Avi Loeb Explains The Oumuamua Object and Discusses UFOs Episode #179

Today we sit down with Physicist, Professor, and Author Avi Loeb. Avi is a Professor of Science at Harvard University, Director of The Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC), Founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative (BHI), Chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee, and the Chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy, National Academies. His new book “Extraterrestrial” examines the Oumuamua space object that passed through our solar system unannounced and how it may have been some sort of Extraterrestrial technology or remnants.

*All of our links are below 👇  

https://linktr.ee/MindEscapePodcast

*Watch our documentary “As Within So Without: from UFOs to DMT”: ⁠

https://youtu.be/ao9fyP-lS2I?si=zQI3ok4aFNQkvl31

*Check out our new Merch store. We have some amazing designs for T-shirts, Hoodies, Mugs, Stickers, and more

⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mind-escape?ref_id=24655⁠⁠

*If you like our new logo and looking for an artist check out Aubrey at:

⁠https://aubreynehring.com/⁠

*If you are watching on Youtube please check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all audio/podcast platforms. We appreciate reviews and comments. If you are listening on an audio/podcast platform please check out our Youtube channel where we do our episodes live. You can find all of our links on our LinkTree LinkTree: 

https://linktr.ee/MindEscapePodcast 

*Check out Avi’s book: 

https://www.amazon.com/Extraterrestrial-First-Intelligent-Beyond-Earth/dp/0358278147

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Welcome back to Mike and Maurice's might Escape.
Let us help you escape your mind.

(00:38):
All right, folks. Welcome back to Mike and
Maurice's mind Escape. We have episode number one 79
today. We're going to be talking about
extraterrestrial life and a mulamula with Avi Loeb.
Avi is a, professor author, and physicist at Harvard, and we are
very fortunate to have them on today.
You can check out his new book. Extraterrestrial I have a link

(01:00):
down below for the Amazon and also, you can check out our
stuff at patreon.com. / - keep podcast for just $2 a month,
you'll get exclusive content andepisodes.
I believe we are going to do a short one with Avi at the end of
this episode today so you can check that out later and, yeah,
check us out on patreon. Also, if you have not already go

(01:23):
to indras web dot-org. This is the social media
platform. We created to connect open
minds. So you know, if you like the
discussion today and you have different hypotheses or
theories, that might be a littleoutside the box.
This is the perfect place to talk discuss those.
So again head on over to indras,web dot-org and set up a
account. So without further Ado, welcome

(01:44):
on the show Avi. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. It's our pleasure.
So I just read your book really thoroughly enjoyed it and our
favorite kind of scientists on the show are Visionary,
scientist, people that think outside the box, people that are
willing to kind of move the needle, instead of the slow
crawl towards, you know, mediocrity that you see in

(02:07):
Science today. So why don't we start there a
little bit? You know your book is you know
about a muumuu in this extraterrestrial object but you
also it's almost like a critiqueon modern science in a way to.
So why don't you discuss a little bit about that?
Yeah. So I really am trying to call

(02:27):
attention to the current culturein science, which doesn't have
the emphasis on the right principles as far as I can tell.
And traditionally, you know, physics was about evidence and
being Guided by experiments because our imagination is
sometimes limited and nature hascan educate us.

(02:49):
So if we are wrong, we will see something that doesn't quite
line up with what we expected. And if we are modest enough to
admit that, we don't know everything that our scientific
knowledge is an island in an ocean of ignorance, then we can
make progress. But as soon as Decide that?
No, you don't really need the experimental verification that

(03:12):
you can make a monologue rather than a dialogue with nature.
You are getting into dangerous territory because you can start
believing things that do not exist, sort of like being high
on drugs, you know, or claiming that you are, you're wealthier
than Elon Musk you know without going to the back but if you try
to go to the bank which is equivalent to doing an

(03:33):
experiment, you might be proven wrong and that's really putting
a skin. In the game is the key for doing
science and and a lot of scientists are afraid of putting
skin in the game making predictions that could be
falsified because it could damage your reputation.
It could basically change your image and your image is

(03:53):
important for getting honours awards for belonging to honor
societies. And a lot of people in Academia
after they get tenure. And by the way, the concept of
tenure is all about giving you the freedom, the Security so
that you can innovate and take risks and make mistakes during
the process of learning, right? But instead what people and when

(04:17):
I say most people I mean like 95% or even more of the
community does is trying to boost the image of doing science
without mistakes and and but nottaking any risks and basically
repeating things we already knowand when the data When the

(04:37):
evidence comes along, that doesn't quite line up with what
you expect. You know, they just dismiss it
and move on and business as usual.
That's exactly what happened with this object that we will
discuss in a minute. And I use it as an anchor to
point out that the scientific Community, you know, has to
change its culture and the reason it's so obvious, you

(05:01):
know, is because in in the case of searching for technological
signatures, you know, it Not thespeculative idea that we may not
be alone that we may not be the smartest kid on the Block
because about half of the Stars,like the Sun have a planet, like
the Earth. And if you repeat circumstances,

(05:21):
you know, that you can have liquid water on the surface of
the planet and chemistry of life, then you might as well get
similar outcomes, that's common sense.
You know, every person on the street would agree with that and
however the search for others that may They'd have developed
Technologies is completely pushed out of the mainstream,

(05:42):
it's not funded while. At the same time, the scientific
Community is investing a lot of funds in things that are much
more speculative. For example, the nature of the
dark matter. You know, most of the matter of
the universe, we don't know whatit is, and some people
suggested, maybe it's one type of particle or another type of
particle and there are experiments trying to find out.

