Today I hosted two academics, Andrew Simmons from Washington, D.C. and Lourdes German from Cambridge, MA, who confessed that they have been following my search for extraterrestrial artifacts for the past several years.
They asked me how it was that I started this search. I explained that my interest was sparked by the discovery of the first astronomical object from outside the solar system, `Oumuamua October 19, 2017 This 100-meter-long object was unusual for its pancake-like shape and non-gravitational acceleration, with no signs of evaporation. In tiny, `Oumuamua did not resemble known asteroids or comets in the solar system.
“Oumuamua's wake-up call revealed research opportunities that I had never encountered before in the last thirty years of my academic career. The search for extraterrestrial artifacts could have enormous consequences for humanity's future, but the scientific community is largely abandoned. Other transformative topics, such as the search for the unknown nature of dark matter, often have a long history and are crowded with many competing practitioners. This means that there is little chance of making a unique contribution to your knowledge base. However, here I have not chosen a research path to which I can make a significant contribution. My background was in theoretical physics, but I agreed to conduct the experiment Galileo projectwhose goal was to gather evidence that could lead us to a better understanding of our cosmic neighborhood.
The public agreed with my program and was extremely interested in my research. Paradoxically, the more attention I received from the world outside academia, the more intense the pushback and personal attacks from science communicators, reporters, social media influencers, and jealous scientists who pretended to “defend” science. Their attempts to stop scientific evidence gathering under Project Galileo reflected an anti-science attitude that sought to protect their beliefs from the burden of dealing with anomalies. Andrew and Lourdes asked why does mainstream academia avoid this area of research?
I have concluded that the public is definitely intrigued by the possibility that some unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) near Earth may reflect extraterrestrial technologies. Certainly, academics come from society, so deep down many of them certainly share this sentiment. However, due to the stigma, they never talk about it openly. Paradoxically, this stigma is propagated by members of the SETI community, who have banned discussions about UAP at their conferences.
I started out in an academic “chess player” culture where considering modern possible dim matter signatures is rewarded, but now I find myself among “mud wrestlers” who resist thinking outside the box. They prefer to speculate that anomalies in interstellar objects like `Oumuamua represent rocks of a type we have never seen before, but at the same time they dismiss artificial interpretations as speculative. Some of them ignore the huge body of articles that have tried with stern difficulty to explain `Oumuamua's anomalies and suggest that we forget about the anomalies and move on.
They miss the basic lesson from the history of science that revolutionary knowledge first comes as anomalies. Currently, the academic gateways in the search for technological signatures of extraterrestrial civilizations are occupied by gatekeepers who condone unsuccessful searches for radio signals, but prohibit possible technological interpretation of anomalies exhibited by interstellar objects such as 'Oumuamua.
Whether the U.S. government has classified UAP data indicating extraterrestrial origins will be discussed at a congressional hearing next Wednesday, November 13, 2024.
Andrew and Lourdes asked me how the academic community would react to the release of related government data, if any?
In response, I quoted Arthur Schopenhauer, who wisely he stated: “All truth passes through three stages. First, he is ridiculed. Second, it faces violent opposition. Third, it is taken for granted.” Based on my experience, I added a fourth step: “Finally, early critics claim that they were the first to propose it.” As the scientist in charge of Project Galileo, I want to collect as much data as possible so that my critics have no choice but to admit that at least one of the anomalous objects in our sky has extraterrestrial technological origins. But I'm not delusional. If other astronomers employ the Rubin Observatory and the Webb Telescope to conclude that a modern object like 'Oumuamua is artificial, they will still insist that 'Oumuamua could have been a natural rock. This would constitute their version of the fourth stage.
Nevertheless, I am serene about Schopenhauer's prediction. What really matters is the knowledge that humanity will gain from superhuman intelligence, including its technologies and scientific insights.
If we had the opportunity to explore all the inhabited planets in the ten billion-year history of the Milky Way, we could find evidence of past civilizations that perished billions of years ago through self-inflicted damage or natural disasters. This knowledge would allow us to avoid their mistakes. Instead, by staying from our current point of view and looking around, we could learn from the greatest civilizations that have managed to reach us with their technological products.
These local searches would be most effective if government agencies and private donors financed them on a larger scale. We won't find anything without searching.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
