The Galileo Project Agrees with Elon Musk About the Need to Search for Remnants of Alien Civilizations!
In a new recording of the “Verdict” podcast with Senator Ted Cruz, Elon Musk said: “Well, I suppose I have the philosophy of curiosity. I want to find out the nature of the Universe, understand the Universe. And in order to do that, we have to travel to other planets, see other star systems, maybe other galaxies, find perhaps alien civilizations or at least remnants of alien civilizations, and gain better understanding of where is this universe going. Where did it come from? And what questions do we not yet know to ask and answer about this universe?”
Elon could not have said it better. This is the narrative I expressed in my recent TED talk and in my recent essays. I can only hope that he will put his money where his mouth is. Scientific curiosity offers an opportunity to learn something new by collecting new data. Acquiring the data requires money and equipment.
The Galileo Project is actively searching for remnants of alien civilizations. It is currently assembling three new observatories for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) and planning ocean expeditions to retrieve materials from interstellar objects that crashed into our oceans as Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs). Our preliminary findings were summarized in peer-reviewed scientific papers that can be accessed here. Next week, I am scheduled to review our scientific research program at the home of Sir Richard Branson in Necker Island.
On the same day that Elon Musk posted this interview snippet on X, the classified JFK assassination files were released. Five weeks earlier, a congressional Task Force on Declassification and Transparency was established under the leadership of Representative Anna P. Luna who said that in addition to the JFK files: “We will also investigate UAPs/USOs”. If the U.S. government has scientific-quality data on UAPs/USOs that are not of human origin, its release would be of great value for science and save research time for the Galileo Project team.
The Galileo Project is currently converging on an expedition plan to visit the crash site of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1, and search for large pieces of the original object. The fireball’s location in the Pacific Ocean was identified by the U.S. Space Command based on data taken by U.S. Government satellites on January 8, 2014. This meteor came from outside the solar system at a speed of 60 kilometers per second, faster than 95% of all stars near the Sun. It also exhibited a tougher material strength than all meteors documented by NASA in its CNEOS catalog of fireballs. The Galileo Project team would like to check whether it was a technological remnant of an alien technological relic, like an interstellar Tesla Roadster car, by finding pieces that are larger than the molten droplets that our researchers already retrieved at IM1’s crash site, which exhibited an unusual chemical composition.
To achieve this goal, we wish to use the E/V Nautilus ship which is equipped with a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). This so-called Hercules ROV is a robot that can be operated by our engineers from the ship deck. It can pick up large pieces of interstellar objects from the ocean floor based on its direct video feed. We know the IM1 site well from our previous expedition. The ocean depth there is about 2 kilometers.
Pursuing this expedition will bring great benefits to science, as it could deliver the first large object from outside the solar system that scientists can put their hands on. To study an interstellar object which passes near Earth without colliding with it, would cost billions of dollars — a thousand times more than this expedition.
Here’s hoping that Elon will join the Galileo Project’s research team as a fun excursion from DOGE. Improving government efficiency is important, but finding whether we have an intelligent cosmic neighbor is more exciting, constituting the biggest discovery in human history. Aside from satisfying our curiosity, such a discovery could have practical benefits on Earth.
For example, a major technological challenge for reusable SpaceX rockets such as Starship, involves developing better heat shield tiles. The interstellar meteor IM1 was able to survive a ram-pressure of up to 200 megaPascals in the atmosphere, four times larger than the yield strength of iron meteorites. It maintained its integrity down to the lower atmosphere, 20 kilometers above the ocean surface, despite its high speed. By understanding IM1’s composition and material structure, we might get an insight for developing novel materials that would constitute optimal tiles for Starship. Whether interstellar meteors are natural or artificial in origin, learning about their response to the extreme conditions they sustained along their journey between the stars, could inspire new technologies that we had not imagined as of yet. After all, the sky’s the limit!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
