Social-Media UAP Influencers Misunderstand How Science Works!
When I noticed that the photographs taken by the Apollo astronauts half a century ago had blue dots on the parts of the Kodak film that were not exposed to the camera lens, I suggested that these blue dots might be cosmic rays rather than Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). I did the same when transients in the Palomar photographic plates were reported here to show an anti-correlation with geomagnetic storms — as expected from cosmic-rays pushed away from Earth by magnetized plumes of plasma from the Sun. The cosmic-rays background is familiar to every astronomer, yet influencers on social media were furious and asked me to apologize for discussing it!
My response was simple: cosmic-rays will not go away just because these influencers do not like them, for the same reason that the Sun did not start to orbit the Earth because the Vatican said so.
Some of the social-media influencers argued that “Avi Loeb is not allowed to mention cosmic-rays because he discussed the possibility that the anomalous interstellar objects 1I/`Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS might have a technological origin.”
Once again, this sentiment reflects a misunderstanding of the way science is done. When faced with anomalies, theoretical physicists are encouraged to come up with potential interpretations, even if some of these interpretations appear highly speculative or turn out to be wrong later. Theoretical models are risky before they are validated by data. The mainstream of physics theorized that dark matter is made of weakly-interacting supersymmetric particles, but these particles were never found in their natural parameters space by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Theoretical physicists are also allowed to analyze sources of noise. There is no ban on considering cosmic-rays as noise while at the same time suggesting that 1I/`Oumuamua is a light sail. The validity of these unrelated statements should be tested experimentally. There should be no shame attached to a scientist who proposed a theory and then analyzed a source of noise for a completely different phenomenon. The non-gravitational acceleration of 1I/`Oumuamua was detected at a high statistical significance (as reported here), along with its disk-like shape (as analyzed here) and the lack of outgassing around it (as inferred here). These three anomalies are puzzling based on what we know about natural comets. Considering the possibility that these anomalies flag a technological signature is as legitimate as considering the possibility that the blue dots in the Apollo photographs are imprints of cosmic-rays.
Theoretical models encourage experimentalists to collect new data that will test their predictions and select the correct model among them. Without imagining theoretical possibilities, it is difficult to make progress in our knowledge. This is why Albert Einstein stated: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Another aspect of science that social-media influencers miss is that fuzzy UAP data cannot be used to infer new physics. When confronted with uncertainty, we should first contemplate explanations that satisfy the known laws of physics. Only if the data indicates beyond a reasonable doubt a violation of a fundamental principle of physics, like energy conservation or the speed-of-light limit, we should examine theories that deviate from the standard model of physics. The reason for this approach is simple: the standard model of physics was vetted successfully through numerous experiments and observations. If a minor violation of it would have been noticed beyond a reasonable doubt, the discoverer of this violation would instantly win the Nobel Prize. The stakes are high in violating the standard model. With an investment of 10 billion dollars, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider did not reveal conclusively any deviation from the standard model, not even a minor deviation. Therefore, social media influencers should be careful when arguing that fuzzy UAP images indicate new physics.
Most of the time, science is in a state of uncertainty because the data is not good enough to clear the ambiguities. The way to make progress is not by firming up our beliefs but instead by collecting better data. Here again, social media influencers claim: “Avi Loeb wants more data about UAP, but we already know the answer.” Science is different from politics because it offers an arbitrator: indisputable evidence collected by calibrated instruments. The influencers can rest assured that if I see evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I will firmly accept the unavoidable interpretation. But as of now, based on all publicly available data, the nature of UAP is unresolved.
This is why the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the All-Doman Anomaly Resolution Office in the Pentagon, the White House, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community, tasked me to establish and lead the UAP Science Advisory Council (https://uapsac.com/). The goal of this council is to figure out the nature of UAP through the scientific method. This means considering possible interpretations and ruling out all but one through a transparent and open-minded investigation.
A few days ago, I shared an essay here in which I had mentioned a paper written by Professor John Birks from the University of Colorado. Social media influencers were quick to denounce my essay, stating that I am attempting to debunk the nature of UAP as non-human made technologies. Once again, they misunderstand how science is done. Scientists are obligated to consider models that propose possible interpretations of anomalies. For that reason, I invited Professor Birks to a zoom meeting with the UAP Science Advisory Council, where council members had the opportunity to ask him questions. The questions raised at the meeting shed doubt on his model being able to explain UAP, especially those which are accelerating well beyond the level expected for dust clouds drifting in the wind. In particular, it is unclear how dust clouds could condense out of the debris from meteors or space trash, since the debris tail gets diluted and smeared by the Earth’s atmosphere across a much larger scale than the observed orb sizes. This is exactly how science works. One has to take seriously a model and examine whether it stands up to the constraints of the data, assuming standard physics.
Interestingly, AI’s criticism of the dust cloud model is far more substantive than all the critical tweets directed against it on X. A council member, Professor Robin Hanson, compiled the criticism from Claude here. In response, Professor Birks wrote: “Yes, after reading the Claude response, I concur that it would still be a big problem to accumulate enough mass in a long column. I concede that I hadn’t given enough thought to the initial formation of the dust cloud.” Subsequently Prof. Birks used Claude to respond to the criticism. What I find remarkable is that he was unable to address Claude’s criticism by himseld so he asked for help from Claude to respond to Claude. John has 50 years of experience in practicing atmospheric science, yet he needs the help of AI to respond to AI. Are we past the AI singularity since AI appears to be smarter than our best scientists? My personal assessment (and I decline to rely on Claude) is that the response is not satisfactory from a theoretical physics perspective and that the model is not viable as it stands. Nevertheless, it would be cleaner to rule it out based on the measured motion of the orbs relative to the wind.
It is utterly inappropriate to ridicule a model without studying it. It is even more inappropriate to smear scientists who dare to study it (as a recent tweet did here). This was the mistake that the Vatican admitted to making regarding Galileo Galilei (as reported here in 1992). It is also important to keep in mind that nobody prosecuted the Vatican for misleading the public. Instead, astronomers constructed new telescopes that are more powerful than the one used by Galileo in order to better understand our place in the universe. When a new cosmic truth is revealed, it makes most sense to look forward, not backward.
My recommendation regarding UAP is that we keep our eyes on the orbs, not social media.
I realize that most social-media influencers who tweet about UAP are too busy to read this essay. For them, I offer the following executive summary:
“Dear Social Media Influencers: You misunderstand how science works!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is chair of the UAP Science Advisory Council to the White House, Pentagon, FBI and intelligence agencies, director 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
