[HN Gopher] Harvard Professor on Quest for Possible Alien Tech C...
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Harvard Professor on Quest for Possible Alien Tech Crashed in the
Pacific Ocean
Author : metadat
Score : 130 points
Date : 2022-08-12 20:33 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcboston.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcboston.com)
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| The title is a little silly. It's from outside our solar system,
| but there's zero evidence suggesting it's technological or made
| by aliens. It's just a meteor that was going really fast, and it
| was made of something that was sturdy enough not to break up too
| much.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I would think that, if other people agree with his analysis and
| this does seem extra-solar, and we have a reasonable guess as
| to where it might have landed, a couple million would be a
| small price to check out an extra-solar object.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| Alien doesn't mean "alien life form". It means "not from here".
| dorkwood wrote:
| What about tech? Can tech arise organically?
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| It's Avi Loeb. He's basically considered a crackpot in
| physics/astronomy.
| numair wrote:
| Aren't there Chinese navy vessels running around that patch of
| the South Pacific?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
|
| I have a feeling the professor will be able to raise the funds he
| needs for his expedition.
| drewg123 wrote:
| English is so ambiguous that the title made me think that the
| professor himself had crashed into the ocean. Saying "Alien Tech
| That Crashed in.." would clear things up, but I guess it would be
| too long?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Maybe it's like that TV series, _Debris_?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debris_(TV_series)
| balentio wrote:
| yuan43 wrote:
| Reconstructing what the article appears to be saying:
|
| 1. a catalog of government sensor data on meteorite strikes was
| discovered
|
| 2. based on the data, those strikes that could have originate
| outside of the solar system were gathered
|
| 3. one hit in particular appears to be harder than iron based on
| its speed and loss
|
| Then:
|
| > Despite the government releasing limited data due to national
| security concerns - he had discovered something groundbreaking. A
| paper he wrote with his student laid out what he believed to be
| true. But three years after writing his findings, a major
| development confirmed what he knew all along.
|
| Great, let's find that paper and see what's up. Wait, where's the
| link? No matter, just tell me the journal and I'll find it. Nope.
| Ah, that's right, this is the popular media where such things
| simply aren't done.
| linkdink wrote:
| To be fair, if you're not going to Google it, you're probably
| more of a popular media reader anyway. There are no pictures in
| the paper to look at.
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.07224
| worldvoyageur wrote:
| https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019arXiv190407224S/abstra...
|
| The payload:
|
| " Based on the CNEOS catalog of bolide events, we identify the
| ~0.45m meteor detected at 2014-01-08 17:05:34 UTC as
| originating from an unbound hyperbolic orbit with 99.999\%
| confidence. The U.S. Department of Defense has since verified
| that "the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently
| accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory... Its high LSR
| speed implies a possible origin from the deep interior of a
| planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way
| galaxy." "
| wonderwonder wrote:
| hmm, that is a very little meteor. Good luck to the guy would
| be awesome if he found it but thats going to be tough.
| seydor wrote:
| poor professor
| supernova87a wrote:
| I will just say that in the astronomy faculty community, although
| Avi Loeb is the head of the Harvard astro department, his
| "research" has garnered him questionable and often head-shaking
| disapproval and a decrease in respect from colleagues. Some,
| bordering on many, think that he's just out to grab headlines and
| has become a bad joke at this point (past examples: solar system
| interlopers as "UFOs", etc).
|
| Maybe Avi says that he worked his way to this position to be able
| to tackle interesting and off-the-path subjects, but somehow his
| work doesn't feel like it has the same integrity as expected from
| the chair of a leading institution. Or maybe that he goes to tv
| news channels preferentially over arxiv publishing. And maybe
| it's just something that happens to professors with age (like
| one's parents) -- they start going down the weird ideas rabbit
| hole.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Head shaking can result in, or, be a symptom of group-think.
| It's important for scientists to realize the importance of
| public relations due to funding.
|
| If the public is interested in the origin of life,
| contemplating aliens or distant stars seem about as
| interesting, especially in regards to the Fermi paradox.
| gloriousduke wrote:
| > maybe that he goes to tv news channels preferentially over
| arxiv publishing
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.15213
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| 4 citations, 3 of which are self-citations. Entirely
| inconsequential.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| He was giving a Zoom talk this week at a local po'boy shop in
| New Orleans and free copies of his book were being distributed.
| There didn't seem to be much push back from starstruck fans.
