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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avi Loeb | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Loeb | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T17:36:16.726200+00:00 | kb-cron |
In 2014, the US Department of Defense observed a fireball entering the atmosphere. Loeb made a series of claims about this event, from the meteor being from outside the Solar System to its likely area of impact based on, among other things, a seismic signal that occurred around the same time, all culminating in 2023, when Loeb announced that he had found interstellar material on the ocean floor that he asserted came from the meteor and could be remnants of an extraterrestrial starship. These claims were criticized by other scientists as hasty, sensational, and part of a pattern of improper behavior. Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at the University of Western Ontario, argued the material can be explained as non-interstellar, noting that measurements from Defense Department data are opaque and error-prone. Brown further said he was disturbed by Loeb's lack of engagement with relevant experts. In March 2022, the U.S. Space Force affirmed that their 2014 data indicated an interstellar origin, while the following month NASA stated the evidence for this was inconclusive. Astrophysicist Steve Desch, at Arizona State University, commented "[Loeb's claims are] polluting good science—conflating the good science we do with this ridiculous sensationalism and sucking all the oxygen out of the room", and said several of his colleagues are consequently refusing to engage with Loeb in the peer review process. Monica Grady from the Open University argued that the evidence for Loeb's claims is "rather shaky" and pointed more plausibly to terrestrial pollution. Patricio A. Gallardo in an American Astronomical Society paper similarly concluded the samples were consistent with coal ash contamination. Loeb subsequently authored a preprint saying chemical analysis ruled out coal ash contamination and indicated extrasolar origins. Loeb and Morgan MacLeod proposed a tidal disruption mechanism that could cause meteors to be ejected into trajectories leading to the described observations. In 2024 planetary seismologist Benjamin Fernando led a team that analyzed the seismic signals that led Loeb to search that specific region of the ocean, and they concluded that the seismic signals from one of the sensors used was in fact caused not by a meteor, but by a truck driving near the sensor, so that, "Not only did they use the wrong signal, they were looking in the wrong place."
==== 3I/ATLAS ====
In 2025, ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System), the NASA-funded survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, observed a comet approaching from the constellation of Sagittarius at an interstellar velocity. Loeb hypothesized in the press that this, the third known interstellar object, could be an alien device with potentially malevolent intent. He based these speculations on his calculations of the likelihood of a comet of natural origins having these characteristics. "The retrograde orbital plane of 3I/ATLAS around the Sun lies within 5 degrees of that of Earth... The likelihood for that coincidence out of all random orientations is 0.2 percent," Loeb told Newsweek. He further claimed that the brightness of 3I/ATLAS implies an object that is around 20 kilometers in diameter which is "too large for an interstellar asteroid." 3I/ATLAS' trajectory will bring it close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter, a path Loeb calculated as having a probability of just 0.005 percent. "It might have targeted the inner Solar System as expected from alien technology," he added. Richard Moissl, Head of Planetary Defence at the European Space Agency told Newsweek: "There have been no signs pointing to non-natural origins of 3I/ATLAS in the available observations." Since then, observations have reported evidence of 3I/ATLAS containing water, which is a substance commonly found in comets. Independent assessments have resoundingly rejected the idea that 3I/ATLAS is anything except a comet. Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate said that "We certainly haven't seen any technosignatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet". Similarly, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya stated that "all evidence points to it being a comet." In the face of this growing body of evidence, Loeb conceded that 3I/ATLAS is "most likely" a comet, though he continued to speculate about its supposed technological nature regardless.
== Media appearances == In 2006, Loeb was featured in a Time magazine cover story on the first stars, and in a Scientific American article on the Dark Ages of the universe. In 2008, he was featured in a Smithsonian magazine cover story on black holes, and in two Astronomy magazine cover stories, one on the collision between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy and the second on the future state of our universe. In 2009, Loeb reviewed in a Scientific American article a new technique for imaging black hole silhouettes. Loeb received considerable media attention after proposing in 2011 (with E.L. Turner) a new technique for detecting artificially-illuminated objects in the Solar System and beyond, and showing in 2012 (with I. Ginsburg) that planets may transit hypervelocity stars or get kicked to a fraction of the speed of light near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. He has been profiled a number of times, including in Science magazine, Discover, and The New York Times. He has been interviewed by Astronomy magazine, by Lex Fridman, Let's Get Haunted, Joe Rogan, Mick West, and by the H3 Podcast. On August 24, 2023, The New York Times published an article about Loeb and his search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Loeb also regularly writes opinion essays on science and policy. In February 2026 a large poem about Avi Loeb titled The Avi Loeb Interstellar was printed by Jane Hirshfield in Poets for Science and later published by Dr. Loeb to his Medium page.
== Honors and awards == Loeb has received many honors, including: