Stephen Hawking Joins Effort To Confirm If Oumuamua Object Is Alien Probe

The first mysterious object to reach our solar system was originally thought to be a comet or an asteroid from within the system. But now, physicist Stephen Hawking is leading an investigation into whether or not this object is a spaceship from an alien civilization.

Soon after the celestial object reached our solar system, scientists discovered that it is neither a comet nor an asteroid as previously assumed. The object’s official name is A/2017 UI but has been dubbed “Oumuamua”, which loosely means “a messenger that reaches from the distant past” in Hawaiian. Scientists also discovered that the object had traveled unimaginable distances through interstellar space at almost 200,000 mph.

All these findings grabbed the attention of renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking. A scientific body led by Hawking is now trying to decipher whether the “cigar-shaped” object is an alien probe or a previously unseen natural phenomenon. Astrophysicists theorize there are between one and ten “visitors” per year in our solar system but they move so quickly that we have never seen one before

“Perhaps the aliens have a mothership that travels fast and releases baby spacecraft that freely fall into a planetary system on a reconnaissance mission,” said Avi Loeb, a professor of astrophysics at Harvard University. “If this object is natural in origin, there should be many more like it in the solar system… and even if most of them are natural, perhaps one of them will be found to be of artificial origin, some space device or junk from an alien civilization, he said. “The more I study this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder whether it might be an artificially made probe which was sent by an alien civilization.”

The £75 million program that searches for evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth called Breakthrough Listen is led by Hawking,and is attempting to detect any evidence of alien technology transmitting from the object. Andrew Siemion, research center director at the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI)– which works for Breakthrough – said it would begin a ten-hour observation tomorrow for specific signs of alien technology.

It will search on the electromagnetic spectrum using the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia. “It’s like a radio station you tune into with your car stereo,” said Dr. Siemion. “Nature doesn’t broadcast on a very specific frequency, its smears it out across color and time. Technology behaves differently. It can compress electromagnetic energy and so we look for those specific signs and for repeating patterns which nature doesn’t tend to do. We look for structure.”

Researchers say a long cylindrical shape like Oumuamua’s would reduce damage from interstellar gas and dust. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, a leader a Breakthrough Listen said: “Whether it’s artificial or not, we will definitely know more about this object.”

 

‘Remote Possibility’ Strange Signals Coming From Nearby Star Sent by Aliens

(ANTIMEDIA) Puerto Rico — “Two weeks after these observations, we realized that there were some very peculiar signals in the 10-minute dynamic spectrum that we obtained from Ross 128.”

Those words were taken from a post written last week by Professor Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Mendez and his team are studying red dwarfs, the smallest known stars in the universe, and in sorting through recently recorded data, they found something they’ve never seen before.

On May 12, the team had the Arecibo radio telescope pointed at Ross 128, a red dwarf located about 11 light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. During the ten minutes, the star was recorded, an “almost periodic” radio transmission came from the direction of Ross 128 at a frequency previously undetected in red dwarfs.

In his post, Mendez writes that there are three main explanations for the mysterious signals. They could be emissions from solar flares occurring on Ross 128, they could be coming from objects in the field of view of the star, or they could be bursts from a high orbit satellite.

Each of these explanations has problems, however, as Professor Mendez notes. Solar flares, for instance, occur at much lower frequencies. Additionally, there are very few known celestial bodies in the field of view of Ross 128. As for satellites, Mendez writes that “we have never seen satellites emit bursts like that, which were common in our other star observations.”

All of this leads one to the obvious question: Could it be aliens?

“That’s a remote possibility,” Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkley Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research Center, told The Atlantic. “But at this point, it is indeed a possibility.”

One senior SETI astronomer, Seth Shostak, told Business Insider the “chances are high” that the signals are merely “terrestrial interference” and that, in the past, “that’s always been the case.”

All astronomers can do now is spend more time studying Ross 128. The team scanned the star again on Sunday, and they’ll report their findings later this week. “Success will be to find the signal again,” he told Business Insider in an email. “If we don’t get the signal again then the mystery deepens.”