(06:03):
And so far for decades, we invested hundreds of millions of
dollars and all of them did not find the particle, okay?
So that's a legitimate that's part of the mainstream, you
know? It's part of The Learning
Experience you have ideas provenwrong but when dealing with a
search for alien civilizations, We are not allowed to search
because you need to provide extraordinary evidence before

(06:27):
the discussion will even start. So now if you are not giving
funds to this, if the funding for searching is a thousand
times less than the funding, given to the search for dark
matter. And if young people are being
bullied, if they were to work onthat, it's just like stepping on
the grass and saying look the grass doesn't grow and it's a
self-fulfilling prophecy and this is wrong because Cuz the

(06:51):
public cares a lot about this question, the public doesn't
care if and if some solutions ofstring theory, you know, are
impressive in anti-de Sitter space during hypothesis, right?
That string theory and string hypothesis.
You can't test it correct? Yeah, exactly.
You cannot even testing or if the Multiverse exists because we
can't really test it or you know, there are ideas that extra

(07:13):
dimensions and these are mainstream ideas where people
give each other Awards and some of the people Saying that they
carry the torch of physics forward.
What kind of a torch is it if wedon't test it, if they don't put
their skin in the game, they don't make a prediction that can
be proven wrong or right by an experiment.
And the point is not only, they don't make such a prediction but

(07:36):
such a prediction will not be possible in the foreseeable
future even if you think about it.
And you only next few decades. No.
And then there are philosophers that say, oh, this is completely
legitimate because if a bunch offish, Isis has the sides that
something is right, that's enough we don't need the
experiments. Physics is what physicists do.

(07:58):
And you know lecturer gave a talk at the black hole
initiative. This Center that I'm the
director of, he was a philosopher and he just claim
that and I said, how can you saythat?
You know, physics is all about understanding nature and the
fact that a bunch of people agree on something doesn't make

(08:19):
it. Right?
You have to test it against experiments and you know,
Galileo arrived at the notion that the that we are not at the
center of the world because the Earth moves around the Sun.
Now that was contrary to what Aristotle, argued for a thousand
years. People accepted that we are at
the center of the world and but Galileo found that it's most

(08:41):
likely that the Earth moves around the sun and a lot of
philosophers are the time did not find that appealing and they
put him in house arrest. Rest.
They didn't look through his telescope.
But the thing about reality is, it doesn't care whether we
ignore it, you see reality exists, it's whatever it is.
So the best you can accomplish by putting Galileo and house

(09:02):
arrest. And not looking through his
telescope is to maintain your ignorance if that's what you
want as a scientist to maintain our ignorance, okay.
Fine. You know, animals are not
interested in scientific knowledge, that's okay, but it
seems to me like this the culture in Academia, right?
Right now is different. It's the goal is to demonstrate

(09:23):
that. You are smart that you are
capable of playing in the sandbox.
That was defined completely artificially without any
relation to Nature. So you can decide about a
mathematical construct that has no verification for experiments
and just do mathematical gymnastics and demonstrate that
you are smart and that's good enough.
If there is a community of people that are playing these

(09:45):
games, They don't care about theexperimental verification and
that's he's dangerous because it's not really the profession.
It's just like shoemakers deciding that they would start
making cakes baking cakes. They can do that, but then they
shouldn't call themselves shoemakers, you know, that
physicists cannot call themselves.
Physicists not, you know, not even physicist, but but they're

(10:08):
actually claim that they carry, the torch of physics forward,
which is even worse than that, because it's not even physics.
The, so that my point is, a physicist should make a vow, you
know, just like medical doctors,make, you know, the fizzy should
say that. At least one of the ideas that
the fish is working on, will be tested, experimentally in the

(10:31):
laboratory or in space against data.
Data. And right now that is not a
prerequisite for activities within the mainstream and at the
same time you have those cultures and at the same time,
the search for extraterrestrial civilizations is being bullied
and ridiculed whereas it actually follows Common Sense.

(10:53):
The public is interested in thatmuch more than in anti-de Sitter
space of string theory and you know the public funds science.
So how is that possible that youhave this very strange?
Climate in Academia, which I, you know, have a call for Action
in my book to change, you know, so I'm trying to make it to

(11:14):
bring science to a healthier position and I believe that this
is what the public wants. Because that's why my book is
immediately a best-seller. But, of course, people in
Academia who feel threatened by this proposition, because they
want to continue to portray an image where they don't make
mistakes. And one way not to make mistakes

(11:35):
is not to put any skin in the game, not to make predictions.
That can be falsified, and then they can glorify themselves, you
know? I don't like that because that's
not physically, and we have a learning experience, right?
So we should behave, like, kids,you know, we make mistakes.
We don't worry so much about ourego.
We just follow what the evidencetells us and learn something new
about the world. Why does it have to be about us?

(11:58):
It has to be about a dialogue with nature.
And, you know, it's really strange to see the to my book
from some members of the academic Community which you
know is not You know, I followedWhat basketball?
Coaches say, keep your eyes on the ball, not on the audience

(12:18):
and many of the responses. Keep the eyes of the people that
write them on the audience rather than on the evidence that
I'm discussing. So they will not criticize the
same difficult argument that I'mmaking but just make General
statements and refer to each other.
It's sort of like bullying. Basically.
Do you think that I know you have a history or you have a

(12:40):
background in In philosophy. Do you think that that's what's
lacking though, even though somephilosophers might back the, you
know, the quantum, you know, theorists and Quantum physicists
and stuff like that. Do you think though that the
lack of the history of philosophy, lack of the
philosophy of science reading like Thomas Kuhn and that kind
of stuff, do you think that's kind of what's missing?

