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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Why is Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb
working with ardent UFO believers?

A
braham “Avi” Loeb got the idea to By Keith Kloor teristics.” Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center
hunt for aliens from cable TV. In poll that month found that half of Americans
June 2021, Loeb, an astrophysicist run stories on shadowy objects that appear believed aliens were steering the UFOs.
PHOTO: BETTMANN/CONTRIBUTOR/GETTY IMAGES

at Harvard University, was at home, to dart and dance in grainy video clips taken Loeb, already obsessed with a mys-
watching NASA Administrator Bill by Navy jet pilots. On 25 June, shortly after terious interstellar object that whizzed
Nelson on CNN talking about recent Nelson mused about the footage on CNN, the through the Solar System in 2017, sensed
UFO incidents involving U.S. Navy Pentagon issued a report on nearly 2 decades’ an opportunity. Immediately after seeing
pilots. “Do you think we have been worth of the “unidentified aerial phenom- Nelson on CNN, he emailed NASA sci-
contacted by extraterrestrials?” ena” (UAP)—the government’s preferred new ence chief Thomas Zurbuchen to propose
the CNN interviewer asked. Nelson hedged, term for UFOs. It said the objects were likely a government-funded UFO study. Later that
then said he was “turning to our scientists” to be drones, weather-related phenomena, day, the two spoke over the phone, and Loeb
to find out what the pilots saw. or artifacts of sensor glitches. On the other says Zurbuchen was “supportive” of the idea.
UFOs were big news at the time. Outlets hand, it said that, in some cases, the objects But Loeb never heard back after that. He
from The New York Times to 60 Minutes had “appeared to exhibit unusual flight charac- quickly pivoted to private funding. His first

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In 1957, a “flying saucer” was photographed near an Air Force base in
New Mexico (left). Avi Loeb (right) wants to gather data on modern UFOs.

lucky strike came when Eugene Jhong, a on a problem that is frustratingly fuzzy,” says physicist Freeman Dyson at the Institute
Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Harvard Gregory Laughlin, an astrophysicist at Yale for Advanced Study, where he switched to
alum who had heard Loeb talking about University. “A project like this would have theoretical astrophysics, before joining Har-
aliens on a podcast, offered up $1 million, been unthinkable 10 years ago.” But others vard in 1993. There, he pursued a traditional
no strings attached. say Loeb is tarnishing astronomy and under- academic path—until several years ago when
In July, Loeb unveiled the Galileo Proj- mining the search for extraterrestrial intel- he became known as the Harvard professor
ect, which he says was designed in the spirit ligence (SETI) just as that effort has started who talks about aliens.
of the revolutionary Italian astronomer to acquire a veneer of respectability (Science, Loeb considers himself a trendsetter, and
Galileo Galilei. (The tagline is “Daring to look 11 September 2020, p. 1288). In particular, maintains a list of his “top 20 confirmed pre-
through new telescopes.”) The overarching they are bothered by the outspoken UFO dictions.” Those include theories about how
goal of the $1.8 million project is to search for zealots with no science background whom to use gravitational lenses to detect planets;
evidence of extraterrestrial technology, and Loeb has welcomed into the project. “He’s how stars can feed the Milky Way’s central,
one branch is traditional: analyzing possible intermingled legitimate scientists with these giant black hole when they stray too close;
interstellar objects spotted deep in space by fringe people,” says Caleb Scharf, an astro- and what the base of the jet of material that
mountaintop observatories. More controver- biologist at Columbia University. “I think you rockets out from the black hole at the cen-
sial is the construction of a network of roof- lose far more by doing that.” ter of the M87 galaxy looks like—a prediction
top cameras designed to capture any UFOs confirmed when the black hole’s shadow was
prowling through Earth’s atmosphere. After RAISED ON his family’s farm in Israel, Loeb captured by the Event Horizon Telescope in
enlisting more than three dozen astronomers has demonstrated a lifelong precociousness, 2019. “I worked on imaging black holes be-
and engineers in the project—as well as some as well as a restless and relentless curiosity. fore it became fashionable,” he says with
PHOTO: HERLINDE KOELBL

