I should be grateful to Avi Loeb. He’s done so much to besmirch the power of the phrase “Harvard professor,” which journalists like to deploy as evidence that someone must be a super-smart guy when it means nothing of the kind. Someone must be able to see through the bullshit in his latest claims, right?
A Harvard professor said Monday he may have uncovered evidence of alien life in the universe and told Americans it would fundamentally change their understanding of their existence.
Harvard Professor Avi Loeb said Monday on “Fox & Friends” that he examined an object moving through space
faster than 95% of stars near the sunthat hadmaterial strengthand was tougher than most rocks.The professor, who is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, explained that he could not
quantifythe object that he was studying just yet.
He’s got nothin’, but he’ll babble about nothing to get his airtime on Fox News and his tabloid coverage.
What actually happened is that a meteor plunging through the atmosphere over Papua New Guinea melted and exploded, and Loeb rushed to the area, trawled a magnet through the ocean, and pulled up some tiny metal spherules that he wants to pretend are alien artifacts.
Here, want to see some of his evidence?
Enhance!
Yeah, that’s it. They’re doing an isotope analysis and plan to publish a paper on it. I’m not sure what result that they expect to get that would constitute evidence of alien life — they’re going to find that they’re mostly iron, and any reliable isotope data might show that they’re billions of years old, as we’d expect from an extraterrestrial rock.
Fortunately, some scientists are speaking out.
Now, though, a number of scientists have countered Loeb’s claims. The New York Times piece, for example, points out that Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, explained that the meteorite would have been completely incinerated entering Earth’s atmosphere if it was traveling at the speed that Loeb claims.
Desch went as far as saying that Loeb’s comments constitute “a real breakdown of the peer review process and the scientific method, and it’s so demoralizing and tiring.”
Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at Western University in Ontario, concurred, suggesting that Loeb shouldn’t make such bold proclamations during the early analysis phase — it’s not uncommon for detected events to appear interstellar at first only to be chalked up to a measurement error.
I think the reason that Loeb still has his position and his appointment to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is that it is “so demoralizing and tiring” to deal with gullible journalists who’ve fallen for this ridiculous charlatanry.
Hey, journalists: here’s the real question that popped into my head when I read this story. Avi Loeb was able to charter a ship (expensive!) and crew (more expensive!) and load it with some specialized mining gear (not cheap, I imagine) and drag it back and forth across the ocean floor, while getting photos taken of his smug, grinning face. He has sent samples to various labs around the world to be assayed, not something you’ll pay for out of pocket.
Who’s paying for it? I would be shocked if this barebones speculation and literal fishing expedition could have passed peer review, and if it did, there are some committees at NSF that need to be flensed.
So please, this is journalism 101. Follow the money.
A fishing expedition on a fishing expedition..
Ah. Grifters gotta grift:
Loeb article:
The Galileo Project at Harvard University, which I lead, is funded by private donations and is engaged in the scientific study of UAP and ISOs as potential technological relics. (In fact, the Galileo research team already assembled a functioning observatory and is planning a Pacific Ocean expedition to retrieve relics from the first interstellar meteor, IM1. Its first collection of scientific papers will be made publicly available next month after being peer reviewed)
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3924642-ufos-extraordinary-evidence-requires-extraordinary-funding/
I showed that picture to some UFO aliens and they laughed.
“We do not look like that at all.”
They have appendages and sensory organs just like us (sort of like us anyway). They need them to fly their saucers, watch TV, and surf the internet.
And oh yeah, they are squishy not hard and not magnetic either.
Or maybe space junk like the bright (& apparently loud too – sonic boom) meteor over southern Australia last night that turned out to be a Russian rocket re-entry :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-08/space-junk-leaves-trail-across-melbourne-sky/102700674
StevoR, indeed! How does one prove that the iron found originated from that meteorite? One can get similar results from one’s rooftop, which really tells one nothing much at all.
Of course, he’s also the chap that tried to tell any who’d stand still long enough for him to blather at that ʻOumuamua was a spaceship. Yeah, it’s a spaceship and I’m bigfoot.
Still, an iron core meteor is actually stronger than most rocks, that much is true. Just the rest of his blathering is bullshit.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/avi-loebs-galileo-project-will-search-for-evidence-of-alien-visitation/
The project has assembled a wide array of technicians, instrumentalists and other scientists as part of its research team. It is currently backed by affluent individuals who mainly made their money developing industrial equipment for chemistry applications, among them chemist and entrepreneur Frank H. Laukien. Loeb says the funding comes with “no strings attached in a way that allows me complete freedom,” although several early supporters had seats on a philanthropic advisory board for Galileo.
Frank H. Laukien inherited control of Bruker Corporation. (Bruker Scientific & Bruker Energy.)