(13:01):
Because I see a lot of scientists on Twitter and social
media. Speaking, you know, from
positions of authority, using fallacies left and right, do you
That's so that's do. You think that's an issue like
is philosophy being taught like philosophy of science or is that
something that's been missed? Definitely I think you need a
broader view in order to see what's going on because if you

(13:24):
are focusing on a niche that is just technically new drilling
that Niche, you don't see the big picture and you might be
misguided, you know, it's sort of like taking the wrong turn in
the highway so then you can follow that wrong turn and you
can be the expert in that wrong turn, but it's the wrong.
Long-term. So in order not to make the
wrong turn, you need a bigger map that you know, shows you the

(13:46):
possibilities. And and that's what philosophy
gives is a broader View and alsoyou need independence of mind if
you keep paying attention to everyone around you, you know
they will keep justifying what they're doing because otherwise
it will reflect badly on them and so you need to be
independent not care about what you know, how many likes you
have on Twitter and since I don't have any footprint on

(14:10):
social media, Don't care. And also I have a tenured
appointment, you know, I have leadership positions.
I don't really care what people say about me.
I have the confidence that I cansay what I think is, right?
Whereas younger people, you know, around me, I can see
they're really frightened because this bullying is going

(14:30):
on. Even now, you know, on Twitter
and elsewhere and one thing I notice is you see those people
that write blogs, or right, popular science books.
These are people that name that they are scientists, they Define
themselves as scientists, but then you check on the archive
and you find that they haven't published a scientific paper in
more than a decade. So how can they call themselves

(14:52):
scientists? I don't even care what they say
because they are not practicing side it yet.
They post things. As if they are scientists who
make statements, they don't write papers scientific papers.
Like I do, you know I have more than 800 papers and over the
past year, I wrote 50 class papers and some of which are on
were mowing Implications these people are not playing forget

(15:14):
they are not really scientist and then they comment on it and
they get attention as if they were making statements that are
substantiated. But yeah, tells me it's really
bad. That mean I must say it's really
bad because I have to make this fight and there is the social
media Arena and there is a lot of bullying going on.
And at the same time, the culture as a whole is misguided.

(15:36):
It's more centered on portrayingin the image rather than on the
substance, you know? More about the audience, rather
than the ball in the, in the language of basketball, and and
it's frustrating. But I hope that I can change it.
My real hope is my book is aimedat the younger generation.
So I always pay attention to younger people because they

(15:59):
don't carry baggage of prejudice.
They're not so attached to theirego and my hope is that they
would make the revolution, they would make the change II, Lost
hope with the older people, you know?
Yeah, we need more great science, communicators, like
you, I mean, you have people, the people that are in the
public eye and I'm not trying tocall anybody out, but like a
Brian Cox who claims? Oh, there's no way.

(16:21):
There could be extraterrestrial life because we know all the
particles that are out there. There's no way.
Consciousness is anything special?
Like, there's no, you know, someof these people are speaking
from positions of authority thatactually, like you said, I don't
see any papers. I don't see any data, I just see
speculation and, you know, theoretical you know, like you
call it mental. Gymnastics and away.

(16:44):
I mean, the key is really to follow the evidence and you
know, if you claim that this object, as we will discuss is a
natural object, not from a natural source, you need to come
up with a specific scientific scenario, where you explain all
the normal is associated with it.
You can't just say that. And, you know, I paid special
attention to those proposals people made about it, being a

(17:07):
natural object, and I have rulesOut as a simple explanation.
And by the way, all of them invoke something that we have
never seen before. So my point is simple.
If it's something that we have never seen before why not
entertain the possibility that it's artificial.
You know that we have seen an object that is like a plastic

(17:29):
bottle on the beach. Most of the time you see rocks
that are naturally produced and this one is the first one,
what's offensive in that statement.
I mean let's all embrace it and just get more evidence on In the
future of objects, as we stroll down the beach.
Let's look for plastic bottles. I mean, that's what I'm saying
and yet it gets so much backlash, you see?

(17:50):
And it really is strange becauseI think the public would be
extremely interested in such a search and moreover, you know,
there will be much more funding for this from the public and,
and we can do it, you know? And we can, and if we find an
answer to this question, it would have a huge impact on
society. It will be the biggest
scientific discovery that we Made.

(18:12):
So how can we ignore it in my book?
I call it or more and more as wager, you know it's just like
the wager of Blaise Pascal a philosopher French philosopher
that said you know either God exists or God doesn't exist if
God exists. It has huge implications.
Therefore we have to take seriously that possibility.
So the same thing with our mwah mwah if it's a technological

(18:34):
Relic we have to take that seriously and check you know, we
can't just dismiss it on it. On a tweet.
You know that makes no sense, right?
Why would we just have a Prejudice that we are special
and unique? You know, my daughter's when
they were young so that their special unique until they went
to the kindergarten they saw other kids and obviously they

(18:55):
would prefer to stay at home because then, you know, they can
keep the illusion. But if you want to get a sense
of reality and not just feel in Fantasyland, you want to get
evidence. Sure.
So, let's talk about a moving now.
The thing that I found interesting is, you know, I've
seen speculations about like what if an ear or a near Earth

(19:18):
object came close. How would we try and deal with
it? And I know light sails been
thrown around as a possible solution to that.
I don't know if it would work ornot.
I guess that's what I'm asking you.
But, how did, how would that relate to this?
Does it matter? The the shape of the object, if
it's flat, if it's you know, cylinder or does it, you know,

(19:39):
would ball be. Tougher to light sail.
Like how does that work? Yes so the fundamental question
about, oh mwah mwah is whether it's a natural object or an
artificial object, the other details are less important.
But from the way that it reflected sunlight, as it was

(20:00):
tumbling every eight hours, we can tell that, you know, the
amount of light varied by a factor of 10 or more as it was
tumbling and we can tell that Ejected on the sky.
It was at least 10 times longer than it is wide but that just
projected on the sky and if you imagine a piece of paper
projected on the sky, then you know it's tumbling in the wind,

(20:24):
it would look like an elongated object.
But in fact, it's a piece of paper flat and trying to fit the
amount of light that it reflected gave at the 90%
confidence, the conclusion that it's probably pancake shaped the
90% confidence not cigar A shapethe way it was depicted even low
in the sky. It looks elongated but

(20:44):
intrinsically, it's pancake shaped right?
And then it exhibited an extra push away from the Sun but he
didn't have any gases around it that would Propel it.
You know that will give it a push like a rocket.
So the only possible explanationI could think of was that it
reflects sunlight and getting pushed and that was fully

(21:05):
consistent with the fact that the force declined inversely
with distance Squad in a Old-fashioned.
Just like you getting a sale that is pushed by light and and
so that's why the light sail hypothesis came.
Now, it doesn't need to be designed the satellite.
Say, you know, all it needs to be the thin object, an object

(21:27):
that has a thin layer of material.
So, for example, in September 20, 20 just a few months ago,
there was another object, discovered near the Earth not
far. That is Pushed by sunlight and
doesn't have a cometary tape andthe eventually the astronomers
that discovered it with the sametelescope and stars on Hawaii,

(21:51):
they realized that this is a rocket booster from a 1966
launched called lunar lander surveyor to.
And this rocket booster, you know, is hollow and has a thin
surface and that's why it got this extra push.
As long as you have a lot of area for its weight.

(22:11):
You can push it with with light and this demonstrates that we
can tell the difference between a thin object.
Even if it's not designed to be a sale that is being pushed by
light and The Rock and to me it illustrates that, we can tell
the difference between an artificial object and a natural
object. And these are exactly the

(22:32):
properties that are more and more shared with this object,
that it was pushed without a cometary tail and, and to me,
you know, we know that we produced this rocket booster,
but mwah mwah, you know, just came to us from outside sources
and we don't know who produced it, but it's extremely

(22:53):
interesting to find more of the same and figure out what they
look like by by sending a camerathat will pass close to them and
take a photograph, you know, I had sixty six thousand words in
in the book that I just published and if we had a
photograph a picture they say, Is worth a thousand words.
In my case, it would be worth. Sixty six thousand words.

(23:15):
If we had a fixture, I wouldn't need to write the book.
I would just put a poster with apicture and that would be it,
you know. Yeah.
You could superpose it in the Nimitz video.
No, I'm in UFOs are different. But yeah, UFOs.
Unidentified flying objects assume that someone cares about

(23:36):
us and trying to spy about us and hovers around, you know,
just around the Earth. That's a different proposition
and frankly I don't think that we are special and interesting
enough to be spied upon. I think that you know, we are
very common probably we're not very intense, we're not the
smartest kid on the Block you know and we are relatively early
into our technological development, only a century or

(23:59):
so so nobody really is interested in visiting us spying
on us. You know my wife when I met her
had friends that were waiting for Prince Charming on a white
horse. Sure.
And of make them in marriage proposal.
Okay? And that never happened.
So why why do we think that we are sufficiently attractive for

(24:20):
someone to come in and pay tribute to us?
You know, I mean I think we've had UFO people.
We've actually had some of the people on those aircraft
carriers on the show and they definitely saw something there's
definitely experience there. So I guess my question would be
a lot of talk around anti-gravity.
Technology may be different countries, may be some sort of
advanced Tech if It was anti-gravity.

(24:42):
Let's just say since you know, there's a lot of debate over
that whole gravity to begin with, but let's just say it is
some sort of anti-gravity. Technology, could you set up an
experiment to detect that in ourare, you know, are different,
you know, the sky or different, you know, part of our overhead.
I mean, would you be able to detect us?

(25:04):
That's exactly what came out from my discussion, with Joe
Rogan in his podcast? I think that The obsessing on,
you know, Declassified Pentagon Papers is the wrong approach in
these were based on eyewitness testimonies that used all

(25:25):
Technologies and you know, decades old.
And now we have much better cameras was much betting
recording devices. Let's just deploy them in the
same sides, the same regions andit won't be too expensive and
the record everything. We see, and just check, if there
is anything unusual going on, you know, that to me, that's the

(25:47):
best path forward rather than arguing about what people saw
decades ago. I don't really know if the
reports are real or not. By the way, there is this
biblical story about Abraham that, you know, in the Old
Testament that the heard the voice of God asking him to
sacrifice his only son, right? And Isaac and if Abraham had

(26:11):
Cell phone with a voice memo up.You could have pressed it and
recorded the voice of God, and then everyone would believe this
story. But if it's being told you have
to decide, do you believe the story or not, you know, is it
just a metaphor that is used to convince us of something else?
Or is it, what did it really happen?
But if you have a recording device that you can analyze, you

(26:34):
can figure out if this is a mythor reach a real story and my
point is instead of arguing about eyewitness Timon, he's
like Abraham story, you know, weshould just deploy recording
devices that are much better nowthan we used to have in the past
and check it out. You know, it's just approach
that kids have, you know, the adults tell them this and that

(26:56):
and the kids just don't pay attention, they don't care, they
want to test it themselves, you know.
They won't see it for real, you know, and I think we should
adopt exact, you know, I am trying to maintain my childhood
curiosity and I think kids have the right attitude, you know,
just check it out. Self figure it out because who,
you know, other people report about.
I don't know if it's real or not.

(27:17):
Mmm. Yeah.
So in terms of what would you do?
Would you, you know like the ligo or bicep?
You know, some of these experimental things trying to
detect gravitational, waves, obviously that's super far away.
It's from the earliest, Cosmic microwave background.
How would you detect some sort of gravity interference or
disruption within our own airspace as I guess what?

