Israeli-American astrophysicist believes he may have found signs of alien life.
The purported discovery took place more than a mile underwater near Papua New Guinea.
Those in search of aliens from other planets would typically look to the stars. But one high-level academic who happens to have a $100 million budget opted to look into the depths of the ocean to uncover what he reported earlier this month may be key discoveries.
Avi Loeb, 61, who chaired Harvard University’s astrophysics department from 2011 to 2020, recently led a $1.5 million expedition to research a meteor, dubbed “IM1,” which landed off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014.
The object is identified by scientists as the only known “interstellar” meteorite—meaning that it originated from beyond humanity’s solar system.
By the end of Loeb’s days at sea, he and his crew had collected 50 “spherules” from the meteor, which lay more than a mile underwater, using a magnetic, mechanical sled. He described the spherules as tiny balls.
He told the Independent that they looked “beautiful” under a microscope. “One of them looked like Earth,” he said. “Many of them look like gold.”
Loeb thinks that the small spheres, which are from a steel-titanium alloy much stronger than the iron that tends to be found in meteorites, could come from another civilization.
The discovery “felt like a miracle,” he wrote on his blog.