notorious nonscientists—Loeb hopes to solve After earning a Ph.D. in plasma physics at the matter-of-fact boastfulness. “I worked on the
the enduring UFO mystery once and for all. Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1986 at the first stars in the universe before it became
“Scientists have to come to the rescue and age of 24, he worked on a project funded by popular.” He points to that research as an
clear up the fog,” Loeb says. then-President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” impetus for the James Webb Space Telescope,
Some researchers applaud Loeb’s en- missile defense program. While still in his the just-launched observatory that will probe
deavor. “He has mounted a scientific attack 20s, Loeb rubbed elbows with the luminary the early universe.

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NE WS | F E AT U R E S

None of this was controversial or drew instruments to find anomalies for a very long cameras are not new. Since 2010, one SETI In-
a public spotlight. But then, in 2017, a tele- time,” Jill Tarter reminded Loeb during one stitute network has detected 2 million mete-
scope in Hawaii spotted a cigar-shaped rock testy exchange at the forum. (Tarter was the ors, and in the past few years, the LaserSETI
400 meters long passing through the Solar inspiration for the astronomer played by Jodi project has begun to watch the sky for pulses
System, its immense speed and bizarre trajec- Foster in the 1997 movie Contact.) Tarter said of light from alien technologies. What’s novel
tory firmly placing it in the category of “not it was important not to make any conjectural about the Galileo Project, Shostak says, is its
from around here.” ‘Oumuamua, as it ended up leaps about aliens unless there was “extraor- focus on hunting for aliens in Earth’s atmo-
being called, was the first documented inter- dinary evidence.” This, she added, was the sphere. Both the Galileo Project and the SETI
stellar object to visit the Solar System, and only way of “differentiating ourselves from Institute “are looking for indications of extra-
Loeb leaped at the chance to study something the pseudoscience that is so much a part of terrestrial intelligence,” he adds. “But that’s
so strange. He noted, as other scientists did, popular culture with UFOs.” like saying that studying unknown fauna in
that ‘Oumuamua was brighter than a typical the rainforest is similar to those who are hop-
comet—too bright to be natural, he believed. IN JULY 2021, when Loeb unveiled the Gali- ing to find mermaids or unicorns.”
He couldn’t shake the thought: What if it was leo Project, it appeared to be aiming for just Loeb says a prototype sky monitor is being
an alien spaceship? Loeb ended up publish- this sort of extraordinary evidence. He had built now and will be affixed to the roof of the
ing 20 papers on ‘Oumuamua, and in early recruited a team of scientists from prominent Harvard College Observatory in the spring. If
2021, a book on it titled Extraterrestrial: The institutions worldwide to design and work on the instruments work, he plans to make du-
First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. the project. “I was attracted to it because it plicates; if he can raise another $100 million
Loeb’s theory that ‘Oumuamua from private donors, he will place
was some kind of technologi- them around the world. He says
cal debris from an otherworldly he won’t utter the UFO word un-

