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!
