Avi Loeb

Loeb chaired astronomy at Harvard for nine years and has published several hundred papers, and Extraterrestrial argues that the interstellar object called Oumuamua was more probably a piece of alien technology than a rock, on the basis of its shape, its brightness and an acceleration no comet tail explained. Most of the field disagrees and has published natural accounts involving nitrogen or hydrogen ice. He says the discipline is too frightened of the subject to look; his critics say he takes conclusions to the public before the review process. He now runs a project searching for technological artefacts. The credentials are real and so is the isolation, and a reader should hold both.