| 762236 wrote:
| I'm really happy that Avi Loeb exists, and that he ignores shit
| like what you've just written.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I think he was trying to get at that, the head shaking from his
| peers when he wrote:
|
| > Today he would have been canceled on social media.
|
| Avi Loeb has definitely not spent a whole lot of time on Social
| Media!
| protastus wrote:
| I think Avi Loeb is legitimately excited about this topic. He's
| also aware that the public is tremendously excited and inspired
| about the possibility of UFOs, alien flybys of the solar
| system, etc.
|
| I think he's achieved professional recognition, paid his dues
| playing the game of academia (very successfully), and is now
| pursuing things that he finds most exciting. The man has co-
| authored a thousand papers, literally, so I doubt he'd get much
| marginal excitement from hypothetical paper #1001, i.e.,
| another instance of fitting a curve through noisy data to build
| support for an obscure model that very few researchers care
| about.
|
| He has also pointed out that it's an invitation to ridicule in
| academic circles to talk openly about UFOs. He doesn't care
| though (why would he?), and that for sure is triggering folks
| who take themselves very seriously.
| Seanambers wrote:
| As the poster on the wall of my friends boyhood room said and
| of course inspired by - Mulders Office ; I want to believe.
|
| I think it is great that some professionals actually do this,
| if everyone's a cynic it would just be sad.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| > That for sure is triggering folks who take themselves very
| seriously.
|
| I don't think anyone in the field is triggered by some guy
| pursuing his interest in aliens and UFO.
|
| What they get triggered about, is that guy using his
| relatively large platform to say that anyone not agreeing
| with him is part of the establishment or otherwise useless,
| or to say that there is no other possible explanation to a
| certain phenomenon than aliens, or to be insulting to another
| colleague during an online talk.
| mr_gibbins wrote:
| Good for him. What a way to lead a life, searching for alien
| tech at the bottom of the Pacific. I'd swap the grind for that
| any day. Let the other professors shake their heads and stir
| their Earl Grey in the cramped faculty staffroom, I know who
| I'd rather be.
| endofreach wrote:
| Uh, i already felt like star wars is slowly starting for real. I
| am not into (pop) sci-fi movies, but i'm up for some sci-no.
| barbarr wrote:
| Can the title be revised to something like "Harvard Professor on
| Quest for Possible Alien Tech that Crashed in the Pacific Ocean"?
| Current phrasing makes it seem like the professor crashed into
| the ocean.
| BirAdam wrote:
| well, to be an asshole:
|
| The usage of "that" as opposed to "who" is the key there in
| English taught before the 2000s. Now of course, the usage of
| the pronoun who is dead, and that is used everywhere because
| people are objects in English now.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Yeah the dangling modifier is definitely making it hard not to
| think that the guy himself crashed...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The actual article's title was "Harvard Professor Believes
| Alien Tech Could Have Crashed Into Pacific Ocean" which is more
| clear.
|
| Although to make it less woo-woo flying saucer-ish, I might
| have said:
|
| "Harvard Professor Believes Meteor That Crashed Into Ocean Was
| Alien Metal"
| tacker2000 wrote:
| I also thought that the professor crashed into the pacific
| because he was on a quest for alien tech.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| +1. That prof must have been going super fast!!!!
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| He was killed by the government for looking into UFO's.
|
| Nothing will convince me this isn't true, and NO, I will
| not read the article before commenting.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Good to know the professor didn't crashed into the ocean
| looking for alien tech.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's how I understood the title.
| [deleted]
| sethjr5rtfgh wrote:
| gurumeditations wrote:
| Seems to have nothing to do with aliens and the article is in
| such broken English it's almost incomprehensible.
| jkqwzsoo wrote:
| The "article" is a transcript of sections of the video.
| Removing the culture war bit about Galileo being cancelled, we
| have:
|
| "It's not a philosophical question whether we live in an
| environment where objects are floating around that are
| representing extraterrestrial technologies. We just need to use
| our telescopes and find out. [...] Once I realized that we
| found an object from a technological origin that was produced
| elsewhere, I would not seek approval from anyone else. I don't
| need likes on twitter. I just want to know what it is."
|
| He doesn't seem to be saying "it's aliens", but rather "If it's
| aliens, I want to know -- it's not a matter of faith, if we
| find evidence of it, it'll be true". His use of "Once I
| realized" is confusing, but I believe he's speaking in the
| hypothetical that aliens are confirmed.
