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A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

nbcboston.com

21–30 of 204 posts

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#21
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.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#24

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.

Even the first part is not confirmed.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#25
post #11

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 i…

Lede, not lead.

"You should have written 'lede' instead of 'lead'.", not "'Lede', not 'lead'.".

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#26
> 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.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#28
post #11

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 i…

Lede, not lead.

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.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#29
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?

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#30

If aliens are advanced enough to come all the way here and hide pretty well, how are they not advanced enough to not crash all the time?

Derelict spacecraft?

I don't believe it, the odds against it are astronomical, but derelict spacecraft are a popular sci-fi trope.

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