. And then I was tenured a few years later. And after that,

I became the chair of the astronomy department for nine years, the longest serving chair. And

at that point, it became clear to me that even though it was an arranged marriage by circumstances,

married to my true love, because in astrophysics, we can address very important, deep philosophical

questions using the scientific method. One of them is, how did the universe start? Or another one is,

how did life start? And are we alone? Are we the smartest kid on the block? Which is

pretty much what I work on. Those are big questions, very big questions. And probably

questions to our place in the universe. Are we alone? I mean, this is how you, when you published

your theory on Oumuamua, why don't you tell the people what Oumuamua is and your observations of

how it became a peculiar object for anyone that may not know already about the story?

Yeah, so the story starts in October 2017, when the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii discovered the first object that came from outside the solar system near Earth.

And we knew that it came from outside the solar system because it wasn't bound to the sun.

It was moving too fast and therefore just, you know, was passing by.

And at first, astronomers thought, oh, it must be a rock of the type that we have seen in the solar system, either a comet or an asteroid.

It was given the name Oumuamua because it means in the Hawaiian language, a scout, a messenger from far away.

And then as data was collected, it became clear that it's not anything we saw before, because as it was tumbling every eight hours, the amount of sunlight reflected from it changed by a factor of 10.

And that meant a very extreme shape.

And the variation in the reflected light over time could be explained best at the 90% confidence if the object is flat, pancake-like, not cigar-shaped or any other form.

And then there was no cometary tail.

We couldn't see any dust or gas around it.

And nevertheless, the object was pushed away from the sun by some mysterious force.

the rocket effect from evaporating gases because we had very tight limits on any gas around it.

And the only way I could explain that is if the push is coming from the reflection of sunlight.

And for that, the object had to be very thin. And nature doesn't make thin objects that are

sturdy. And so I suggested maybe it is artificial in origin. And in fact, in September 2020,

object discovered by the same telescope, which also exhibited a push away from the sun by

reflecting sunlight without a cometary tail. It was given the name 2020SO. And then several weeks

after it was discovered, the astronomers realized that by extrapolating the trajectory back in time,

that actually it came from Earth. It's a rocket booster that was launched in 1966

as part of a lunar lander mission.

And we know why it was pushed away by reflecting sunlight,

because it had very thin walls and had a large surface area for its mass.

And we also know that it was artificial in origin because we produced it.

The question is, who produced Oumuamua?

I mean, that's the billion-dollar question, isn't it?

Well, it could be more than a billion dollars.

Because just imagine a piece of technology that is coming from a civilization far more advanced than we are, and it represents our future.

Let's say it would take us a thousand years or a million years to develop that technology ourselves.

You know, that could be worth a lot of money, more than a billion dollars.

Sure, sure, of course. I mean, how fast was Oumuamuva traveling?

It was traveling at the typical speed of stars relative to each other, which is tens of miles per second, not per hour, per second.

And that's the typical speed that you find stars moving relative to each other.

But there was something really unusual about it because it came from a very special frame of reference,

which is called the local standard of rest, which is the frame that you get to when you average the motions of all the stars relative to each other.

Sort of like the local parking lot.

And it was at rest in that frame.

So only one in 500 stars is so much at rest as Oumuamua was in that frame.

And basically it was just like a buoy on the surface of the ocean and the sun, like a giant ship, bumped into it.

And it's really unusual.

So it couldn't have originated from any of the nearby stars because they are moving relative to that

Theoretical Physics, Extraterrestrial.

I mean, did you receive pushback from your peers in academia?

And how was it received when you're saying something so outside of the mainstream narrative, you know?

Yeah, so we didn't have any press release on this paper.

But as you say, the media went viral.

I mean, the public in general was very excited about it.

I should say that when my book came out about seven months ago, also, you know, there was a huge response to the content of the book.

And I had over a period of seven months, I had about 1200 interviews.

Also, the days were back to back.

And that was possible only as a result of the pandemic because I didn't have to travel around the globe.

And the book was translated to 25 languages.

I had about 35 producers of films or documentaries that contacted me with interest.

And so there was just a huge response from the public.

But at the same time, as you noted, the academic community had a very strong pushback to that

because, well, for a variety of reasons.

First, just like anyone else, scientists prefer to stay in their comfort zone.

So they prefer to assume that whatever they find agrees with what they already know.

And I remember there was a talk about Oumuamua at Harvard.

And when I left the auditorium, a colleague of mine that worked on rocks in the solar system for many years said, Oumuamua is so weird, I wish it never existed.

So that tells you that people are not behaving really as scientists in the sense of welcoming new results.

Because it's an opportunity to learn something new when something doesn't agree with what you expected.

