Alien technology might be monitoring the Earth and paying us a visit, a Harvard professor, reviewing the discovery of 'Oumuamua, writes in a new book.
Citing the object's size, shape, brightness, reflectivity, and movement, Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy, considers 'Oumuamua ("oh moo ah moo ah" which is roughly Hawaiian for "scout") too unique to be natural, making it more likely to be alien technology.
"What would happen if a caveman saw a cellphone?" Loeb asked, per the New York Post. "He's seen rocks all his life, and he would have thought it was just a shiny rock."
Loeb's work is chronicled in the soon to be released book "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth," out Jan. 26.
"Some people do not want to discuss the possibility that there are other civilizations out there," Loeb told the Post. "They believe we are special and unique. I think it's a prejudice that should be abandoned."
'Oumuamua is small, oddly shaped, uniquely bright and shiny, and moving away from the sun and at varying speeds, defying past findings of comets, according to scientific research.
"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 in his book, per the Post, adding 'Oumuamua is at least "10 times more reflective than typical solar system [stony] asteroids or comets."
"The excess push away from the sun — that was the thing that broke the camel's back," Loeb continued to the Post, saying it accelerated "slightly, but to a highly statistically significant extent."
This has lead Loeb to postulate the rare interstellar object is a form of alien space trash.
"The only way to look for [alien civilizations] is to look for their trash, like investigative journalists who look through celebrities' trash," Loeb added to the Post.
Loeb says the findings in his book "should motivate people to collect more data on the next object that looks weird."
"It would put us in perspective," Loeb told the Post. "If we are not alone, are we the smartest kids on the block? If there was a species that eliminated itself through war or changing the climate, we can get our act together and behave better. Instead, we are wasting a lot of resources on Earth fighting each other and other negative things that are a big waste."