|
| There is, of course, a massive leap from "an object from
| outside the solar system hit Earth and was very strong" to
| "because this object was very strong it might have been made by
| aliens". I also don't see any reason why the fragments they're
| looking for should be magnetic.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Finding an interstellar object is spectacular enough. Why
| overhype it?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _" We're planning to board the ship and build a sled and a
| magnet attached to it that will scoop the ocean floor. And we
| will go back and forth, like mowing the lawns across the region,
| 10 kilometers in size and collect with the magnets, all the
| fragments that are attracted to it, and then brush them off and
| study their composition in the laboratory."_
|
| Wouldn't this only work for iron fragments of a meteor? If the
| theory is that it's made of something else, then I don't think
| this would be helpful.
| themanmaran wrote:
| It's possible that it's an iron alloy. Which can be stronger
| than iron, and also magnetic.
|
| But in regards to feasibility of such a project, I feel that
| 10km range is a major understatement. Think of the effort it
| took to find fragments of Malaysia Flight 370, even with a
| pretty narrow path. And that search was the most expensive
| search operation in history at $155MM [1].
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#:
| ....
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Using data from government censors primarily used for
| national security as part of our missile defense system
|
| If it got past the government censors it has to be super pure
| and clean. So not an alloy; it must be previously unimagined
| material!
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This gave me a moment of panic: did I miss some big story?
|
| But no: I already knew about the pieces of debris.
| conanite wrote:
| > Using data from government censors
|
| Should be "sensors" (used correctly a few sentences later). Is
| this a text-to-speech thing, or written by a non-native speaker,
| or just appalling editing?
|
| > Once I realized that we found an object from a technological
| origin that was produced elsewhere.
|
| Difficulty to having parse.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| If aliens are advanced enough to come all the way here and hide
| pretty how are they not advanced enough to not crash all the
| time?
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Maybe they are suffering from floating point math too and
| rounding errors added up :D
| exitb wrote:
| This is more like a remote, uncontacted tribe "discovering"
| other civilizations via trash that washes up on their shore.
| Given enough scale, this wouldn't be an unlikely event. Who
| knows, maybe the universe is littered with bits and pieces of
| ancient Dyson spheres.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Derelict spacecraft?
|
| I don't believe it, the odds against it are astronomical, but
| derelict spacecraft are a popular sci-fi trope.
| sammalloy wrote:
| Also, we've crashed numerous probes at the end of their
| lifecycle into many of the objects in our own Solar System.
| If an interstellar probe from a civilization like our own
| completed its mission, would it also be programmed to self-
| destruct itself in a similar manner? I think it's a highly
| unlikely series of events, but there is a method to the
| madness.
| nadavision wrote:
| Unrelated to the contents on the article but the wording of the
| title made me think that the Harvard Professor crashed into the
| Pacific Ocean. You might want to consider clearing it up.
| _jal wrote:
| To be fair, if a Harvard professor impacted the ocean that hard
| and on that trajectory, that would also be news.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I don't think a Harvard professor could be retrieved from the
| ocean floor using a magnet. Unless he had been an android, in
| which case I guess that would be worth investigating.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Interesting pitch: To conduct this kind of search & retrieve
| project for an object out in space would cost $1B+, so we'll look
| here on earth at this obvious outlier which government agencies
| have already stated they are confident has come from outside our
| solar system.
|
| I mean it makes a certain type of probabilistic sense, and in
| multiple ways. If you fund this there's a better-than-lottery
| chance that you'll at least be part of something big, whether
| alien tech is in there or not...
|
| BTW I'm planning to check out his podcast appearances, so here's
| a link for others who are interested.
| https://www.listennotes.com/top-podcasts/avi-loeb/
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| So the only thing that has been confirmed is that it is a
| meteorite from outside of the solar system. Jumping to the
| conclusion that it is "possible alien tech" seems a liiiittle bit
| of a stretch.
| gammarator wrote:
| Even the first part is not confirmed.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| The meteor he's searching for is 45cm (18 inches)
| jackmott42 wrote:
| This is Avi's second questionable alien obsession/quest. Not sure
| if it is something mental, grift, or perfectly rational impulse
| to check out incredibly unlikely but incredibly amazing
| possibilities.
| wrnr wrote:
| He is a kwak, instead of actual science he shills these ideas
| on podcasts because the general public is interested in it or
| something like that. Whenever I meet someone from Harvard I
| think of this guy and automatically think less of them. Maybe
| that is wrong of me but then the Harvard alumni ought to have
| called him out on his BS.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Do we want no one contemplating the n>1 theory of life in the
| universe?
| jackmott42 wrote:
| I tentatively agree with that take, but am trying to be
| charitable. The reason I tend to think this is right is that
| his podcast arguments for why umamua? was probably alien tech
| were either disingenuous or displayed incredible ignorance.