You should be thrilled at that rather than complain about it.

But the natural tendency of the mainstream is to stay within the comfort zone of what we already know.

And so that's part of the response. But then there is also a lot of interest from the public in this subject. And there is the literature of science fiction. And so scientists are shying away from a discussion on this subject because they're worried that their image may be tainted.

and because some of the things said about aliens are not scientifically founded.

And to me, that sounds inappropriate because if you go back a thousand years,

there were people claiming that the human body has a soul and therefore anatomy should be forbidden.

And imagine if scientists would say this is a controversial subject.

There is nonsense being said about the human body.

We don't want to operate humans.

And where would modern medicine be?

I think it's actually the obligation of scientists to attend to subjects which are not fully understood and clear them up using the scientific method, especially if the public cares so much about it.

The public funds science and scientists should attend to the public's interests.

And by the way, when I published my book, I said, here is an opportunity for science to attract more funds and attract more talent because young people might be excited by this question.

And a month ago, I announced the Galileo project.

And I should say that since the announcement, there were thousands of emails of people willing to contribute from their expertise and participate in the project.

And I also got funds that were not allocated to science prior, about $2 million so far.

And I basically rest my case.

I mean, what I argued for is realized in the Galileo project.

And finally, I should say I'm most frustrated by the fact that it's not just conservative scientists that exist in the community.

I mean, on the one hand, you have those conservative people that argue that we need extraordinary evidence before we engage in any discussion of this type.

And my answer to that is, you know, you can think of the solar system as our mailbox.

And, you know, we should check our mailbox whether it has packages from far away, especially if they look different than anything we've seen before.

And just saying that we need extraordinary evidence and therefore we don't want to go to the mailbox and check it, to me, sounds like a circular argument.

Because if you will not invest in the search, you will never find anything extraordinary.

So but at the same time, in theoretical physics, there is a whole community of people that talks about things that have no basis in any evidence, in any experiment.

And like the multiverse, exodimensions, the string theory landscape.

And that is accepted as part of the mainstream.

So you ask yourself, how is it possible that you have this culture in theoretical physics that speculates about things we have no evidence for?

mainstream, whereas on the other side, in astronomy, people have a problem with discussing

evidence for something that looks different than anything we've seen before as potentially

equipment from another civilization.

After all, we exist.

We know that half of the sun-like stars have a planet the size of the Earth, roughly the

same separation.

So it's not a giant leap of faith or speculation to say, let's check for things like us.

space, let's check for equipment sent by others. Why is that such an outrageous statement? And why

should there be any pushback towards that when at the same time you allow a whole culture of

theoretical physicists to talk about things we've never seen, like extra dimensions and multiverse

and so forth? And my answer is that both cultures have a common thread. They avoid contact with

evidence, with data. And the culture that is conservative would not discuss anomalies,

would basically shy away from anomalies because it wants to stay in its comfort zone. And the

other culture prefers not to be engaged in anything connected to experiments because it

may prove the ideas wrong. And so basically they have something in common, which is let's not pay

too much attention to evidence. And I think that's a betrayal in the tradition of physics,

We learn about the world by having a dialogue with nature, by paying attention to anomalies

and trying to explain them.

And by the way, there were some scientists that did pay attention to the anomalies of

Oumuamua, but when they tried to explain it as a natural object, they had to come up with

something that we've never seen before.

Like, for example, a hydrogen iceberg, a chunk of frozen hydrogen, that when it evaporates,

We can't really see it.

And the problem with this idea is that the hydrogen evaporates very easily, very quickly.

And such an object would not survive for more than a few million years.

So it cannot really travel across large distances.

And then there was a suggestion, maybe it's a nitrogen iceberg.

And then, you know, that is chipped off the surface of a planet like Pluto around another star.

And the problem with that is that there is just not enough nitrogen.

the nitrogen that there is, even then you don't have enough chips that you can produce this way.

So that doesn't work either. And then there was maybe it's a dust bunny, a collection of dust

particles in a cloud that is 100 times less dense than air. Again, something we've never seen before.

The problem there is that when it gets close to the sun, it will be heated and will not maintain

its integrity. So my point is quite simple. If everything you come up with, if you want to

a natural object is something we've never seen before, we should include in our vocabulary

the possibility that it may be artificial in origin.

And, you know, we just need better data.

We need an image of the object.

We need, you know, the next object that appears so weird.