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civilization drew worldwide at- less they see an object “that looks
tention. He became an eager strange and moves in ways that
spokesperson, appearing not just human technology cannot enable.”
in mainstream media outlets,
but also UFO podcasts and con- ONE DAY in November, at a virtual
ferences. But most of Loeb’s col- meeting for the Galileo Project, the
leagues rejected his hypothesis, An artist’s conception discussion turned to which “high
which he first laid out in a 2018 of ‘Oumuamua, an interstellar incidence areas” would be best
paper published in The Astro- object that passed through to first deploy the cameras. (Loeb
physical Journal Letters. Others the Solar System. Avi Loeb muses shared Zoom recordings of several
mocked it or dismissed it as a that it could be an alien spaceship. team meetings with Science.) The
publicity stunt. “What’s really ir- widely reported UFOs were spotted
ritating is that Avi is a smart guy,” during naval training exercises off
says Karen Meech, a planetary astronomer is data-driven,” says Kevin Heng, an astro- the U.S. Pacific and Atlantic coasts—making
at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. “He is a physicist at the University of Bern. those the natural places to start the network
good scientist. But he is out for fame here.” One part of the project would design of UFO detectors. “Do you have the first prior-
The snubs gnawed at Loeb. software to screen the data coming from ity location or recommendation?” Loeb asked
His anger boiled over early last year at an telescopes like the Rubin observatory for Christopher Mellon, who was participating in
online forum called the Golden Webinar in interstellar objects. But the core of the project his first meeting as a “research affiliate,” an
Astrophysics, where he portrayed himself as would be a worldwide network of sky moni- unpaid adviser to the project. A former dep-
the victim of a “close-minded” scientific com- tors, hundreds in all. Each dome-shaped unit, uty assistant secretary of defense for intelli-
munity unwilling to entertain bold hypoth- roughly the size of an umbrella, will contain gence, Mellon has publicized the UFO issue
eses. “If we listen to my colleagues we would infrared and optical cameras arranged like in the media for several years, talking up the
just forget about [‘Oumuamua],” he said. “We a fly’s eye to capture the full expanse of sky national security threat he claims they pose.
would not put any funds for cameras taking overhead. Audio sensors and radio anten- Before answering, Mellon cleared his
photographs of it. Then we will maintain nas will listen at other frequencies. Running throat. “One of the problems is that many
our ignorance, just like the philosophers in 24 hours a day, the monitors are meant to of the areas we’re seeing the greatest level
Galileo’s age.” record everything that moves through the of [UFO] activity are restricted military air-
It was peculiar reasoning, not least be- sky, day and night: from birds and balloons space,” he said. “The Defense Department is
cause workers at the time were putting the to insects, airliners, and drones. Artificial not going to be real excited about bringing
finishing touches on the Vera C. Rubin Obser- intelligence (AI) algorithms, trained to dis- in a lot of instruments to record everything
vatory, an 8-meter behemoth taking shape in card known objects like birds in favor of that’s going on.”
Chile—and designed specifically to look for fast-moving spherical and lens-shaped ob- The discussion was abruptly tabled, and
transient phenomena like ‘Oumuamua when jects, will sift through the data, says Richard Loeb has since danced carefully around the
it opens sometime next year. And in 2019, Cloete, a computer scientist at the University issue and deferred to the military concerns
the European Space Agency approved Comet of Cambridge, who is overseeing the system’s raised by Mellon. But they present a quan-
Interceptor, a mission that after launch in software. “We’re basically filtering out all the dary for the Galileo Project, says Ed Turner,
IMAGE: ESO/M. KORNMESSER

2029 will park itself beyond Earth’s orbit in a things that we expect to find in the sky,” he a Princeton University astrophysicist who is
position to chase down and inspect fast mov- says. “And all these things that are labeled part of the project’s core research team. “The
ing comets—or even interstellar objects. other [by the AI] will be of interest.” clustering of UAP incidents [in military ar-
One pioneering SETI researcher at the fo- Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI eas] is a problem,” he says. “I’ve pointed that
rum could not abide Loeb’s comments. “Some Institute who sits on the Galileo Project’s ad- out to Avi.” Turner, who is more excited by the
of us have been thinking about and building visory board, points out that networks of sky interstellar component of the project, doesn’t

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 alienate anyone that cares about the sub-
ject, because we could benefit from their
knowledge,” he says.
Many on the Galileo Project appreci-
ate Loeb’s open-mindedness. Shostak for
one isn’t bothered by the presence of the
research affiliates and thinks Loeb’s star
power gives a boost to a worthwhile proj-
ect. “I still don’t think we’re being visited
by aliens,” he chuckles. But others on the
team are wary. Heng says he has become
“uncomfortable” with some of the research
affiliates. “This is concerning,” Heng says.
“If there comes a day when the influence
of the fringy people overrides the influence
of people like me and other sober-minded
scientists on the team, then I’m gone.”