(27:41):
The first of all, you can deploycomrades.
You know, the now they're much better than we used to have
decades ago. You just put them in strategic
places and and monitor the sky, you know?
Just just that because people reported about things appearing
and moving very fast, you know. So you should be able to see
them with cameras and those videos are from our most
forward-looking infrared sensorson these f-18s and all but it's

(28:06):
affecting. You see?
That's the thing they were designed for something
completely different, right? Scientists can bring
Instruments, that are far betterthan what the F-18 has.
F-18 is a whole apartment units.You can put on an F-18.
You can you have constraints, you can put things that are very
heavy or so the point is forget about the F-18 because that was

(28:26):
designed for a completely different purpose, right?
Let's just have cameras that arestate-of-the-art, you know, they
can be as heavy as you want, place them on the ground or
wherever and design the experiment, such that it will be
optimal for detecting things. Like that.
Then, let's check. You know, rather than rely on
these testimonies 100%, no, it'sa great way of looking at it.

(28:49):
You know, stop worrying about the past and start looking
forward in ways that we can actually collect data and
evidence on that. I'm right there with you.
So when you look at Back to my question about the lightsail
thing, have you thought about the near-earth objects and
possible catastrophes and that stuff?

(29:10):
And do you think that the light sail to Direct One of These
objects away is even a possibility?
Well, if you're using, for example, a laser beam to launch
light sails, you know at high speed you don't need the light
sail to deflect the object. You can just Shine the laser on
the object and evaporate. You know, a piece of it, so that

(29:34):
it gets pushed away from Earth, you know, push to the side.
It just needs to miss the Earth.If you know that it's coming
straight into our view, then youwant to just deflect it a little
bit, Nagy it the earlier you catch it the better and you
know, the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
So this giant rock, as big as the island of Manhattan,

(29:56):
approaching them getting bigger on the sky.
The View must have been fantastic until it hit the
ground. Round and then the fun stopped.
Yeah. And even though they had big
bodies, our brain, which is relatively small is much more
helpful for survival under such a catastrophe because we can
have astronomers that use telescopes, that would monitor

(30:18):
the sky and warned us about an incoming object that can harm
us, and then we just need to deflect it.
And one way is using a laser, another one, you can paint it
such that you know it reflect sunlight differently from one
side I'd and gets nudged or you can Shepherd it, you put a big
object next to it. That the pulls it

(30:40):
gravitationally and just moves it away from the earth.
What you don't want is to explode it into many small
pieces because that's what happened in the Gulf War With
The Patriot missiles. You know, the pattern means that
mrs. Were shot at at incoming
missiles and they broke them into a lot of pieces and right,

(31:00):
having a large number of pieces It was more dangerous section in
having one piece, you know, you don't want to do that.
Interesting. So in terms of, you know, you
talk in your book, How would youdetect other ways of detecting
extraterrestrial life and one ofthese is by waste or something.

(31:21):
They've created that like a remnants.
That's left over I think you, you CFCs as an example,
hypothetically were, if we were to find something like that,
would we try and engage or like,what do you think, do do we just
observe or like what would your advice be do we, you know, is
that Should we just kind of holdback and see what happens or?

(31:43):
Yeah, I think when you enter a room full of strangers, you
better stay quiet and listen because you never know who is in
the room and what the risks you might have that would be the
smart thing to do. Unfortunately, we've been
broadcasting for a while, you know, more than a Century radio
waves. And if any if anyone with radio

(32:04):
telescopes like we have exist within a hundred.
Light-years they know about us already.
I mean it made Take them some time to respond, but we might
hear back. The other thing is, you know,
we've been searching for radio signals for a long time, 70
years, or so from space. And I'm not sure it's the right
approach to find evidence or thebest approach because it's just

(32:27):
like trying to speak on the phone, you know, and you need
the counterpart to be alive whenyou're speaking on the phone.
Whereas if you are look if you're looking for a letter in
the mail, if the post service isvery slow, Letter, may arrive to
you after the sender is dead, you know, it's not around.

(32:47):
So you have a better chance of learning about the past.
So if there were lots of dead civilizations, that died by now,
you know, because the other stars, formed the billions of
years before the sun most stars formed before the Sun.
So there are likely to be many more dead civilizations, the
life civilizations and therefore, you can find all the

(33:09):
space. Space probes that they send out
all the space trash they sent out accumulated in space and
just like finding plastic bottles from the ocean that keep
accumulating over time you know and our biggest chances to find
you know some object that looks artificial.

(33:31):
It's not functional anymore because it's a billions of your
soul but I call that space archaeology because you know we
can't have a conversation over. Phone with the Mayan culture,
right? They're gone by now, but we can
find the relics they left behindthrough archaeological digs and
it's exactly equivalent. You can do an archaeological

(33:51):
search for relics left behind inspace, and it's possible that to
moi moi was really the very first artificial object that we
found among all the rocks that we have seen before.
So I think we should search any for any Interstellar object.
Any object that comes Into the system, the solar system from

(34:11):
outside, just like searching forobjects that enter your backyard
from the street, and that saves us, the need to travel far away
because these objects made the travel ready to arrive to us and
we can just look around and I think it's an excellent way to
find out what might be out thereand the fact that omoa is very

(34:33):
strange weird. You know, we can't really figure
out what that already raises an interesting question of whether
this. Things are quite abundant, you
know that when I find one end inthe kitchen, I know that there
must be many more because I onlysearch the small region and the
same about oh Momo. I'm sure there are many of those

(34:54):
objects of the same level of weirdness that are already in
the solar system and we just need to keep looking, you know,
and in a few years we'll find another one and and so forth and
you know, there will be a telescope much better than
pan-starrs called the Vera RubinObservatory.
Three that will become operational in a few years and
and it could detect their one every month and then we can

(35:17):
discover Dark Matter to didn't you Vera Rubin?
Well, it will say it will look for transients, you know, Things
That Vary on the sky and you canuse them like Supernova an
exploding Stars. You can use them to figure out,
you know, the maybe the nature of dark matter by measuring the
expansion of the universe and all kinds of other.

(35:40):
The point is it will survey the sky and find all these objects
that arrived into the solar system from outside all these
Interstellar object. And that's a completely new
frontier. I think it's very exciting.
One of of space archaeology thatwe can start now inspired by or
more mwah. So you don't necessarily think
there's actual life living animal or more correctly.

