There has been increasing interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) since the 2021 Pentagon report revealed what appear to be anomalous objects in US airspace, known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Fast forward to 2023, and NASA has already formed a panel to investigate the reports and appointed a director for UAP research.
A newly created Pentagon agency has also released images of mysterious metal spheres. What is perhaps most remarkable is that David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, testified under oath before the United States Congress and stated that he had interviewed approximately 40 people involved in secret programs dealing with crashed UFOs.
I’m interested in searching the skies for extraterrestrial, physical objects that could one day tell us if we are alone in the Milky Way. Think about this: within our own Milky Way Galaxy there are 40 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets.
Human ingenuity has allowed us to develop and launch probes like Voyager and Pioneer, capable of reaching the nearest stars. We have launched initiatives such as the Breakthrough Starshot program, which aims to reach the nearby star Alpha Centauri within just a few decades by exploring innovative propulsion methods.
Sending a probe can be more economical than sending radio or laser communications if you don’t have to rush.
Not about the latest news. Not about unfounded opinions.
If humans can send a probe to another star, why couldn’t another civilization send a probe to our solar system? Such a probe could reach the main asteroid belt and lie in wait for an asteroid.
Or it could make its way to Earth and enter our atmosphere. If sighted, it would be branded a “UFO.” A civilization capable of producing and sending probes could send millions of them on exploration missions across our galaxy.
Some might argue that such probes can only exist if they obey the laws of physics and engineering as we understand them today. However, humanity is a relatively young civilization and our knowledge is constantly evolving.
While humans have dreamed of flying for millennia while staring at the sky, it was only 120 years ago that the Wright brothers performed the first powered flight. That’s about as long ago as Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity.
Is it really so difficult to imagine that a civilization hundreds of thousands of years older than ours might have learned more about the laws of physics or developed a few more technical tricks?
If a civilization were to evolve towards artificial intelligence (AI), it could survive for millions of years. This could mean that it would carelessly regard the slow walk towards a neighboring star as nothing more than a leisurely stroll.
That said, few astronomers were impressed by the U.S. Navy’s videos or government reports. We need significantly better evidence and data than what has been presented thus far.
Unveiling of UFOs
How can we test whether there are alien probes near Earth, and whether they can be linked to the possible UFO phenomenon? There are many options.
Analyzing materials from potentially crashed UFOs could provide irrefutable evidence. This requires advanced techniques to determine whether these wrecks exhibit exotic or clearly different production characteristics.
Obtaining such exotic monsters, if they indeed exist, can prove to be a challenge; rumor has it that they are owned by private companies. But newly proposed legislation could solve that problem in the United States by mandating that all artificial material from any non-human intelligence be turned over to the U.S. government.
In the projects I lead, we search for artificial non-human objects by looking for brief flashes of light in the night sky. Brief flashes usually occur when a flat, highly reflective surface, such as a mirror or glass, reflects sunlight. However, it can also be the result of an artificial object that emits its own internal light.
Such short bursts of light sometimes repeat and follow a straight line as the object tumbles in space during its orbit around Earth. This is why satellites often appear as repeating flashes of light in images.
Historic photographic plates taken before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 have revealed the presence of nine light sources (transients) that appear and disappear within an hour in a small image, defying astronomical explanation. In some cases, the transient light sources are even aligned, just as when short flashes come from moving objects.
The latest find of this kind shows three bright stars in an image from July 19, 1952 (coincidentally the same time as the famous UFO flyovers in Washington). The three stars were never seen again.
Searching for alien probes in the modern night sky poses a serious but necessary challenge. A new research program known as ExoProbe uses multiple telescopes to look for short bursts of light from potential alien objects.
To verify the authenticity of each flash, it must be observed in at least two different telescopes. Because these telescopes are hundreds of kilometers apart, each flash of light caused by an object in the inner solar system allows the measurement of parallax – the apparent shift in an object’s position when viewed from two different points – and the calculation of its distance to the object.
The ExoProbe project also uses its own methods to filter out flashes of light from the millions of space debris fragments and thousands of satellites that clutter the sky.
By adding a telescope that records real-time spectra (the wavelength distributions of light) of the objects in a wide field, you can analyze the transients before they disappear into thin air.
Finally, increasing the number of telescopes improves accuracy in measuring parallax and determining the actual three-dimensional location of the object. Ultimately, the goal is to identify every potential extraterrestrial object and return it to Earth for further study.
About sixty years of searching for extraterrestrial civilizations on radio frequencies has not turned up a single candidate. We are at a time when new avenues need to be explored. That means we can finally focus our attention closer to home. Regardless of the outcome, this journey is certainly a tribute to our insatiable curiosity.
Beatriz Villarroel, Assistant Professor of Physics, Stockholm University
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