What is lacking among many things here is…the control groups!!!
They trawl a magnet through the ocean around Papua, New Guinea and pulled up small metal spheres.
What happens if you take that same magnet and trawl it through the ocean somewhere else?
I would predict that you would pull up the same magnetic spherules.
The earth is bombarded by meteorite space dust all the time.
This estimate says it is 5,200 metric tons per year.
That doesn’t sound like much until you realize this is year in and year out.
After 4 billion years, it adds up.
The ocean sediments consist of, “Other components of abyssal plain sediment include wind-blown dust (my note, with an iron rich component), volcanic ash, chemical precipitates, and occasional meteorite fragments.”
This guy doesn’t have any proof that his metal spheres are anything that aren’t found everywhere and due to ongoing natural causes.
The NY Times today published a piece by another “Harvard professor” who wrote that, despite his many obvious crimes, we should not prosecute Trump because it would be too costly to the country. BTW, he is with the Hoover Institution, a collection of known liars.
Micrometeorite dust makes up a fraction of the ocean sediments.
A lot of it is metal spherules.
Metal spherules of space origin were first collected in 1873 by the HMS Challenger expedition.
It really looks like Avi Loeb has confirmed their findings 150 years later, not that they need confirmation.
This is all just sad.
Huge news about Congressional testimony regarding UFO’s and instead it’s just the typical grifters promising they know a guy who worked with a guy who talked to a guy who seen a UFO that’s been captured.
(Also, what the hell is wrong with all these UFO pilots who make it across the light years to get here then just immediately crash all over the place?)
Now Avi Loeb goes from ‘I seen a starship cuz it’s shaped funny to ‘look at these meteor balls they actually used to be a spaceship, cuz they aren’t just rocks’?
Trawling the sea floor looking for traces of extrasolar meteorites that have been observed hitting the area (they can be identified by having a velocity higher than 72 kn/s which proves they cannot be gravitationally bound to the solar system)
is a valid enterprise, if done in a professional manner .
He has just hurt serious planetary scientists looking for funding to locate extrasolar matter.
The emperor has no clothes. Yet another emperor. We need more children to call out their BS.
Fox isn’t news. As for “follow the money”…sure. Did he get paid by Fox? As for the big bucks to underwrite his little expedition, we know from past experience that some big money goes into Harvard from all kinds of sleazy sources partly for bragging rights and to “influence” the direction of scientific investigations, but probably mostly for tax purposes.
Just saying, maybe he should do some work on the Titanic site. I understand he might be able to find recent Human DNA to confirm the aquatic ape hypothesis.
Just saw a sign for “Five Guys” restaurant which in the recent joke has opened a branch recently on the seafloor, there.
“Moving through space ‘faster than 95% of stars near the sun’?” What the AF does that even mean, and why is it supposed to impress us? It’s not like stars near our Sun move that fast, at least not relative to our Sun.
I guess this explains why this clown is considered credible: he’s managed to con an even dumber person with money into bankrolling his pretendy-science expeditions.
I have questions. What is Loeb a professor of? What is the American Academy of Arts and Sciences?
In reference to: bcw bcw @ 13
“See Our Seafood Menu”, in bioluminescence…
Aren’t those dragon eggs? Throw them in the fire and see if they hatch!
I quite enjoyed this video, “harvard & aliens & crackpots: a disambiguation of Avi Loeb” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY985qzn7oI . “Can physicists be physics crackpots? Of course. Is Avi Loeb a crackpot? Maybe.” “The Avi Loeb criticism starts around 24:00.”
A graph of media gullibility against human stupidity would be exponential. One of the [many] problems of the world is the absolute inability of journalists to report science stories intelligently and knowlegeably.
Raging Bee @14:
The speed of the object on Earth approach wasn’t just greater than the escape velocity for the sun (which suggests an interstellar origin), but also greater than the velocities of most nearby (maybe within a few hundred light years) stars relative to the sun. My guess is that this suggested, to Loeb, that it might have had its own propulsion.
Well, OK, that makes sense.
We now know two more things about the aliens.
.1. They can make star ships that can go really fast.
.2. They aren’t very good at braking and steering though.
They came hundreds of light years across vast interstellar distances to slam into the earth at a velocity high enough to vaporize them.
I suppose we can’t rule out that drunks or teenagers were driving though.
Don’t they have alcohol laws on Kpax IV?
Watch Loeb throw a childish tantrum at Jill Tarter, who has been looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life for over three decades as the director of SETI — accusing her of being too rigorous and unimaginative and not an all around free-thinker like he is. At least he didn’t compare himself to Galileo.
Even better:
“harvard & aliens & crackpots: a disambiguation of Avi Loeb”
It very well could have its own propulsion – just not guided propulsion or designed propulsion. Outgassing can and does push objects around in space, especially when warmed by a star. For that matter, the Yarkovsky effect has been well enough studied and documented to push bodies around as well.
