--- title: "Harvard Prof Teams Up With Military Official to Study Possible Alien “Mothership”" description: "A Harvard man and a ranking Pentagon official walk into a bar and start talking about alien motherships — stop me if you've heard this one before. " date: "2023-03-28" modified: "2023-03-28" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/harvard-professor-pentagon-alien-mothership" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Exobiology" - "Military" - "Science & Energy" - "Space" tags: - "`oumuamua" - "aliens" - "avi loeb" - "the digest" --- # Harvard Prof Teams Up With Military Official to Study Possible Alien “Mothership” ![]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Official Theory A Harvard professor and a ranking Pentagon official walk into a bar and start talking about alien motherships — stop me if you've heard this one before. No, this isn't a [Mel Brooks joke]() — it's a description of the actual authors of a [real-life paper](), albeit one that's still pending peer review. Written by Harvard's firebrand UFOlogist Avi Loeb and Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Pentagon’s new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was created by President Joe Biden last year and tasked with studying unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), the paper explores the possibility that there may be a sizeable alien "mothership" — yes, they used that word — somewhere out there that sends tiny probes they call "dandelion seeds" out to learn about various planets. Including, they speculate, Earth. ## Coincidentally Speaking Best known for his bold suggestion that 'Oumuamua, the strange object that flew by Earth in 2017, [could be alien in origin](), Loeb teamed up with Kirkpatrick to write in the paper that the theory was inspired both by that strangely-shaped interstellar interloper and by IM2, a small interstellar meteor that crashed to Earth six months prior. "The coincidences between some orbital parameters of ‘Oumuamua and IM2 inspires us to consider the possibility that an artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions," the pair wrote. "These 'dandelion seeds,'" they continued, "could be separated from the parent craft by the tidal gravitational force of the Sun or by a maneuvering capability." ## Probing Questions Beyond his insistence that 'Oumuamua could be alien in origin, Loeb has also made waves for his [newly-greenlit proposal]() to uncover yet another interstellar meteor from the Pacific Ocean and try to determine if it's artificial (read: extraterrestrial) — and last fall, he and his graduate astrophysics student Amir Siraj posited that IM2 is an "additional interstellar object candidate" in [yet another preprint paper](). While it's worth noting that the latest paper is not an official Pentagon document, it's nevertheless continued evidence of a sea change in the official stomach for UFO and ET talk that a [well-connected Harvard professor]() and a leading Department of Defense official could even attach their names to such a theory — and really, if it's a genuine line of inquiry, why shouldn't they? **More on Mr. Loeb:** [*Boring Scientists Say Strange 'Oumuamua' Space Object Wasn't Alien, Just Gassy*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()