If we find it on its approach to us, we can send a spacecraft that would take a close-up

photograph and could tell the difference between a hydrogen iceberg and nitrogen iceberg or

a piece of equipment yeah yeah i mean i you know i i applaud you for coming forward with your work

and i i think in my opinion i think more more people should do that when they notice something

and when you know sure it can be inconvenient maybe perhaps it the science of it i mean quote

science, maybe it's the opposite of science, what some of these people were doing when they were

regarding this as something they don't even want to look at, right? But as Oumuamua entered the

system, we actually caught it as it was leaving the solar system, correct? Right, and the goal

would be to find another one that looks like it, that doesn't look like a comet or an asteroid,

and get much more data on it.

And the analogy I make usually is with a

caveman. If a caveman were to find a cell phone, the caveman would assume that the cell phone is a rock of a new type that he had never seen before.

Just like the astronomers are saying, this is a rock of a type that we've never seen before, a nitrogen iceberg, hydrogen iceberg.

So the caveman would say, okay, it's a shiny rock that I've never seen before, but it's still a rock.

But then that's just the beginning of a learning experience because the caveman would realize that when he presses a button on this shiny rock, it records his voice.

And when he presses another button, it records his image.

And then it will become clear that this is not really a rock.

So as long as we allow ourselves to get more evidence and learn about these objects, we could find some plastic bottles among all the rocks that we find as we walk down the beach of the solar system.

And the point is to be open-minded. I'm not claiming that we know for sure that it's artificial. I'm just saying it looks weird enough and it looks similar to 2020 SO that we produced, that we must entertain that possibility that it's artificial in origin.

Yes, indeed. I agree with you. You know, in your book, you talk a little bit about the current trajectory of our planet in regards to the environment and climate change. And you suggest that we are careening towards catastrophe, possibly.

And why do you think we are in the situation that we're in regarding what's going on with the Earth?

It definitely feels to me that we are headed towards a situation such as that.

Yeah, because when we develop technologies, we are getting to a reality that we've never witnessed before.

So we're not experienced with the risks that it brings.

One example is climate change.

You know, we've never been in a situation where we affect our environment so significantly.

And therefore, we are very late in responding to the risks that we ourselves generate by

self-inflicted wounds, you know, as a result of our technologies.

And so if you ask me, I would say, you know, given what is going on right now, we probably

have only a few centuries left because, you know, we had about a century of technological

development. And you can ask, what is the chance that we will survive a million years? Well, it's

very similar to saying, what's the chance that if you choose a random day in your life,

it will be the first day after you were born? And the answer is one in 10,000, because there are

of an adult. So if you choose a random day, most likely it will be in your life as an adult, not

in your first day as an infant. And the same is true for our technological civilization. So

what's the chance that we now live through the first century out of 10,000 centuries,

you know, if we were to live a million years? The chance is one in 10,000. Most likely,

we have only a few centuries left because we are sort of in the middle of our life,

And that's alarming, actually.

And you can sort of see the way we behave and how we bring more and more risks, you know, on the plate.

And so there is this trend of us getting into more, you know, risky, a risky reality as a result of our technologies.

But at the same time, the same technologies allow us to venture into space.

And once you venture into space in a significant way, for example, by sending artificial intelligence systems or exploring other star systems, at that point, you know, you sent a monument of our civilization elsewhere.

So not all the eggs are in one basket.

And if a catastrophe occurs here on Earth, at least something would survive that implies that we exist.

So there is this tension between us destroying ourselves or basically destroying our environment

and our ability to send something away from Earth that would maintain the flame of our

consciousness.

And so that, you know, we will there will still be something left behind.

And the question is, which trend will win?

I mean, will we be buried under the rubble that we create or will we be able to launch something out before that happens?

And, you know, I don't know the answer to that.

It really depends on the way we behave.

Yeah, I mean, it's such a crucial thing.

I think we are at this point right now in our society where, you know, we really need to start making these choices towards, you know, thinking about, you know, sustaining the population explosion the way that everything has grown on this planet and perhaps that the resources here are running out.

So, you know, it seems like a natural course in the step of human evolution to colonize another place, another world.

Yeah, but I do think that if we find a package in our mailbox, it could have a profound imprint on the way we behave.

Let me give you an example. If you look at human history, most of the time you see that it's being shaped by some people trying to feel superior relative to other people.

And the best example is the Second World War, where the Nazi regime triggered the death of 75 million people.

And that was 3% of the world population in 1940.

And just think about it.

It's 20 times more deaths than those triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic so far.

So a group of people trying to feel superior relative to others killed 20 times more people than the virus so far.

That's huge.

And we keep talking about the virus for almost two years, I mean, a year and a half now.

So my point is, if we were to find another species or evidence for another species that is far more intelligent than we are, all of our differences will become meaningless.

the Nazi doctrine will, will appeal, will not appeal to anyone because, you know, we are,

we are all equal members of the human species and there is a smarter kid on the block, you see. So

I think it will change the perspective that we have and perhaps for the better in this context.

