European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser via NASA.gov
A Pentagon official and a Harvard professor have theorized that mysterious aerial incursions could be alien probes from a mothership sent to study Earth, but an expert questions their findings, Politico reports.
Sean Kirkpatrick, who heads the Pentagons All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and Harvard professor Avi Loeb, coauthored a draft paper that asserts the objects appear to defy all physics and may be probes sent from an otherworldly parent craft.
The draft paper has not been peer reviewed.
Among the interstellar objects is the cigar-shaped Oumuamua that was seen in in 2017 soaring through the galaxy.
Oumuamua, which in Hawaiian means a messenger that reaches out from the distant past, was spotted by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii in October 2017.
CNNs Steve George and Ashley Strickland report that scientists have been at odds to explain its unusual features and precise origins, with researchers first calling it a comet and then an asteroid before finally deeming it the first of its kind: a new class of interstellar objects.
The draft paper, dated March 7, speculates that the probes could charge their batteries from starlight and Earths water as fuel.
What would be the overarching purpose of the journey? In analogy with actual dandelion seeds, the probes could propagate the blueprint of their senders, Kirkpatrick and Loeb say in the draft paper.
As with biological seeds, the raw materials on the planets surface could also be used by them as nutrients for self-replication or simply scientific exploration.
At least one expert believes the papers findings to be dubious.
UCLA astronomy professor David Jewitt described the papers claims as highly questionable and said the role of a Pentagon officials involvement in extraterrestrial study was odd.
Jewitt noted that a 1948 incident in which an Air Force pilot crashed while pursuing what was thought to be UFO that turned out to be the planet Venus.
The Air Force is very good at bombing things, but as far as their research on UFOs, I think Id trust them about as far as I can throw them, Jewitt said.
Its not clear that the Air Force and military capabilities are best suited to the study of aliens.
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