This week I sat down with Israeli-American theoretical physicist Professor Avi Loeb, the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, the longest-serving Chair of the Department of Astronomy, the founder of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative (BHI), and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is also the founder of the Galileo Project, a public project dedicated to the investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Breakthrough Starshot.
A few years ago, Prof. Loeb became the focus of international attention when he suggested that the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua might be an extraterrestrial probe. With the release of the “UFO File” in 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Loeb and many of his colleagues launched Project Galileo to assist with the transition where UAP studies are now the subject of open scientific research rather than a clandestine affair overseen by government agencies. We touched on all these topics during our conversation. Check it out below!
Stories by Williams 
I appreciate getting to hear from Professor Loeb directly. I’ve heard a lot about him regarding Oumuamua, and not all of it is flattering. Personally, I’ve always thought the idea that the very first interstellar object we notice passing through the Solar System also happens to be technological in origin was too big of a coincidence to be believed. But the idea that interstellar space might be polluted with technological debris the way our oceans are polluted with plastics makes a certain sense to me. An artificial Oumuamua seems a little less like an amazing coincidence under those circumstances.
Right? He has gotten a lot of flak for his ideas of late, but he makes some very good points. And contrary to what many are saying, its not all speculation.
Yeah, I wouldn’t write off the idea entirely. After listening to your interview, I kind of feel like Oumuamua maybe belongs in the same category as Tabby’s star. It could be aliens. It probably isn’t, but it could be.
Yep, all we can do is to keep investigating. No matter what, this demonstrates that our capabilities have reached a new level. In the very near-future, we’re going to be adding 1000s of interstellar and near-Earth objects to our databases. And we’ll get to see if any past interstellar visitors (that stayed) were something “exotic”!