Professor Avi Loeb (Host)

similar to what satellites would produce.

And by the way, some people are not aware, but in order to explain the transients in the photographic plates, you need to assume that these are very brief flashes of light that last less than a tenth of a second, because otherwise the satellite would move across the sky.

and would create a streak.

And instead we see the transients as point sources.

So that means that they were associated, if it's a satellite, that there were brief flashes of light, presumably due to having a solid surface, let's say a flat surface that was aligned just at the right angle to reflect sunlight for a very brief amount of time, 10th of a second.

So that's the assumption underlying the association of these transients in the photographic plates with satellites.

The idea is that it's a glint lasting for less than a tenth of a second, because these plates were exposed for an hour.

and you would get a clear streak if it was not a very brief flare.

So if you have a glint from a satellite, you might as well consider a glint from a U-2 airplane as another possible source of noise.

These are not things to be upset by because

They do exist.

And the only question is, can we distinguish?

And that's always the way that science is done.

It's not by people saying, how dare you bring up this noise?

I don't want to hear about it.

And you should apologize for bringing this up.

No, scientists do not apologize for considering noise.

This is part of the scientific process.

No, no, that would be useful to ask the government if they have any documentation from the 1950s that is consistent with transient sources in the sky of the type that, yeah.

And in fact, I'm very much in favor of asking them that.