Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has continued his serious search for alien artifacts. His efforts started with his shocking (though justifiable) claim that the interstellar object named Oumuamua was possibly an alien probe or spaceship. This object did not seem to fit into typical expectations for, say, a comet or asteroid, in terms of the shape of the object (it seemed to be long and thin) or the light coming from it (seemed to possibly be reflected light form a metallic surface). Unfortunately, Oumuamua quickly left the solar system making future observations almost certainly impossible as it did not seem to be on a trajectory that would have it returning to our solar system.

More recently Loeb has searched for the remnants of a fast meteorite that fell into the Pacific Ocean in 2014. The high speed of the meteorite is important, as it indicates a possible interstellar origin. A dredging of the ocean in the expected area of the fall of the meteorite brought up small metallic spheres. Though the shape of the small objects would be typical of may meteor strikes, their composition seems unusual, with relatively high concentrations of the rare metal titanium in addition to the more typical iron, for instance. Though this could be an indication of an artificial origin of the object that came through the atmosphere, by itself that is not enough evidence to make such a claim. Loeb feels that with more investigation of the materials, and perhaps future finds, could help to make the distinction between evidence of an an unusual meteorite and a true alien artifact.

We can clearly see how this might seem to have intersections with science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rama” series concerned the discovery of an alien probe. The discovery of an inexplicable monolith of apparent artificial and alien origin is central to Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the sort of artifact Loeb is discussing might be simpler. That is, something more akin to our own Pioneer and Voyager probes which will themselves be closer to other star systems than our own.

We can ask ourselves “what will happen if this is discovered to be the remnants of an alien probe?” Though I think some prognosticators are likely to predict either mayhem or a complete challenge to the religions of the world, I think the immediate follow on would be considerably tamer. At first we’d want to figure out where the probe was likely to have originated. That may not be possible with the limited information on its trajectory into the atmosphere. Additionally, we might want to see if anything could tell us the likely age of the object (other than the likelihood that it traveled immense distances over tens of thousands of years). We’d immediately want to search for similar objects and similar evidence across the world. I look forward to finding out whether or not these small spheres discovered by Loeb’s team are likely to have been manufactured by extraterrestrials or whether there is more likely to have been a boring terrestrial explanation, or maybe extraterrestrial, but not involving any intelligent aliens.

source material: https://news.yahoo.com/harvard-astrophysicist-says-may-found-102224301.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

For more about Avi Loeb and his search for extraterrestrial objects see his Book:

Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

While you’re at it, read my (Steve Bloom) book, The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction!