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A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

nbcboston.com

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

#31

Post by jandrese »

harvey9 wrote: post #12

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman is the sci fi book that springs to mind.

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.

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

#32

Post by MichaelCollins »

adamzochowski wrote: post #28
caseyohara wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The spelling lede (/ˈliːd/, 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.

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

#33

Post by subjectsigma »

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

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

#34

Post by caseyohara »

harmonious wrote: post #25
caseyohara wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lede, not lead.

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

I wrote it that way only to mirror the other corrective comment that was posted before mine.

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

#35

Post by titzer »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #18
titzer wrote: post #15

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.

> 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.

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.

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

#36

Post by 015a »

adamzochowski wrote: post #28
caseyohara wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I promise, I'm not, I'm just dumb.

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

#37

Post by googlryas »

adamzochowski wrote: post #28
caseyohara wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#38

Post by sammalloy »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #30
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #27

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.

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.

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

#40

Post by wrnr »

jackmott42 wrote: post #8

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.

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.
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