Harvard —

The chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, Avi Loeb, believes that evidence of extraterrestrial life has already been found.

Loeb, in his upcoming book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent life Beyond Earth, makes a case for why the mysterious object Oumuamua was a piece of alien technology.

Oumuamua entered our solar system on Sept. 6, 2017 from the direction of Vega, a star 25 light-years from Earth. The object’s course took it around the sun and slingshotted itself toward the Pegasus constellation, according to Loeb.

What made this small object so fascinating is that astronomers concluded Oumuamua was not bound by the sun’s gravity, suggesting the object was not being brought into the system but traveling through the system.

Loeb says many of his colleagues assumed the object was a comet. The professor said that assumption risked “the familiar to define what we might discover.”

“What would happen if a caveman saw a cellphone?” Loeb asked. “He’s seen rocks all his life, and he would have thought it was just a shiny rock.”

Loeb’s thoughts turned to other possibilities. He made his claim that Oumuamua was not a normal space rock but a piece of long discarded technology from an alien culture.

The first thing that Loeb found odd was the object’s dimensions. The object was at least five to ten times longer than wide, like a cigar. Loeb points out that no naturally occurring space body discovered has looked similar.

“This would make ‘Oumuamua’s geometry more extreme by at least a few times in aspect ratio — or its width to its height — than the most extreme asteroids or comets that we have ever seen,” Loeb writes.

The surface of Oumuamua was very bright, “ten times more reflective than typical solar system [stony] asteroids or comets.”

Loeb suggests that the surface of the object was processed metals rather than naturally occurring metal ores.

“The excess push away from the sun — that was the thing that broke the camel’s back,” Loeb said.

The object, matching calculations, sped up when traveling toward the sun and should have slowed down when traveling away from the center of the system. Oumuamua sped up slightly as it moved from the sun.

Loeb suggesting the object was being propelled by forces besides gravity and inertia.

Until recent times, scientific instruments were not sensitive enough to detect small objects like Oumuamua. Loeb says technology soon will locate many more interstellar travelers.

“If we find another and we take a photo and it looks like a light sail, I don’t think anyone will argue with that.”