| i.e.: pretending that nobody had any explanation for how it
| accelerated without any visible tail.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Meh, good luck to him, he is not hurting anyone and he seems
| to genuinely be a smart guy that believes what he says. Its
| ok to be eccentric.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| He's not eccentric, but a self-promoting grifter
| ctvo wrote:
| What's his grift? Running off with 1.5 million USD? He
| probably makes half of that a year already, what a pay
| day.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Convincing gullible billionaires and foundations to
| support his vanity projects
|
| A list: the blackhole initiative, breakthrough starshot,
| the Galileo project, and now this
| har_ry wrote:
| So (and I welcome correction here) the logic is: An asteroid
| travelling at great speed would surely burn up in the atmosphere
| (ice ect.), therefore this asteroid must be made of iron or
| stronger (a manufactured alloy). And thus Loebs conclusion that
| since a manufactured alloy must have been made by someone
| somewhere, it's worth a look?
| thisjeremiah wrote:
| that's too bad he crashed
| matonias wrote:
| What other kind of alien material was found in meteorites?
| 015a wrote:
| To not bury the lead: His team studied data the government made
| available from military missile tracking systems, which
| conveniently also false-positives on asteroids. There was one in
| 2014 which slammed into the Pacific Ocean at a speed at least
| twice that of the speed stars around us move relative to the sun,
| which makes it likely to be extra-solar. Based on that speed &
| how much burned upon entry, they concluded its material must be
| tougher than iron. They're planning an expedition to the oceanic
| area around Papa New Guinea, mostly funded through private
| donations, to recover the object.
| headelf wrote:
| If it's tougher than iron, why are they planning to use a
| magnet to retrieve it?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I guess it's easy and rules some things out
| ericlewis wrote:
| I suppose because they didn't say it was less magnetic than
| iron?
| jahewson wrote:
| All other metals are less magnetic than iron.
| nocterro wrote:
| Niobium?
| simple10 wrote:
| Perhaps they are expecting there to be a fair bit of iron
| along with the rare material, no?
| system2 wrote:
| Tougher doesn't make it less magnetic.
| eloff wrote:
| This seems a reasonable question to me, not having read the
| article. IIRC from grade school days, only a few metallic
| elements are magnetic. Iron, nickel, cobalt, and some rare
| earth metals. That was a long time ago and doubtless
| oversimplified, but please do enlighten me why it would be
| expected to be magnetic?
|
| It seems like they must still be assuming it's largely made
| of Iron.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Ferromagnetic matter is magnetic by nature. If you look at
| the periodic table you'll see that most of the elements are
| actually metals. Below Carbon there's a line which parts
| metals from semi metals and non metals.
|
| But with proper equipment you can detect non magnetic
| conductive materials. Not sure what's it called, but if you
| pass a magnet near eg. copper the magnetic force from the
| magnet will induce electricity on copper which in turn with
| also produce a slight magnetic field. There are many good
| YouTube videos on this topic and they're quite cool!
| (https://youtu.be/u7Rg0TcHQ4Y)
| wnkrshm wrote:
| Paramagnetism. There is also Diamagnetism and Anti-
| Ferromagnetism.
| TooKool4This wrote:
| Nope you are right. Ferromagnetism is very rare in nature.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferromagnetism#Ferromagnetic_
| m...
| TooKool4This wrote:
| I am not sure toughness has anything to do with ferromagnetic
| properties. But it seems like a bad idea anyways considering
| that very few materials are naturally ferromagnetic.
| caseyohara wrote:
| Lede, not lead.
| harmonious wrote:
| "You should have written 'lede' instead of 'lead'.", not
| "'Lede', not 'lead'.".
| caseyohara wrote:
| I wrote it that way only to mirror the other corrective
| comment that was posted before mine.
| [deleted]
| adamzochowski wrote:
| The world says "leading news story" and therefore "burying
| the lead".
|
| Lede is an american thing. Parent could have been a british
| or canadian neighbour with their british colourful spelling.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Props for your correct spelling of colour.
| yellowapple wrote:
| If anything "color" is correct, being the original Latin
| spelling. The Normans started misspelling it by the time
| they went about conquering the British Isles, but Middle
| English reflects both spellings.
|
| On the other hand, English is descriptive rather than
| prescriptive, so both spellings might as well be equally
| correct.
|
| On the third hand, they're both wrong if we want to get
| old school about it; no sense in catering to a bunch of
| French invaders when we have the perfectly good words
| "blee" and "hue".