And then also, of course, we can learn from them. You know, we can import technologies that will

a long time to develop ourselves. We can avoid any future risks. You know, the way I think of

this package that we could find in the mailbox is that, you know, we can always say, like many of my

colleagues say, oh, it's not worth the effort. There is nothing in the mailbox. Business as

usual. Let's not even go there. But then suppose as a result of that, we miss the package. You

You know, it's just like find, you know, a love letter in the attic whose time has passed.

You know, if you find it later, it would be a package that will provide us with a recipe for the salvation of the human species or give us a hint as to how to behave or inspire us in one way or another.

And if we just avoid checking our mailbox, not even contemplating the possibility that there might be equipment flying by that we can learn from, you know, that we might be missing a very important strategic insight into our future.

Yeah, I mean, that's intriguing. And something that puzzles me is the actual size of the universe and how little I'm able to understand the actual distance between objects and how big this place is.

Well, in that context, I just wanted to make two comments.

One, that Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson used their wealth recently to lift their body by 1% of the radius of the Earth.

And they were very proud of that.

But actually, showing off in space is an oxymoron.

Because just lifting your body by 1% of the Earth's radius is nothing to be proud of.

Because the observable universe is 10 to the power 19 times bigger than the radius of the Earth.

So it's really nothing.

And, you know, if they were to develop a spacecraft that would traverse the Milky Way galaxy, I would say, OK, that may be something to be proud of.

But just going 1% of the Earth, that's nothing.

And just to give you another example, the New Horizons mission that went to study Pluto carried a small fraction of the ashes of Clyde Thumbau, the person who discovered Pluto.

And that was supposed to celebrate his life as a scientist.

But as

far as I can tell, it was more of an insult because what are ashes? Ashes are just burnt up DNA. You take the genetic information of a person and you burn it up so there is nothing left. Ashes of a person are no different than ashes of a cigarette. It contains no information.

If they wanted to celebrate the life of Clyde Tamba, they should have included the genetic code of that scientist in electronic form.

That would have made a lot of sense.

And by the way, this was done by NASA.

You would think that scientists would have a better perspective.

But I think it's embarrassing because if aliens, some extraterrestrials find New Horizon, they would say, oh, this culture is not very intelligent.

up the information content of this person that's trying to celebrate the person. That makes no

sense whatsoever. It seems like we do a lot of things that make very little sense in our society.

Yeah, I think that's one reason why nobody pays attention to us from outside. It may be one

answer to Fermi's paradox. You know, where is everybody? They don't care about us. We don't

look intelligent enough. Yeah, and that leads up to, you know, some of the questions that I was

you know, how, if you could, there's an analogy that you give, but I'll let you give it.

You know, if you could compare, how uncommon or common would you say are habitable planets

throughout the galaxy, throughout the universe?

You compare it to the beach, right?

Right.

I mean, this is a question on which we have more information now because the Kepler satellite

measured the abundance, the occurrence of Earth-like planets around the stars or planets

that are a little larger than the Earth. But we have a good sense that about half plus or minus

a quarter, you know, so a substantial fraction of all the sun-like stars have a planet roughly the

size of the earth at the same separation. So what we find in our backyard is not rare,

the earth-sun system. It's quite common. And my point is, if you arrange for similar circumstances,

you might as well get similar outcomes. You have to be really arrogant to claim

that we are special and unique and there is nothing like us. And of course, that's what many

people claim and they say, you know, until you provide me with extraordinary evidence,

I don't want to listen to a discussion on this possibility that there might be a smarter kid on

my block. And to me, it reminds of my daughters when they were young, you know, they stayed at

home and they compared themselves just to the family members. And they said, we are the smartest,

you know that. And then when we took them to the kindergarten, they had a psychological shock.

And of course, if I were to ask them, they would say, don't take me to the kindergarten.

I want to continue to think that I'm the smartest.

But, you know, if we don't look through our windows and claim that we have no neighbors,

that doesn't get rid of our neighbors.

It's exactly the same situation as the philosophers during the days of Galileo.

They didn't want to look through his telescope.

They argued that they know that the sun moves around the earth.

The earth is at the center of the universe because that flattered their ego.

and they put him in house arrest.

And today they would have canceled him on social media.

And the point is, it just maintained their ignorance.

And, you know, reality doesn't really care how ignorant we are.

We can decide to be ignorant, not to look for any evidence

and just assume that what we think is the correct thing.

And, you know, we could be even happy with being ignorant.

But that's not what I want as a scientist.

am I living in? So I want to look through the window. I want to figure out if I have neighbors.

