A Harvard professor that believes in aliens is planning a $1.5million (£1.2million) mission to scour the Pacific Ocean in search of a craft from outer space. Avi Loeb, an Israeli-American theoretical physicist, is to travel to Papua New Guinea to try and retrieve fragments of an object that crash-landed off the coast of the country’s Manus Island in 2014.
In 2019, Professor Loeb claimed the object was the first interstellar meteor ever discovered – this means it came from beyond our solar system.
He wrote: “Within a couple of months, I will be leading an expedition to collect the fragments of the first interstellar meteor. This meteor is the first near-Earth object ever detected by humans from outside the solar system
“Intrigued by this conclusion, I established a team that designed a two-week expedition to search for the meteor fragments at a depth of 1.7km on the ocean floor. Analyzing the composition of the fragments could allow us to determine whether the object is natural or artificial in origin.”
“We have a boat. We have a dream team, including some of the most experienced and qualified professionals in ocean expeditions. We have complete design and manufacturing plans for the required sledge, magnets, collection nets and mass spectrometer,” he added.
The 61-year-old speculated that the meteor may have been durable enough to reach earth “because they are artificial in origin … launched a billion years ago from a distant technological civilization.”
Explaining how the mission will run, the Professor, who is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the US, said: “We will tow a sledge mounted with magnets, cameras and lights on the ocean floor inside of a 10km × 10km search box. A number of sources have been used to narrow the search site to this relatively small search box”.
The scientist says even if the object turns out not to be a “spacecraft”, it may still be a kind of rock-like substance that has never been studied before.
According to the Daily Beast, the expedition is due to set off this summer, and the professor concedes it may not be successful.
“There is a chance it will fail,” the professor told the outlet. Nevertheless, he remains set on going on the mission.
He said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
