If evidence of extraterrestrial life appeared in our solar system, would we notice it? If we were expecting the bang of gravity-defying ships on the horizon, do we risk missing the subtle sounds of other arrivals? What if, for instance, that evidence was inert or defunct technology — the equivalent, perhaps, of a billion-year-old civilization’s trash?
On October 19, 2017, astronomer Robert Weryk at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii discovered the first interstellar object ever detected in our solar system — a “wildly anomalous object” that would eventually be named ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”, or more poetically, “a messenger from afar arriving first”) — and although this object was only detected as it was exiting our Earthbound field of vision (racing toward and then beyond the sun), scientists were able to observe ‘Oumuamua for eleven days before it disappeared; gathering data that matched no previously known celestial object. The majority of scientists filed ‘Oumuamua away as a weird comet or asteroid (that behaved like no known comets or asteroids) but Dr. Avi Loeb — the chair of Harvard University’s Department of Astronomy, founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies, etc., etc. — came up with a competing theory: All of ‘Oumuamua’s strange composition and erratic movement could be accounted for if it were a piece of technology manufactured by some nonhuman intelligent lifeform. This theory, despite explaining the anomaly simply as per Occam’s Razor, met with official resistance and dismissal, and Extraterrestrial:The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth seems to be Loeb’s longform explanation of the facts, how the data fit his theory as proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, and ultimately, why the mainstreaming of this theory matters. Loeb’s writing is clear and easy to understand, certainly persuasive to a lay reader like me, and as his first love was Philosophy, Loeb is able to connect the arrival of this extrastellar object to all the big questions facing us Earthlings. This is everything I love, told engagingly, and I recommend it highly. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms; quotes selected primarily to demonstrate the author’s style, not as an overview of his theory.)
Some of the resistance to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence boils down to conservatism, which many scientists adopt in order to minimize the number of mistakes they make during their careers. This is the path of least resistance, and it works; scientists who preserve their images in this way receive more honors, more awards, and more funding. Sadly, this also increases the force of their echo effect, for the funding establishes even bigger research groups that can parrot the same ideas. This can snowball; echo chambers amplify conservatism of thought, wringing the native curiosity out of young researchers, most of whom feel they must fall in line to secure a job. Unchecked, this trend could turn scientific consensus into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don’t actually want to go over what made ‘Oumuamua so anomalous — or how its anomalies can be easily explained by Loeb’s theory — but I do want to note what Dr. Loeb has to say about conservatism in academe and how it stifles original thought (even suppressing it a la Galileo). He notes in several places that there is plenty of Physics Department money and brainpower devoted to studying theories such as supersymmetry and multiverses — despite there being zero proof (yet) that either actually exists — and scientists would rather propose pure hydrogen comets or “fluffy cloud objects” — despite there being zero proof (yet) that either actually exists — in order to explain ‘Oumuamua’s eccentricities than entertain Loeb’s theory that it behaved exactly like a pancake-shaped, metallic solar sail (could be a buoy that our solar system passed by and disturbed or a wandering piece of space junk). The gatekeepers of the world’s large and expensive observatories decide who gets to use them and for what purpose (as they must), but with the SETI project treated as fringe science, and Loeb determining that SETI’s concentration on searching for radio transmissions is probably flawed anyway, it’s frustrating to see that even compelling proof of intelligent extraterrestrial life isn’t sparking a pursuit of space archaeology as Loeb has argued for (“Similar to archaeologists who dig into the ground to learn about, say, Mayan society, astronomers must start searching for technological civilizations by digging into space.”) And because Loeb’s first interest was Philosophy, I was drawn to his explanations (beyond the pursuit of scientific advancement) of why acknowledging the existence of extraterrestrial life matters:
In astronomy, we realize that matter takes new forms over time. The matter we are made of was produced in the heart of a nearby massive star that exploded. It assembled to make the Earth that nourishes plants that feed our bodies. What are we, then, if not just fleeting shapes taken by a few specks of material for a brief moment in cosmic history on the surface of one planet out of so many? We are insignificant, not just because the cosmos is so vast, but also because we ourselves are so tiny. Each of us is merely a transient structure that comes and goes, recorded in the minds of other transient structures. And that is all.
I enjoyed Dr. Loeb’s clear writing style and the personal details that he shared — I was as interested in his daughter meeting Stephen Hawking as I was interested to learn of Loeb’s Jewish grandfather fleeing 1930’s Germany — and I was intrigued by the hope for the future of humanity that the discovery of ‘Oumuamua represented for him. Our best future is probably out in space, and to get there, we need the search for extraterrestrial life not to be dismissed as fringe science, for young scientists not to be lockstepped towards conservative areas of study, and for the population at large to be informed of and become excited by ideas that could unite us all in a shared vision of a better future. I loved the whole thing.
