A Hot Take on the Galileo Project
In a 30-minute interview with Jesse Weber on his NewsNation podcast Hot Take yesterday, I described the latest research within the Galileo Project. This extended conversation is available in full here. Below is a transcript of the 5-minute TV teaser (accessible in video format here) that appeared last night on NewsNation. Jesse’s questions are marked by JW and my answers by AL.
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JW: Right now, we’re going to give you your most close-up look yet at the search for aliens, and we’re going right to the source, the real-life alien hunters, scientists.
Put all the noise away. The scientists. The Galileo Project is at the forefront of the scientific search for alien civilizations on or near the Earth. And one of its main goals is to examine the possibility of extraterrestrial origin for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) by observing objects in or close to the Earth’s atmosphere. So, what have scientists discovered about extraterrestrials, about UAPs (UFOs) so far? Joining me now, director of the Galileo Project, Harvard theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb. He was with me earlier today here on my online show Hot Take. Good to see you again, sir!
One of the interesting parts of the conversation we had earlier today was about AI-powered telescopes to analyze what is going on up there. Can you explain to our audience how big of a breakthrough that is?
AL: Thanks for having me, Jesse. First, I should say that life is worth living when you treat it as a learning experience. And that requires two things: the curiosity to learn and also the humility to learn, which not everyone has.
Now, AI helps our natural intelligence because it can deal with large data sets. It can also learn from previous data about the identity of objects such as airplanes, balloons. drones, satellites. These are things we are familiar with. And the question is whether there are any outliers out there.
The Galileo Project research team operates three observatories, providing us data on millions of objects. One is in Massachusetts, a second in Pennsylvania, and a third in Nevada. Out of that data, we are trying to look for outliers, unidentified anomalous objects. We are trying to identify the unidentified using that data.
JW: And using this technology… Have you identified a recent breakthrough? Have you identified something that you’re fairly confident to say, I don’t believe that this is human-made. I don’t believe that humans could create this… this appears to have characteristics of something beyond.
AL: Not yet. I told my research team that if they find anything, they can wake me up in the middle of the night.
The additional question is whether the U.S. government has such data. And so far, the declassified documents that were released in two batches in May did not show any conclusive evidence for non-human-made technologies.
But there are people discussing it. David Grashen, together with lawmakers, stood up in the Capitol on Tuesday this week and said that there needs to be disclosure of such information because the government has it. We have seen it yet.
JW: But you and I talked earlier about the idea that there are certain characteristics you’re looking for, right? You talked about one shiny, flat object that potentially could be something of interest. What are the characteristics that you’re looking for and that this technology can pick up in a way that maybe it couldn’t years ago?
AL: Yes, we also study objects that arrive into the solar system from outside and pass near Earth. These are interstellar objects. And the first one identified through telescopes by astronomers, 1I\`Oumuamua, was inferred to have a flat shape based on its reflection of sunlight. The brightness of reflected sunlight changed by a factor of 10 as it was tumbling every 8 hours. It was also pushed by some mysterious force that is not gravitational.
So, we see unusual objects. They could indicate technology but we don’t have the definitive proof as of yet. It’s work in progress. We are seeking the evidence in the same way that a detective does in a crime scene. It’s possible to prove things if you have enough data. That’s what we are trying to do, rather than storytelling and philosophizing about the question whether we are alone or not. We can just look up at the sky and figure it out.
JW: By the way, quickly, can you give the analogy you did earlier today about how we shouldn’t be settling in dating extraterrestrials?
AL: One can view this search as going on a blind date with some interstellar partner. My colleagues in the astronomy community are obsessed with finding microbes, the most mediocre dating partners out there, but I am aiming for someone more intelligent than we are.
The best approach is to listen to the other side to figure it out. Of course, we can hope that the dating partner will be friendly, but it could also be hostile. And so, there is something to be learned by watching it and protecting Earth from potential alien threats.
All in all, I think it would bring humanity to a better place because it will inspire us to pursue new science and new technology, and exploring space — because if someone else visits us, we might want to visit their backyard. And it will be humbling in the sense that we have a sibling to our family of intelligent civilizations. Even if you believe in God, there is no reason to expect God to be a parent that can attend to only one child.
JW: That’s an interesting way of looking at it. And by the way, talk about learning. I didn’t know that Avi Loeb was going to use a dating comparison in an alien discussion, but hey, I love it. Dr. Avi Loeb, thank you so much for taking the time. Good to see you.
AL: Thanks for having me.
You can check out more of our conversation on Hot Take. It’s up on NewsNation’s YouTube channel at the link here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, former director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Professional website:
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/
Social media:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb
https://open.spotify.com/show/1zhndXkvSY2b8FdjspFpCd
https://x.com/ProfAviLoeb