And then moreover, I would like to learn from them if they are out there, you know, if they're

smarter than I am. And why should we be arrogant? I mean, the one thing I learned from practicing

astronomy throughout the decades that they did that is that every time we assumed that we are

special, unique, or anything around us is unusual, it turned out to be wrong. So let's just accept

the fact that we are not fortunate to be, you know, to have these qualities, but rather assume

that these are very common things, that there are many ants like us on the sidewalk of the Milky Way

galaxy, like, or there were in the past, and, you know, and that's one reason why nobody

pays attention to us.

But what we, our duty is to look for others.

Yeah, I mean, the Fermi paradox is definitely, you know, something to look at, and I think

what you're saying, you know, it's resounding.

It makes a lot of sense, and I think it was even Einstein that said the quote, two things

are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe. So, you know,

it's true. It seems that we are limited by our own ability to look at what's in front of us,

our willingness to look at what's in front of us. Yeah, but what really bothers me is that we are,

you know, for example, for four decades, we have been searching for the dark matter. We don't know

what most of the matter in the universe is. And of course, it's an interesting question, and we

would like to know what particles make up most of the matter in the universe. We don't know what

they are. So for four decades, we were searching in the dark. That was part of the mainstream

of science. And it deserves to be mainstream. I don't have a problem with that, but we should

admit that we have searched for four decades. We haven't found anything. And hundreds of millions

of dollars were invested in that search. So at the same time, zero dollars were invested

in the search for technological equipment of other civilizations.

I mean, we've been searching for radio waves.

That's called SETI.

But that's just like trying to have a phone conversation.

You need the counterpart to be active when you're looking at it.

And it's possible that most of the civilizations that predated us

are not around anymore.

They don't send radio signals.

Why would they be exactly the same development phase as we are?

And, you know, so most of the time when you look out for radio signals,

you won't see anything.

But you could still find relics that they left behind, those pieces of equipment that they launched into space.

And if they had enough time, you know, a billion years or so, they could have populated the entire Milky Way galaxy by self-replicating artificial intelligence systems.

So in order to find out if we live in such a reality, you know, we should check.

And there was zero funding for such a search for equipment until I established the Galileo Project.

in July. And that was a result of a few multi-billionaires visiting the porch of my home

and having a great interest in my book, asking me questions. And eventually they decided to provide

me with around $2 million that enabled me to establish this Galileo project. And we called

it Galileo because we prefer to look for the answers through our telescopes, not by philosophical

And that's not so complicated. You know, that's something that every kid can understand that, you know, if you want to learn more, you have to look, you have to search. You can't just say, I don't have any of it. You know, I don't have neighbors because nobody's knocking on my door right now.

Well, guess what? Most of the time, nobody's knocking on your door. And suppose the previous

knock was a million years ago. There was nobody to listen to it. And the distances across the

Milky Way galaxy are so vast that who knows when the previous visit took place or maybe there are

visitors that are just too small. We haven't noticed them. Or we need to check what is around

us and only then argue, you know, if we spend four decades, just like we spent four decades in the

search for dark matter, if we do an experimental search for equipment in space, I'm not talking

about radio signals. People will tell you, oh, yeah, we've been searching for 70 years. Yeah,

but it was something completely different. I'm saying not radio signals, not lasers,

search for equipment, objects in space. We never did that. And, you know, if we had been searching,

for four decades and investing hundreds of millions of dollars in that search, like the

dark matter has had done, then you could say, OK, you know, should we continue or not?

But even in the context of dark matter, the mainstream does not say, let's stop it.

People are still very enthusiastic about continuing those searches.

So I'm saying, you know, we should at least invest the same amount of money because dark

matter has very little impact on the daily lives of people, you know.

one object that came from another civilization, it would have a huge impact on the future of humanity.

So how dare we shy away from that opportunity to do archaeology in space and search for objects

sent by others into the solar system? I think it's our duty. It's part of what we should be

doing, right? I mean, Dr. Lobo, I wanted to ask you about this specifically. There were some

articles that were released this footage that the pentagon released on uh this this footage that the

navy soldiers were recording of these crafts doing these amazing feats like beyond

what our technology is capable of.

And when they released them, you know, even CNN was covering it as, you know, this is, quote, UFO footage released and confirmed by the Pentagon.

Are you aware of this story?

Of course. That's one reason that I established the Galileo Project.

Because we did it a month after the report from the intelligence agencies was delivered to Congress.

And it's clear that most of the data is classified, that we don't see it.

We just see the tip of the iceberg.

And people that had access to the classified data are quite serious people.

You know, there are former CIA directors, Brennan and Woolsey, former President Barack Obama.

