By T.K. Randall
March 23, 2023 · 71 comments
Are we being visited by extraterrestrial probes ? Image Credit: Pixabay / 0fjd125gk87
Avi Loeb and Sean M. Kirkpatrick discuss the possibility of such a scenario in their recent paper on the subject of UFOs.
Entitled ‘Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’, the paper, which is still undergoing peer review, examines the alleged movements and capabilities of unexplained objects sighted by US Navy pilots off the coast of the United States.
Its authors are certainly no strangers to UFOs; Loeb is an astrophysicist who has been heavily involved in the search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence while Dr Kirkpatrick is the director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
In a previous story about their paper, we reported that they had concluded that the alleged capabilities of “highly maneuverable” objects spotted by US Navy pilots are so extreme that the sheer friction involved should have produced a visible fireball as well as a corresponding radio signature that could be picked up on radar.
Now it seems as though the pair have also been looking into the idea that an extraterrestrial mothership passing through our solar system could have released a number of smaller probes designed to enter Earth’s atmosphere and study us without our knowledge.
“[Interstellar meteorite impacts inspired me] to consider the possibility that an artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions,” Loeb told Live Science
“These ‘dandelion seeds’… could be separated from the parent craft by the tidal gravitational force of the Sun or by a maneuvering capability.”
In the paper, Loeb and Kirkpatrick suggest that these probes could reach Earth and enter our atmosphere without being detected by astronomers.
It is also possible, given the amount of time that it would take to travel vast distances through space, that the civilization from which the mothership originated might not even exist any more.
Source: Live Science | Comments (71)