But, when one is about to jump into the deep end of the pool, it’s always a good idea to first check that there’s water in that pool first.
Here, he found small balls that appear to be iron, but before an analysis is performed, he announces little green men made them and that’s effectively what he’s done. He’d have had greater credibility had he produced 1 centimeter fragment that shows a fusion crust and other thermal effects consistent with a meteoric origin.
Worse, he pulled much the same antics with ʻOumuamua. And in the video at 22, he’s pissing and moaning about being called on the bullshit.
Because, as it stands now, I’d be unsurprised if a chemical analysis returned results consistent with steel armor used in Japanese destroyers during WWII. Or known solar system meteoric debris. Or desert dust. I’d be more surprised if he blindly lucked into clearly extrasolar remains of a meteorite.
raven @ #22
I made a similar point to someone recently, and the response was: there’s no reason to assume that aliens would be perfect. They might have tremendous technical ability but still have accidents. Interstellar space travel would be dangerous even for a technologically advanced society.
Especially when planets keep swerving into their path and stopping suddenly.
@ 7. raven : Absolutely & we know we can find small amounts of meteoritic material even in most roof gutters. See :
https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg23331090-800-10-finding-meteorites-in-your-gutters-is-easy/#:~:text=Iron%20micrometeorites%20are%20in%20fact,Earth's%20atmosphere%20drifts%20down%20continuously.
@9. raven :
Quoting for truth. Exactly. Thanks.
@ 16. John Harshman : “I have questions. What is Loeb a professor of? What is the American Academy of Arts and Sciences?”
According to his wikipage Loeb is :
See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Loeb
Which also has a link to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S) wikipage :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences
So, yeah, Loeb is a real professor who has previously published among other things serious books on astrophysics and cosmology and has previously done some serious work and that American Academy of Arts and Sciences is a serious legitimate organisation FWIW.
I could probably make that. They look a lot like the spatter you get from an oxy-acetylene cutting torch, cutting steel over water. There any ship breaking in that area?
The conclusion made by Loeb and his collaborators that CNEOS 2014-01-08 was an interstellar object is questionable. They used data from the CNEOS (Center for Near Earth Object Studies) catalog. For security reasons (US military satellites are a prime source of data), the uncertainties for measurements are not disclosed. Until those are known, such conclusions are suspect.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-a-meteor-from-another-star-strike-earth-in-2014/
I used to dissolve limestone in dilute acetic acid to extract phosphatic microfossils called conodonts. They were separated from the insoluble residues using heavy liquids and picking through the heavy fraction. These also contained metal spherules. I guess E.T. has been visiting us for 400 million years or more.
@29. Ray Ceeya : “There any ship breaking in that area?”
Do rockets and satellites breaking & mostly burning up on re-entry count?
PS. Admittedly this area – off Papua New Guinea somewhere – isn’t exactly Point Nemo :
https://interestingengineering.com/science/point-nemo-the-space-cemetery-where-thousands-of-nasas-past-projects-are-buried-in
But still – an awful lot of spacejunk and dead and broken and used up satellites etc.. gets deliberately dropped into the Pacific esp the South Pacific & with an understandable lack of precise accuracy at that..
Well, I do recall NASA getting a fine for littering in one Australian community from Skylab debris. The modeling was way off on that one.
Of course, we learned a lot about orbital behavior during intense solar activity during that sunspot cycle.
@ 16 John Harshman
What is the American Academy of Arts and Sciences?
Royal Society imitation?
@ 35, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences
Formed in 1780. Guess it’s an imitation or something.
Without that whole King or something.
So, if so invalidated, figure out lightning from day one.
We certainly took longer to figure out germ theory….
Don’t get me started on divergence of language, due to a sheer lack of documentation, until shortly after a certain tiff.
Or even into whateverinhell we mutually speak now, I’m fluent in both.
Civilization, brought to us all by those who brought us blood pudding.
Here’s a beer on me.
Mine will be a general porter.
@34. wzrd1 : “Well, I do recall NASA getting a fine for littering in one Australian community from Skylab debris. The modeling was way off on that one.”
Yup. Esperence in WA :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-12/four-decades-on-from-skylabs-descent-from-space/11249626
StevoR, Esperance. (means ‘hope’)
@ ^ John Morales : Thanks. Thought that was “Esperanza” as in the ship in the Mysterious Cities of Gold cartoon – see :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold
but guess that’s a variant of it?
NB. You do need to scroll down a way in the article linked in #37 but :
StevoR, I also recall an old towing bill that went unpaid. For Apollo 13.
In space, no one can hear you laugh. ;)