And they all speak about it as a serious matter.

You know, that includes also the head of NASA, the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, who said that when he was a senator, he saw the classified data and it does look unusual to him.

And he thinks that scientists should look into that.

So that's exactly the reason why I established the Galileo project.

And it has two components.

One is to look at unidentified aerial phenomena of the type that appeared in the Pentagon report to Congress.

And the second is to look for objects similar to Oumuamua that are much farther away.

And in both cases, the idea is to get a high-resolution image and get as much data as possible on the motion of these objects so that we can get a better sense of their nature.

And, you know, with big enough telescopes in the context of UAP, these unidentified

aerial phenomena, with big enough telescope, you can get a megapixel image of a UAP and

see whether, you know, read off the label made on exoplanet X, if indeed it came from

another place.

You can easily distinguish between a bird, a drone, an airplane, and an unusual object.

and in the context of Oumuamua-like objects,

what you need is to send a spacecraft

that will come sufficiently close to it

so that it can get such a high-resolution image.

But in both cases, with good enough data,

we should be able to figure out what these objects are.

And, you know, it's like a fishing expedition

and if we end up catching only sardines,

those fish that are common and have mundane explanations,

so be it.

one fish that looks unusual for it to have a profound impact on our future.

Yeah, I mean, it's so curious because the footage that the Pentagon released,

it was done almost in the middle of the pandemic, during the pandemic.

So it kind of went under the radar, so to speak, mind the pun.

And it didn't seem to get picked up very much by just ordinary people that perhaps,

you know, this is a form of disclosure that's happening.

is if you could theorize

what first contact would look like

and what do you think,

how do you think it would work out

between, you know,

how would aliens contact us

if they wanted to?

Yeah, I think most likely

if we had the real contact

with the physical thing,

that it would be a piece of equipment

that has artificial intelligence

that because there is no reason

and the living creature across the vast distances that separate stars.

You know, we were selected by Darwinian evolution to live on the surface of Earth.

We are not designed to survive through interstellar travel,

despite what you've seen in science fiction movies.

But the technological equipment can do it for a billion years.

And so if we were to design a mission, I would put the artificial intelligence.

These are systems we are now using to drive cars.

In the future, we'll make decisions and will outsmart us.

So you can think of them as our technological kids that we can be very proud of.

We can educate them early on, just like through machine learning, just like we educate our

kids, and then send them into the world.

In this case, the Milky Way Galaxy.

And they will be autonomous.

You know, the distances are so great that we shouldn't.

require them to get guidelines from us because it takes a long time to communicate. So

they will be completely autonomous, but they would follow our guiding principles,

just like kids that you educate early on. And that's what I imagine also other civilizations

sending. And by now, you know, there may be equipment of this nature around us. So if we

had the contact, I would think that it would be with an intelligent piece of equipment. Now,

trying to figure out its intent would not be trivial because it could be, it could outsmart

us and we might need to use our own AI systems to interpret their AI systems. It's sort of like

relying on our kids to interpret content that we find in the internet because they are more

computer savvy. And so this would be a challenge figuring out their intent. But the first thing we

should do is collect as much information as possible about how they behave and how they

respond to what we do if we find them. So that's the way I envision it. Now, it's quite possible

that even if we collect data in the Galileo project that shows to us beyond a reasonable doubt that

we're talking about some technological equipment that we did not produce, it's possible that there

would be still a lot of people that would not believe it. But my point is that, you know,

as long as we know that we describe reality, because we collected the data in the scientific

way, I don't think we should worry too much about convincing everyone. Because when Albert Einstein

and came up with his general theory of relativity,

you know, there were only a handful of people around the world

that could understand it and could follow the reasoning behind it.

And a century later, this theory is essential for GPS systems for navigation.

And everyone is using those GPS systems in their cell phones

without really understanding or agreeing with the way that generativity was derived.

And the same is true for people that expose their arm to the mRNA vaccine, right?

A lot of us did that and without really understanding how it works or agreeing with all the steps

that led to its development.

And so my point is, if reality is on your side, you don't need a consensus.

You don't need to get a lot of likes on Twitter because eventually our future will be shaped by that reality.

And, you know, when Galileo said the Earth moves around the sun and the philosopher said, no, no, no.

And, you know, the church said no.

You know, if you see now, I mean, now we are sending space missions that use the fact that the Earth moves around the sun.

And there is no doubt about it.

And the fact that his ideas were not popular at the time do not really matter.

on the side of reality, eventually reality comes to haunt you. I mean, there is no doubt that it

shapes your future. So if there is equipment flying by and people don't believe it, you know,

who cares? Really? It's not decided by how many likes this idea gets on Twitter.

