Harvard physicist in search for ‘alien artefact’ that fell from space

A Pacific expedition is being planned by a prominent Harvard physicist to find what he believes to be an alien artefact which has fallen from space into the ocean.

Physicist Avi Loeb announced that an ocean expedition worth $1.5 million to Papua New Guinea is being organised by him in search of fragments of an object which crashed off the coast of the country's Manus Island in 2014.

The object was noticed by Loeb in 2019 and it was identified as the first ever discovered interstellar meteor, which means its origin lies outside our solar system.

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As per Loeb, the interstellar origin of the meteor was confirmed to NASA by the Department of Defence’s space command in April 2022.

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Loeb and his team also reached the conclusion that the meteor was tougher compared to all other 272 meteors listed in the Centre for Near Earth Object Studies catalogue of NASA.

“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. Analysing the composition of the fragments could allow us to determine whether the object is natural or artificial in origin,” wrote Loeb in a post on Medium.

“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 further stated.

As per Loeb, there is a possibility that the meteor is tough “because they are artificial in origin…launched a billion years ago from a distant technological civilisation.”

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A ship with a magnetic sledge is expected to be used for the ocean expedition. The team will include seven sledge operations along with a scientific team.

“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,” wrote Loeb and his team.

(With inputs from agencies)

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