UFO SIGHTINGS have waxed and waned in the

public consciousness since the dawn of the
Cold War in the late 1940s, when the term
“flying saucers” first appeared. In 1953, dur-

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ing one wave of sightings across the United
States, another Harvard astrophysicist tried
to calm public jitters. “They are as real as rain-
bows,” Donald Menzel told Time magazine,
referring to the saucers. Menzel explained
that people were misperceiving distant ob-
jects in the skies, such as planes and balloons,
The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, or being fooled by optical illusions produced
atop the island of Maui in Hawaii, by clouds and celestial phenomena.
discovered ‘Oumuamua in 2017. Over the years, many public-facing as-
tronomers have investigated UFO claims
in a similar spirit. Michael Busch, an as-
think the ground-based cameras will pick up in the Department of Defense until retiring tronomer at the SETI Institute, says they
any evidence of extraterrestrial visits. “If the in 2017, Pentagon spokespeople have repeat- do this “in an attempt at debunking and
aliens don’t want us to know about them, edly denied that he ever played a role in a at convincing UFO enthusiasts of their
they’ll likely know about the Galileo Project,” UFO research program, much less led one. mistake, and sometimes as a way to teach
he says drily. “They can just avoid our high- (In November 2021, however, the Pentagon astronomy.” Busch cites Carl Sagan as an-
resolution cameras.” did establish a UFO office, which it calls the other who took Menzel’s patient, skeptical
In addition to Mellon, Galileo has nearly Airborne Object Identification and Manage- approach.
50 other research affiliates—many with no ment Synchronization Group.) Whether Loeb falls into this category de-
background in science but a long interest in After word spread on social media of pends on your perspective. Some, like Busch,
UFOs. One is Nick Pope, a former U.K. civil Elizondo’s involvement, Loeb felt compelled believe Loeb is cynically riding the UFO
servant–turned–broadcaster who claims to to address the matter in one of the project’s zeitgeist to promote himself, his book, and
have investigated UFO reports for the U.K. weekly Zoom meetings. “I evaluate people his project. Others, like former National Sci-
government in the early 1990s. Since then, based on their intelligence and openness of ence Foundation Director and astrophysicist
he has been a regular speaker on the UFO mind,” he said from the book-lined study of France Córdova, find Loeb to be “imagina-
circuit and on Ancient Aliens, a long-running his home in Massachusetts, where Loeb is tive” and “inspiring.” “His views may unsettle
TV series that suggests aliens have shaped working on sabbatical this year. “We don’t some, yet there is no doubt that the goal of
human history. “We very much look forward care so much what other people said in the finding evidence that we are not alone is an
to benefitting from your knowledge and wis- past. What we want is to collect our data. attribute that makes us distinctly human,”
dom,” Loeb said to Pope after introducing … We will not entertain fringe ideas that she says.
him at a recent weekly Zoom meeting. (Pope are outside the boundaries of the standard For his part, Loeb can sound a lot like
says he considers himself a “communicator” model of physics.” Elizondo and Mellon de- Menzel when he wants to. He says he knows
and “broadcaster” and rejects being labeled clined to comment. full well that most UFO sightings derive from
as fringe.) When asked directly about the dangers misperception. He’ll respectfully listen to
Another research affiliate is Luis Elizondo, of involving such outspoken UFO advo- such accounts, but will put no stock in anec-
PHOTO: STEPHEN ALVAREZ

a career military intelligence officer and self- cates, Loeb points out that he did not re- dotal stories, he says. “Humans are subject to
proclaimed UFO whistleblower. In recent cruit them; they all approached him. “We hallucinations, optical illusions, all kinds of
years, Elizondo has appeared widely in the will not rely on anything these people say, crazy stuff. You cannot trust people.” What he
media claiming to be the former director of just the instruments,” he insists. “I don’t wants, he says, is data. j
a secretive Pentagon UFO research unit. Al- care what people are associated with.” He
though Elizondo is confirmed to have worked says he prefers a big tent. “I don’t want to Keith Kloor is a journalist in New York City.

SCIENCE science.org
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Published by AAAS
 Paranormal activity
Keith Kloor

Science 375 (6579), . DOI: 10.1126/science.ada0327

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