If this equipment flies out, it will affect our future one way or another.

Love that. I love that. I mean, who cares, really? And it ends up coming up either way, you know, through time.

Time is the true test of how valid something is, in my opinion.

So, you know, it's very curious that eventually you're going to have to face the truth, whether you like it or not.

Exactly. And I mean, we know it from our life, right?

So we can pretend that we are not sick.

And if we are sick, we are sick. That's it.

So whether we like it or not, reality is whatever it is, and we eventually adapt to it.

But our response to the idea that describes reality is really irrelevant.

So, Dr. Love, we've got about 10 minutes or so left.

And I know you're a professor and you teach a lot.

And I think something you ask your students to do is these sort of thought experiments, right?

So, you know, if there's anything that you can say to the people listening about, you know, maybe maintaining an open mind or having the curiosity to explore and discover, I mean, how would you relate that?

Yeah, I think, first of all, the most important perspective that you should have is being modest because, you know, we were wrong so many times when we pretended that we are special or unique.

If you're starting, you know, it took me some time to adapt this point of view, but that's

the biggest lesson I learned from practicing astronomy.

You know, you just recognize that, you know, there are so many planets like Earth in the

observable volume of the universe, more than the number of grains of sand on all beaches

on Earth.

So how can you be proud of even conquering a small piece of land?

You know, if you buy a house, you have a small piece of land.

And it's such a small thing relative,

first of all, the size of the earth, but the earth itself is one grain out of so many on the landscape of a huge beach.

So this sense of modesty is really fundamental. And as soon as you adapt it, then you are willing to learn, right?

So because you're not attached to yourself as much, you're willing to listen to nature.

It's a dialogue with nature.

So science is a dialogue with nature.

We look at the evidence.

If it doesn't agree with what we thought it should represent, we should be happy because

it teaches us something new.

We should not complain and say, Oumuamua is so weird.

I wish it never existed.

You know, that we should never say.

We should say, Oumuamua is so weird.

Let's figure out what it is.

You know, we should be excited about it.

thing in life. You know, when something doesn't agree with what we thought, it's an opportunity

to grow. It's an opportunity to learn something new. So we should always have the mindset of a

kid. You know, I didn't change much since my childhood. People that knew me back then would

say that I'm the same person. You know, I refuse to pretend that I know much more. You know, one

of the thing that was very traumatic to me as a kid, I would go to dinners and ask a question and

the adults in the room would, in the best case, they would pretend that they know much more when

they answered the question, much more than they actually know. It was obvious to me that they are

pretending to know more than they know. But this was the good situation. In the worst situation,

they would actually dismiss the question. They would say, oh, this is unimportant and move on.

Because they would like to not to demonstrate that they are ignorant about the answer to this question.

And, you know, I hated that.

And I became a scientist partly because I thought, okay, science gives me the privilege of maintaining my childhood curiosity.

I can ask questions.

I don't need to pretend anything.

I can just figure it out.

It's a learning experience by looking at the evidence.

You know, I can learn more.

But to my surprise, even after getting tenure at Harvard University and being surrounded by people in academia that have tenure, that have job security, I'm still facing a very similar situation to those dinners as a kid where a lot of my colleagues pretend that they know much more than they actually know.

and they dismiss a question when they are not comfortable with it.

Like, you know, is Oumuamua an artificial object?

They don't want to discuss it.

I mean, it's a really strange phenomenon, Dr. Loeb.

And, you know, I think it's important what you said that, you know,

to maintain a sort of humbleness, you know, within ourselves

that we are perhaps not that important, not that intriguing,

not intriguing enough for these advanced civilizations to come and reach out to us.

Because there are probably other planets inhabited with beings just like us at similar stages.

And, you know, on Star Trek, the idea with Star Trek is first contact is established

when the civilization reaches, like, warp drive capacity, right?

The capability to go into warp speed, right?

So maybe we are at a point like that where they're waiting for us to make some sort of discovery or realization, and then maybe they'll step forward.

Yeah, that's possible that we haven't yet demonstrated that we are intelligent enough for them to pay attention to us.

But, yeah, and of course, one thing to keep in mind is that, you know, we are born into this world like actors put on a stage and we tend to think that the play is about us.

And that's really wrong because we now know that the universe is 10 to the power 26 times bigger than the size of our body.

We are clearly not at the center of the stage.

And the play has been going on for 13.8 billion years.

And we just came at the end of it.

That's the time that elapsed since the Big Bang.

So the play is clearly not about us.