(36:03):
No because you know, most likelythis trash spent millions of
years, you know, it's right. Space is a very harsh
environment where if you put life on the surface of an
object, you know, they're cosmicrays bombarding it all the time
and they could easily kill it ina time scale on a time scale
that is much shorter than billions of years.

(36:24):
And so it's difficult to imagineunless of course, there are
hidden deep inside and protectedfrom the cosmic rays.
Oh, but I would guess it's just a piece of equipment which
probably is junk, you know, likedoesn't work anymore, but we can
definitely Literally by taking aphotograph close-up photo.
We can tell the difference between a rock and something

(36:45):
else. And you know, we even if we
don't understand what this something else was we can see
that it's something else. How many I'm gonna email Elon
Musk right now is if you can geta, get some photos out there
when it is a lot of cameras, youknow, within the orbit of the
Earth around the Sun just this year and it's not very
expensive, just deploy cameras. And when the next one, the next

(37:09):
object that Looks as weird as this one comes.
Along one of the cameras may be close to its path and then you
take a photograph if you think that there's maybe not as many
of them is these objects becauseof the work or clouds like you
think that maybe since this camefrom outside that it has to pass
through this, you know, Gauntletof other things or something

(37:30):
along those lines know. Most most space is empty, there
is no risk of it hitting something, but the point is that
You know, if you feel that this one is special that we were
lucky to find it. Then you violate the so-called
copernican principle. That's that's a principle based
on the fact that Copernicus discovered that the Earth is not

(37:53):
the center of the world. You know, the center of the
universe, we are not in a privileged place and you can
generalize it not being in a privileged time, you know?
So if you look at the sky for a few years and you find one
object, it means that if you look for it, Another 3 years
you'll find another one. You know, there is no reason why

(38:13):
you were privileged at that timeyou know that will be a small
probability and so that's what Ithink is most natural.
Just like finding an ant in the kitchen, you look across a small
portion of the kitchen, you findit.
And then, you know should be many more because you just
looked at a small portion, you know?
And so do you think since that this is the one that we found

(38:34):
that we latched onto that we weren't really looking for these
before we weren't paying attention or something.
Okay, we we didn't have the capacity to look for it.
So the pan-starrs telescope was really the first one.
That was sensitive to objects ofthis size, a few hundred feet
within the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.
You know, it was the first one that was sensitive and was

(38:57):
serving the sky routinely. It was looking for near Earth
objects that are coming from inside the of the solar system,
like Oort cloud, objects or asteroids and and It was just
the first telescope that was doing it and found this object
within a few years. So, my point is simple, you
know, continue to look for a fewmore years.

(39:18):
You find another one. Have you already started?
Keeping your eye out for anotherone?
Is this something that's been ongoing?
Well, it's automatic. You see that the telescope is
serving the sky and astronomers,which simply report whenever
another industrial or object is found.
There was a second one that was discovered by a Amateur

(39:40):
astronomer. It's, it's called Boris of
because his last name was worried so, and this one looked
exactly like a comet, no different.
Then the comments that we have seen before.
And people came to me and said, look, this one is natural,
right? And I said, yes, and they said,
okay doesn't it? Convince you that there are more

(40:03):
and more is also natural to which I replied the, you know,
if you find a plastic bottle on the Each.
And after that, you find a lot of rocks.
Does it change the nature of theplastic bottle is to being a
rock or another way to put it? You know, when I met my wife on
the first date, I thought that she's special and unique and and

(40:24):
then I met a lot of people afterthat and I still think that
she's special. So you know, the second object
has nothing to do with the firstobject.
Yeah, that's interesting. So I know we were talking a
little bit about UFOs earlier, but somebody was asking You know
do you think at any point in thepast something's visited us even
if it was just to observe like how we observe answer we send

(40:47):
people to the you know the jungle or the rain forest to
look at the new bug species, that kind of a thing.
Yeah, one thing that you need tokeep in mind is that it takes an
object, like a more. Mwah.
More than 10,000 years to Traverse the Oort cloud to
Traverse the entire solar systemand think about us 10,000 years

(41:08):
back. We were not that Arresting,
right? And so the point is, it's hard
for me to believe First that we are sufficiently interesting for
a visit and second that someone would had the foresight to send
a probe, If It Moves at these speeds, you know.

(41:28):
So I would think, you know, probably it's just something not
intended, then entered the solarsystem and there are plenty of
those things and we just need tolook and we'll find another one
and then we can examine it. Take a A graph, or maybe even
land on it and learn more about it.
But I don't think that it's likely that anyone was planning
to spinal us. You know, that's my, that's my

(41:51):
tendency. What about like an AI thing?
Like are like a say, all of thisis driven by modesty.
I mean, I think guiding principle that you get from
doing astronomy. Is that, you know, we should be
modest, we are such a small component in the big scheme of
things, you know, the universe. Our lifetime is, is really
short. So compared to the age of the
universe, you know that the technological civilization that

(42:13):
we have all the Technologies we have were for Century you know?
So and it's one part in a hundred million of the age of
the universe, you know, it's really tiny.
So we tend to think about us as prominent and important but we
are really not very significant you know and I have a hard time

(42:34):
believing that we that someone is really watching us and caring
about us. You know we're probably The
long, you know, because because there are many others that are
similar and nobody cares specially about us, and it's
just like having ants on the sidewalk.
When you walk down the street, you don't pay attention to every
end, you know, it's yeah. What about like the Von Neumann

(42:55):
probe idea or like AI technology?
Like what if a civilization got so Advanced that they could, you
know, send all these Pro self-replicating probes out
like, you know, is that something that we could look for
to this technology and these technology technological?
Digital signatures in the universe.
That maybe have been replicated that maybe even the
civilization, that created them is no longer around.