| tempestn wrote:
| Also neighbour. Somehow I suspect the inclusion of those
| words wasn't entirely coincidental.
| sethjr5rtfgh wrote:
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _The spelling lede ( /'li:d/, from Early Modern English)
| is also used in American English, originally to avoid
| confusion with the printing press type formerly made from
| the metal lead or the related typographical term
| "leading"._
|
| Huh.
| 015a wrote:
| I promise, I'm not, I'm just dumb.
| samstave wrote:
| I too choose this guys dumbly leaded comment
|
| (Lead makes you dumb)
| googlryas wrote:
| It's actually more about the lead paragraph, not the
| leading news story. If you bury the leading news story,
| that would imply putting it on page 13 or something. Buring
| the leading paragraph is putting the most important
| information at the end of the article where fewer people
| are likely to encounter it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Isn't it sort of funny that they think the asteroid might be
| some new material, or at least something tougher than iron, yet
| they are planning to use a magnet to pull up pieces? What
| happens if it's non-ferrous...
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Using a magnet seems like not a top 5 idea someone would
| have.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| In theory you can use a special arrangement of alternative
| current electromagnets to attract some conductive materials :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mQeaKkaEcQ
| nine_k wrote:
| I can imagine their disappointment if all they recover would be
| a few tons of platinum, iridium and such. /s
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| unobtanium
| elcritch wrote:
| And here I didn't even _consider_ the chance that it was an
| elaborate ruse to grab a punch of rare-earth metals.
| Apparently my heavy diet of sci-fi and techno thrillers hasn
| 't trained me well enough yet. ;)
| monksy wrote:
| Just don't look up
| lisper wrote:
| Papua, not Papa.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| This guy's name has come up before in HN. His stuff seemed well-
| written but the conclusions he came to were a little outlandish.
| What is the likelihood that this guy just wants to study a cool
| asteroids and is using aliens as an excuse?
|
| EDIT: I know this is not HN kosher and I don't normally do this,
| but why am I being down voted? This is one of the most
| inoffensive comments I've ever posted. Not angry, just completely
| baffled
| EddySchauHai wrote:
| If AI Ethics can get as much funding as it does to philosophy
| departments, let this guy study cool asteroids in case it's
| sent by aliens!
| harvey9 wrote:
| Camouflage by Joe Haldeman is the sci fi book that springs to
| mind.
| jandrese wrote:
| The title had me remembering the line from Michael Creighton's
| "Sphere" where one of the people asks why we always imagine
| alien spacecraft crashing on land when 70% of the world is
| covered in ocean.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I think I've seen this movie before; just don't let anybody touch
| the strange _Sphere_ thing and you should be alright.
|
| Seriously though, this doesn't make much sense to me. Finding
| shipwrecks even when you know they exist and what general area
| they should be in is hard enough. This sort of search is a huge
| money sink, the ships, towed sonars, etc all cost a ton of money
| to operate.
| gfodor wrote:
| $1.5M ain't much depending on your priors and how much you
| value the discovery of extraterrestrial tech.
| upupandup wrote:
| ha! I was gonna mention that movie here but I don't know what
| to make of this. This professor seems legitimately convinced
| its possible but who will believe him?
| titzer wrote:
| I don't see anything in the original research that suggests it is
| "tech". I think the article completely made this up.
|
| To be pedantic, nearly all of the material that we _are made of_
| came from other stars, manufactured in their nuclear fusion and
| supernovae. I think what they mean is a macroscopic object that
| was formed in another star system, which they 've inferred from
| its incoming trajectory.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I don 't see anything in the original research that suggests
| it is "tech". I think the article completely made this up._
|
| It's because it's coming from Avi Loeb, the guy who suggested
| Oumuamua might be a Rama-style spacecraft. I don't think he's
| dead set on alien hypotheses, but he wants them to at least be
| taken seriously as possibilities.
| titzer wrote:
| Ah, I didn't know it was the same guy. It's not clear, at
| least to me, how extreme his original claims even were,
| considering how fast things get distorted with sensationalist
| media these days. He does seem to be a quite serious
| scientist and not a crank.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| He has an interview with Lex Fridman here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcc6E-E1uU
|
| I haven't listened to the whole thing, but he seems to
| think that aliens visiting our solar system is likely
| enough that it makes sense to look for. He falls short of
| the confident certainty I usually expect from cranks
| though, he's talking about investigating possibilities. I
| think he's eccentric, but I wouldn't call him a crank.
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