Forget about the idea that we are central actors.

and the only way for us to find more about what the play means is perhaps to look for other actors

and that's what I'm advocating just be humble it's not about us you know why should we always

think that it's about us that we are at the we started by thinking we are at the center of the

universe then we realized oh no we are not but it took us a while you know the philosophers had to

put Galileo in house arrest because they said, no, we are at the center. Don't, we don't want

to look through our telescope. And eventually it became clear that we are, you know, we're not at

the center and we are moving around the sun and so forth. And so we gave up on that, but nevertheless,

we are still, you know, most people firmly believe that we are unique as intelligent

beings, that, you know, we are the pinnacle of creation, that there is nothing like us,

and we are the smartest that you can imagine. And my point is, you know, keep your perspective,

because previously, whenever you thought that we are unique and special, it turned out to be wrong.

And now we also know that the Earth-Sun system is not special. So the next, I mean, the next

obvious revolution, Copernican revolution, would be for us to recognize that we are not the smartest

kid on the cosmic block. For sure. I mean, perhaps, you know, instead of being a snowflake,

maybe you're just a piece of, you know, dirt, piece of sand. I would say, yeah, more like an

ant on a sidewalk. There are many ants that existed before and will exist in the future,

and we're nothing special. And that's why, you know, space is vast. Nobody pays attention to us.

flying by. We don't pay attention to them. People on Twitter ridicule the suggestion that

some of these objects might be of artificial origin and we keep ignoring them. So, you know,

in retrospect, it will turn out to be a very foolish attitude. But for the time being, you

know, just like when we thought that the sun moves around the earth, now every kid will tell you,

No, that doesn't make much sense. But back then, everyone thought it's the case. So it looks like we haven't learned much, that we keep insisting on prejudice rather than checking the evidence.

For sure, Dr. Lowe.

But, you know, I'm really curious about one last thing, one last question.

You know, you've been a scientist for a long time now, you know, your whole adult life.

So is there something that has left you completely perplexed or something that you felt, you know, huh?

Something that shocked you?

Yeah.

What still shocks me is that, you know, we discovered most of the laws of physics in laboratory experiments.

here on Earth. And then it turns out that they apply to the universe at large. And most physicists,

most scientists would tell you, oh, of course, if you find a law locally, then it must apply

everywhere. But it's not at all as simple as that, because we decide about laws in society,

and a lot of people do not obey them. So why aren't the laws of physics

places in the observable universe? Why do we see, you know, that reality is controlled everywhere

by the same laws of physics? And the point is that, you know, we don't only know that, we know

that to a very high precision, that even in the early universe, the same laws of physics applied,

we can trace the evolution of the universe from the early beginning until now. And it's, to me,

it's remarkable that reality is so organized into a set of laws. And I don't take it for granted.

For me, it's, you know, it leaves a very deep impression on I'm at all with respect to how

organized the universe is. Well, I mean, Dr. Loeb, that's our time. I just wanted to take a moment to

say, you know, thank you for your work. I remember when the Oumuamua story broke, and I was just

intrigued. And, you know, I consider myself an amateur astronomer. I've got a couple of

telescopes. And, you know, so I do, there is a natural innate curiosity for me personally. So

I'm glad that you were, you had the courage to step forward, even though, you know, you were

being faced against potential ridicule and, you know, stuff like that.

Yeah. I mean, when I was young at age 18, when I went to the military, I served in the

the first few months. And one of the saying there was that sometimes a soldier has to put his body

on the barbed wire so that other soldiers will be able to pass through. And I feel the same way that,

you know, even though it's painful sometimes for me to see what is being said on social media

about my work, I feel that I'm serving a bigger purpose of allowing the younger generation to

talk about this subject in the future more openly. 100%. I think so. I think it's working.

I think more, I mean, conversations like this one are happening more and more because of your work.

So thank you so much for your time, Dr. Loeb. I truly appreciate it.

I know you're a very popular guy. Is there anything else that you're – is there a new book in the works that you're working on?

Yeah, well, I'm just starting my next book, so it will probably take a year before I can tell you exactly what its content is. But, you know, creating new material is the thing that keeps me happy when I wake up in the morning.

So every day is a new day for me.

I jog at 5 a.m. in the company of ducks, birds, bunnies, and wild turkeys and wolves.

And the sunrise is very different every day.

So, you know, I see that as a metaphor that every day you learn something new.

For sure.

For sure.

Guys, that's the show.

What an incredible broadcast.

again the book is called extraterrestrial by my guest dr ab loeb loeb loeb and we will put a link

in the show notes for that one if you made it all the way through to the end thank you so much for

listening and being here we are certainly going to be bringing more guests of this caliber on for

you guys and a big thanks to dr lobe for making the time to be on the show thank you so much for

listening good night