Avi Loeb

Anomalies are the only way by which we can learn that we're missing something.

Of course.

Yeah, so it's really in conflict with the way science should be done.

And I'm trying, you know, I used to be at the paratroopers in my early training in the military.

And back then they said, you know, if you see

a barbed wire on the ground.

Sometimes you have to put your body on the barbed wire so that your friends will be able to go across.

And sometimes it looks to me like putting my body on the barbed wire so that the young generation will have a better life.

But I sort of gave up on changing the opinion of senior members of academia because they're unreasonable.

But the work is still important to continue, yes?

Definitely, I'm doing it and I'm collaborating with younger people that I have great hopes in discussing this.

But at the same time, what would happen if the US government were to disclose some information that bears on this question, are we alone?

How would my colleagues respond to that?

That to me is the best...

by shedding light on the evidence, the best way to disinfect the stubbornness of academia.

Well, didn't the government endorse that comet that was found, that they said it was extrasolar, and then the one with Papua New Guinea?

Oh yeah, so in fact, back then I chaired the board on physics and astronomy of the National Academies.

My student helped me find this meteor in the NASA catalog that was moving at 60 kilometers per second outside the solar system from 2014.

And the reviewer of the paper said, we don't believe the US government.

The data must be faulty.