Avi Loeb

The Harvard astrophysics professor who braved criticism to find evidence of extraterrestrial technosignatures.

Name	Abraham “Avi” Loeb
Age	63
Born	February 26, 1962
Famous for	Spearheading the Galileo Project

Abraham Loeb, or Avi to friends and colleagues, has an illustrious career. A few highlights of his career are:

• Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University 
• Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (2007-present)
• Founding director of Harvard University’s Black Hole Initiative (2016-2021) 
• Leader of the Strategic Defense Initiative’s first international project (1983-1988)

Now, he has another achievement to add to this list: his search for extraterrestrial technology signatures through the Galileo Project.

His Entry to UFO/UAP Research

Avi Loeb has always been curious about the world around him, which is why he became a scientist. He wants to find the answers to inexplicable questions based on evidence, not on prejudice and the politics of getting likes on social media.

So, when the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii spotted a cigar-shaped rock 400 meters long passing through the solar system in 2017—the ‘Oumuamua—he jumped at the chance to study it. Whereas his colleagues thought it might be an asteroid, he suggested perhaps it was a piece of alien technology.

At that time, he was only fascinated by the Oumuamua and the prospect of what could be regarding UFOs/UAPs. It wasn’t until he saw a CNN news report in June 2021 that he willingly went down the proverbial rabbit hole.

In that news interview, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson talked about the UFO incidents the U.S. Navy pilots encountered. When asked by the reporter if extraterrestrials were contacting us, Nelson said he’d consult with their scientists to find out what the pilots saw.

Immediately after watching that, Loeb emailed Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science chief, proposing a government-funded UFO study. Zurbuchen supported his idea, but nothing eventually came of it, as he didn’t hear back from the NASA chief after that.

He wasn’t deterred, though, as Loeb searched for private funding. He found one in Eugene Jhong, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Harvard alum who had heard him talk about aliens on a podcast. Jhong gave him $1 million with no strings attached.

He used the funds to create the Galileo Project.

The Galileo Project 

Avi Loeb believes it’s his job as an astrophysicist to figure out what lies beyond our Solar System. So, in July 2021, he presented the Galileo Project to the world. The name was inspired by Galileo Galilei’s legacy of finding answers to questions by looking through new telescopes. 

He and his team built an observatory at Harvard University, which will monitor the sky 24/7 for objects unfamiliar to Earth, aka interstellar objects. 

Through the help of machine learning software, they’ll be able to filter out identifiable objects, such as birds, balloons, and planes, and examine the nature of the remaining data for anomalous characteristics—those that exhibit extraterrestrial technological signatures (or simply, technosignatures).

The project will also complement the traditional search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by looking for physical objects rather than electromagnetic signals of extraterrestrial technological equipment. The extraterrestrial technological equipment may come in two forms:

• Defunct space trash
• Functional equipment, such as an AI-controlled spacecraft 

The Interstellar Meteor Expedition 

One of the expeditions Avi Loeb and his team at the Galileo Project did was the Interstellar Meteor Expedition. 

They went to the Pacific Ocean, near Papua New Guinea, to look for the fragments of the CNEOS 2014-01-08 from the ocean floor. The CNEOS 2014-01-08 is the first interstellar meteor detected by the U.S. government, with 99.999% confirmation from the U.S. Space Command to have originated outside our Solar System.

Loeb and his team used a sled with magnets on both sides to search for the meteor’s fragments. He then took the fragments back to Harvard for his colleagues to examine. 

The fragments looked like metallic spheres; about 10% of these spherules looked unusual.

• They had a chemical composition different from Solar System materials
• They were abundant in elements like beryllium, lanthanum, and uranium that were up to a factor of 1000 more than found in Solar System materials

In the next expedition, Loeb is hopeful that they’ll be able to find bigger pieces to determine whether this meteor is a rock from another star or of artificial origin with buttons on it. 

His Response to Critics

Many of Avi Loeb’s critics admit he’s a smart person and a good scientist. But dipping his hands into UFO/UAP research has earned him an unpleasant reputation among his colleagues, becoming the “Harvard professor who talks about aliens.”

His colleagues criticize him mainly for the following reasons:

• Rebuffing Occam’s razor (due to his hypothesis regarding ‘Oumuamua)
• Welcoming UFO enthusiasts without a scientific background to his Galileo Project
• Undermining the efforts for SETI
• Chasing fame, allegedly

One memorable discourse was between him and Dr. Jill Tarter, a pioneer SETI researcher, during The Golden Webinar in Astrophysics 2021.

Dr. Tarter didn’t like how Loeb criticized the scientific culture, because many scientists have thought of or built instruments to search for anomalies. They were asking for extraordinary evidence because it set real science apart from the pseudoscience in the UFO/UAP pop culture.

Loeb’s response to Dr. Tarter’s comment did not directly address her point about him badmouthing the whole culture. Instead, he argued about the way scientists limit their exploration of possibilities within the scientific method, which was the “acidic culture” he was talking about. 

In his words, “…they say, ‘we need extraordinary evidence,’ and then they don’t let people search for that extraordinary evidence by a factor of a thousand.”

His Stand on Extraordinary Evidence

In his TED Talk, Avi Loeb addressed the issue of “extraordinary evidence”—that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary funding.

He explains that new scientific discoveries don’t just happen. We have to invest funds first to find something new. For example, investing $10 billion to build the Large Hadron Collider allowed scientists to find the Higgs boson, and the Webb telescope to find the first generation of galaxies.

So, if we want to find evidence of aliens’ existence, we need to allocate funds for it. Case in point, the Galileo Project.

For more background on this topic, you can also explore our ufology website, which covers research and developments in the field.

FAQ

Has he found proof of technosignatures?

Avi Loeb has yet to find substantial proof of technosignatures. However, he and his team are constantly monitoring the sky for interstellar objects, hoping to solve the mysteries surrounding UFOs/UAPs once and for all.

What makes him different from other scientists? 

Avi Loeb is different because he wants to bring the subject of UFOs/UAPs to mainstream science using evidence-based research—that it’s not just mere sensationalism.

Why does his work matter in the UFO/UAP community?

Avi Loeb’s Galileo Project matters because it provides valid, useful data that could help UFO researchers and enthusiasts better understand or explain unidentified aerial phenomena.