(43:18):
Yeah. So the ideal fist
self-replicating. Machine is interesting because
what it means is that whoever, you know, whichever machines
replicate themselves would be the most abundant, you know,
they would be the most numerous,it's sort of like a darwinian
selection, you know that those that replicate The most common

(43:38):
you know that, you know if if you are if you decide to be a
nun and you don't have any any kids, you know, and then you're
not likely, then you will not reproduce any, we're not, you
know, continue to be part of society.
And but if you have a machine that replicates a lot, then that

(44:01):
would be most likely for us to be abundant and and we will find
it. And yeah.
So we don't know, right? So we don't know whether there
are four Neumann machines, but the idea itself is interesting
because we could search for those things that not only exist
but also produce copies of themselves and and then they

(44:22):
become very. So how can we find out what
suppose we see two plastic bottles that look identical?
You know, like they look the same and then we see a third one
that looks the same. We know that the must be a
production line somewhere, you know, that makes a similar
things. Yeah, you talk about also
spreading out and kind of not keeping all the eggs in one
basket. You talk about.

(44:43):
You know, let's get to the moon.Let's get to Mars, let's get
spread out a little bit. Is there any advantage though?
From like a discovery standpointof let's say setting up an
observatory on the moon or setting up an observatory on
Mars that we like a an advantagethat we don't have here because
of maybe our atmosphere or different things.
Yeah, definitely the Moon is just like a museum because it

(45:06):
doesn't have enough. A so on Earth objects that are
smaller than the size of a person, they burn up in the
atmosphere. They are called meteors.
We see them burn up and then nothing is left.
Only if there are much bigger than a size of a person, they
last, you know, and and some core of them reaches the ground.
But on the moon, there is no atmosphere.

(45:27):
So, all the objects pile up on the surface of the Moon, and
also, it doesn't have any geological activity, there is no
turnover of whatever is on the surface.
As it's not being brought and mixed with material inside on
Earth, you know anything that landed on the surface of the
Earth more than 100 million years ago, is mixed now in the

(45:47):
interior because of geological activity.
And so the Moon is really interesting, it's just like an
archaeological site where all the objects that landed on the
moon are can be found on its surface and and potentially,
some of these may be pieces of equipment, you know?
Interstellar probes that they just hit the Moon.

(46:10):
It was like a fishing, net collecting things, you know?
And it would be really amazing if we were to search the surface
of the Moon, and obviously, mostof the time you find rocks.
But suddenly, you see, somethingthat looks artificial.
You know, that would be and we didn't launch it, you know.
It looks like we did, we are notresponsible for this thing and,
and it's it's on the surface, you know.

(46:32):
It's like an archaeological dig.You can find things that you may
have not Expected. So that will be really
interesting. That will be an opportunity for
us to put our hands on an artificial object that came from
far away. Do you see that as possibly
being a future discipline like Astro Astro archaeology?

(46:57):
You know, and in terms of getting out there and actually
doing these archaeological digs on these other planets or taking
samples and I guess that's kind of what they do with Rover's.
But they don't ever actually find anything that interests in,
right? So there is another way to do
it. You can go on the surface but
you can also hover above the surface and take photographs and

(47:19):
then analyze them that that would uncover.
Whatever is on the surface. If you want to go deeper than
the the surface then you need todig and you know that that's
also a possibility. At first, we might just go
around the surface and see if there's anything unusual.
Oil and we can do the same thingon Mars of course, but that

(47:42):
that's also possible. Do you think that when you look
at the way science is progressing?
That obviously there's some you know setbacks and there's this
like slow crawl that we talked about earlier.
But do you think that we need topush the envelope and other ways
to not just searching for extraterrestrial life, Taking

(48:04):
Chances and other aspects of your Into and like, um, like the
dark matter thing the gravitational waves gravitation,
you know, the whole gravity thing like is there is there
people doing what you're doing in those other disciplines or do
we need more of that. We definitely need the more of
that. And I think the first thing that

(48:24):
should be emphasized, is that whoever put skin in the game,
whoever takes a risk and makes predictions that can be
falsified should get rewarded, okay.
Rather than People that show that there are smart based on
intellectual gymnastics, which is pretty much the culture right
now. And the measure of success

(48:45):
should be in making a putting forward ideas, that can be
tested, that are appealing, you know?
And that should be the Criterionby which we make progress
because we learn from nature, rather than assuming that we
know things in advance, you know, Prejudice and and trying
to demonstrate that we are smart.
It's not about us. It's a dialogue with nature and

(49:06):
it's about Figuring out, just let kids learn about the world.
You know, they take risks, they sometimes get injured because
they make the wrong move, you know?
And but it's okay to get injured, you know, if your image
is stained a little bit because you took some risk and made a
mistake, you know, it's not if you don't have bruises, it means
you are not taking any risks andyou are boring.

(49:27):
That's my main point. You are boring.
If you repeat things that we already know, I mean, you can
get into honorary societies and pretend that you are very
respectable wear a tie and everyone clapped Oops, their
hands but you are boring. And the only way for you to be
interesting is by taking some risks and going in directions
that will, you know, expose new knowledge for us.

(49:48):
And that's really what it's the burning front of knowledge,
trying to, you know, make make progress and and we can make
mistakes. That's part of the game.
You know that let's let's innovate.
Let's let's take some risks and I think it's missing right now
and just to give you an example,you mentioned gravitational
waves. So Proposal to build ligo.

