October 19th, 2017 was a day like any other-
until it wasn't. High on a mountain top, Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope scanned the skies,
searching the solar system for a deadly threat to life on earth.
As part of NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations program, the telescope was updating its catalogue
of near-earth asteroids and comets which could pose a threat should one impact us. However,
Pan-STARRS1 discovered something much more than a dangerous asteroid, and according to a growing
community of academics, it may have discovered the first verified proof of intelligent alien life.
Whizzing by at a breakneck speed of 196,000 miles an hour (87.3 km per second), Oumuamua's highly
elliptical orbit immediately told astronomers that they weren't looking at an ordinary comet
or asteroid- this was the first confirmed visitor from outside our solar system. As telescopes of
all kinds pointed at our interstellar visitor though, the data only became... weirder.
Radar showed us that Oumuamua was a very strange object indeed. Up to a quarter mile
long (400 meters), Oumumua is ten times longer than wide, resembling the classic UFO cigar shape
often claimed by witnesses- only on a much more massive scale. To date no similar natural object
has ever been witnessed in space around the earth, neither comet or asteroid.
As Oumuamua- which in Hawaiian means 'the scout'- sped out of our solar system however,
scientists spotted it doing something no natural object should be doing:
accelerating. Any object falling towards the sun is expected to accelerate as the sun's gravity
pulls on it, but as Oumuamua swung past the sun and was on its way out of the solar system,
scientists spotted it moving in a way that wouldn't be expected from gravity alone.
Scientists were quick to hypothesize that if Oumuamua was indeed the remnant of a comet,
it could simply be outgassing as the sun's rays heat up its body. Outgassing is the
result of a cometary body warming up in the sun, leading to the release of gas-
the escaping gases and debris acts much in the same way a rocket engine does,
albeit on a smaller scale. It was a simple, and very routine solution to the Oumuamua mystery-
except it didn't fit, because try as they might, scientists could find no evidence of outgassing.
A new theory was quickly proposed- Oumuamua was simply venting solid hydrogen,
invisible to us- but that theory was quickly rebutted
as being completely impractical in the real world. Theory came and theory went,
but none could offer a widely accepted answer for Oumuamua's acceleration. Except for one.
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb looked at the data and proposed a stunning solution:
Oumuamua was an alien ship being propelled by solar sails.
The acceleration witnessed by Oumuamua was very slight, but exactly the type of acceleration we'd
expect from a very large ship using a massive solar sail. This type of interstellar propulsion
method uses extremely thin sheets of material set either to the front or sides of a spacecraft. The
'sails' work in the exact same way that wind sails do here on earth, only with solar radiation rather
than wind. While miniscule, the impact of photons on a solar sail imparts a tiny bit of momentum
which over long spans of time can accelerate a ship to a very respectable fraction of the
speed of light. The best part is that unlike regular rockets, you don't have to carry the
weight of your fuel with you, and as long as you can dip near a star you'll never run out of fuel.
Solar sails aren't the fastest means of interstellar propulsion humanity has theorized,
but they are extremely efficient. It'll take Oumuamua about 11,000 years to travel
one light year as it speeds away from us and towards the Pegasus constellation,
and while that sounds like a very long time, the truth is that for an intergalactic civilization
those sorts of time scales are irrelevant. While not likely a research ship of any kind, as manned
ships would want to move faster than Oumuamua, it could have very well been an automated cargo craft
dipping into our solar system for a speed boost as it slingshotted past our sun.
There is one problem with this though, and that's the fact that Oumuamua was believed to be tumbling
on more than one axis- which wouldn't make much sense for a functional alien ship. However,
a derelict or destroyed ship, or perhaps simply a piece of massive alien debris,
could easily be spinning on multiple axis the way Oumuamua was. We may possibly have just
witnessed the alien equivalent of the Titanic zipping past our solar system,
with its deployed solar sail still propelling it on a never ending journey through the galaxy.
The alien theory seems out there, but the shape of Oumuamua itself does lend it some credibility.
It just so happens that Oumuamua is not only an extremely unusual shape for a natural comet
or asteroid- in fact, none like it have ever been observed- but that its skinny,
elongated body is perfect for traveling through the cosmos at high speeds. When you're moving at
a fraction the speed of light, as even our own technology today would allow us to accomplish
on long interstellar voyages, running into a speck of dust would release energy equivalent to a small
nuclear explosion. The best way to avoid strikes is thus to create the main body of your ship,
where your inhabitants or equipment is stored, skinny and very long,
reducing the forward-facing profile of the ship. You would then protect the ship with
an extremely hard nose cone which would ablate away as you traveled through space.
Other observations however reveal that Oumuamua may instead have been shaped like a very large,
very flat pancake- which makes the case for a light sail even stronger.
This shape is certainly well outside the bounds of nature, though sadly Oumuamua's
tumbling and extreme distance from earth made it difficult to get accurate data.
What's even more curious is that Oumuamua seemed to pass through the goldilocks zone of the sun-
or the area where liquid water, and thus life, is possible. At its closest, Oumuamua came within 15
million miles of earth (24million km), or about 63 times the distance from earth to the moon.
In astronomical terms, this is basically invading the earth's personal space- Mars,
our closest neighbor, is over twice that distance, 33.9 million miles, at its closest to us.
As if Oumuamua wasn't strange enough already,
observations show that Oumuamua was likely 'at rest' compared to other stars around us-
its speed kept it in the same relative position to stars around it. Rather than Oumuamua visiting us,
the solar system itself crashed into it as we orbit the massive black hole at the center of
our galaxy. This type of celestial motion is extremely rare in nature,
but once more the alien object theory fills in some holes that traditional theories don't.
The solar system orbits around the galaxy in roughly 230 million years. An alien civilization
using the very same spectroscopy techniques we use to analyze faraway planets would have been
able to detect unnatural levels of oxygen in our atmosphere as much as 2.23 billion years ago-
concentrations so high that they could only have come from life continuously replenishing oxygen in
the atmosphere. Rather than send a probe to us directly, aliens could have simply left one in
our path for us to run into eventually- especially if they wanted to gather information about us in a
stealthy manner without giving away obvious signs of this probe having working technology aboard.
Or, Oumuamua may simply be one of millions of similar probes scattered across the galaxy,
collecting data automatically as solar systems run into them and sending it back home.
All of this would be an incredibly lengthy process,
requiring timescales on the millions of years- yet again, for an advanced enough civilization,
these time scales mean nothing. When your technology has progressed far enough that
you've survived your first million years, the rest are completely inconsequential.
Most scientists still believe Oumuamua was natural, and very publicly oppose any claim
that Oumuamua was alien in origin. However, the data does indicate that whatever Oumuamua was,
it was without a doubt the most unusual object humanity has ever seen,
and could have been the first proof of intelligent life from beyond the earth-
or maybe that's just what the government is paying us to tell you.
Just kidding... though that is what we would say if we were secretly run by the government,
isn't it?
Now go watch Actual Military Audio Recording of Alien Encounter-
or click this other video instead!