(50:10):
When I was a postdoc, just finished my PhD.
And I came to Princeton, it was ridiculed and people said, you
know, that will never work people in the astronomy
Community said, it will never work.
Then, in 2013, I gave a lecture at the winter school about
gravitational, wave astrophysicsand 10 minutes into my talk, a

(50:31):
relatively young faculty member stood up and said, why are you
wasting the time of the These students on a subject that will
never be important during their career and he was very confident
of himself. You know, like an alpha male
standing up telling me what to do here is, I was much more
senior than he is and then two years later, ligo detected, the

(50:55):
first gravitational wave signal for which the Nobel Prize was
awarded and you just think aboutit, the same students that I
lectured to, we're still doing their PHD.
When the ligo detection Place. And this guy was telling me that
I'm wasting their time, it was during their PHD that the first
gravity and then the Nobel Prizewas given to that.
And that shows you how conservative, you know, in this

(51:19):
guy was younger than I am and hewas trying to establish his
reputation but basically bullying or saying something bad
about the field that hasn't emerged yet.
Okay? The same was true on exoplanets,
you know, the discovery of planets around other stars in
1952 there was a proposal in a paper that auto struve an

(51:44):
astronomer made saying that, youknow, if you have a jupiter-like
planet close to a star, it will move the start back and forth in
a measurable way or it could pass in front of the star.
You will see the D munition of light from the start and that
proposal did not receive any support time.
Allocation committee's on telescope said you know we don't

(52:05):
want to waste telescope time. Looking for such systems because
we know that Jupiter is far awayfrom the Sun and we understand
why. And therefore there should be
any Jupiter's close to their stars.
There shouldn't be any and why, why should we waste our time?
Looking for them and then in 1995 someone there to look and
found you know and these people got the Nobel Prize just a few
years ago. Okay.

(52:26):
And they found the first Jupiterstar system and that opened a
whole new field of exoplanets. Now you may argue okay no harm
was done. You know so for decades Nothing
was found but then eventually signs found these things.
The point is it took four decades and if we were to find
it earlier, you know it would have improved efficiency of
Science by now. We would make more progress, but

(52:49):
beyond that, you know, this is ababy that managed to get born.
There are many unborn babies butyou know, basically that were
suffocated or suppress completely and we didn't get
them to fruition and they you know, and science suffers from
that. And so my point is if you The
commercial sector, you know, youlook at the companies, they have

(53:11):
a team of people that work on risky, propositions.
You know, they realize that eventhough they're up for profits,
you know, that if you take risks, you can find something
completely new that nobody else has and they can make a profit
of it that will compensate for all the losses they have from
failed ideas and they recognize that.
So why would the academic community be more conservative?

(53:34):
It's supposed to be more open-minded, you know?
It's not up for profit, it's a non-profit.
You know, universities are nonprofit organizations.
By definition, they get tax deductions, they are nonprofit.
If there are nonprofit, they should not have the bottom line
on their portfolio. They should encourage people to

(53:54):
innovate, right? And when I come and say, Omaha,
more looks strange. We should consider the
possibility that his technological signature.
What do I get in return people bullying?
It ready. Cooling it and not even with To
discuss it as a serious possibility and I ask you.
How is that possible? It's supposed Academia is
supposed to be wealth. Embracing this and saying, okay,

(54:16):
you made an interesting proposal.
The public seems to be extremelyinterested, you made an
interesting proposal. Let's collect more evidence and
test it out. Well, that's where a lot of the
debate in the animosity. I think when you see people that
don't trust certain aspects of science or whatever, it's
because I don't think they're investigating the things that
people want them. To investigators that the public

(54:38):
wants out of it. By the way, there is this notion
of Sciences and occupation of the elite.
I think it's a self-inflicted wound in the sense that
scientists use science, sometimes to elevate themselves
to put themselves on a pedestal and only inform the public, when
the results are conclusive and not to involve engage the public

(55:00):
when there is, and then work on things that are like, asking how
many angels can sit on the tip of a pin?
The public doesn't care about. You know, and I think that's a
big mistake because science is of interest to the public and if
only the scientists would be willing to address the topics
that are of interest to the public and the public funds
science. It should be a cop you know, the

(55:20):
two sides should be engaged together.
I think science is a way of life.
It's not a status symbol. You're not supposed to think.
Oh I'm smart. Therefore you know I will not
degrade my profession by speaking to the people you know
that makes no sense. Right?
And you know when I Meet the people that helped me with all
kinds of household. You know, a plumber that comes

(55:41):
to fix something at home. I speak with them about science,
just like, I speak with my colleagues and sometimes I enjoy
it even more because, you know, people are more open-minded,
exciting and passionate. Yeah, yeah.
So I think science should be accessible to everyone.
It should address the questions that are of interest to the

(56:02):
public and it should be explained to the public.
So if we don't have Evidence, weshould tell the public, what's
the problem? You know, why hide it from the
public and only come out and lectures.
If the public is students in a classroom and lecture, what the
results are when we are 100% sure.
It's been, by the way, in many times when scientists are having

(56:22):
pressed Insurance lecture to thepublic, then they retract and
say, oh we made a mistake actually, and it's not what we
said and that happens a lot in press conference.
So that is a completely Twisted way of presenting science.
Science is a work in progress, it should never be pretended to
be the ultimate truth. That is given as a lecturer in a

(56:43):
class. You know, we should let the
public know, okay? We didn't have enough evidence.
There are several possibilities,we are now exploring them and
then the public would believe you.
When you say, okay, we expect, we got more evidence and now, we
are sure, you know, the public would believe you absolutely.
Well, actually, I know we're on a time, constraint.
So let's wrap it up here. So we can do a short patreon
segment. But listen, we really appreciate

(57:05):
it. Maybe we can get you back on
here in the Future, maybe there's a new discovery around
the bend, but we really appreciate your time.
I really appreciate your book extraterrestrial.
You can check out his book on Amazon.
I have linked down below its Kindle and use also on Audible
to, so check that out 100%, And we really appreciate you coming

(57:25):
on. Absolutely, thank you, sir.
Thanks for having me. All right, well, we love
everybody out there, stay safe. And if you're interested, we're
about to do a patron segment. It should be up later tonight,
so we love everybody. Stay safe and we'll catch you
next time.