US astrophysicist claims alien technology may have crashed in the Pacific close to Australia

A Harvard scientist has said an interstellar object that crashed in the Pacific not far from Australia may contain “technological components”.

A top scientist is plotting a mission to find what he believes is alien technology lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Controversial astrophysicist Avi Loeb believes an interstellar object that crash-landed on Earth in 2014 was some form of spacecraft, reported the US Sun.

A US Space Command (USSC) report released last week confirmed that the object was from another star system.

The agency concluded that the projectile – which streaked across the sky off the coast of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea close to Australian waters – was a meteor.

Prof Loeb, however, is having none of it. He claimed on Wednesday that the object could have been built by extraterrestrials.

“Our discovery of an interstellar meteor heralds a new research frontier,” the Harvard astronomer wrote in an essay for technology news website The Debrief.

“The fundamental question is whether any interstellar meteor might indicate a composition that is unambiguously artificial in origin.

“Better still, perhaps some technological components would survive the impact.”

Prof Loeb has spent decades studying astronomy and more recently has trained his sights on the possibility that life exists beyond Earth.

Astrophysicist Avi Loeb has said a meteor that crashed into the Pacific in 2014 may be worth investigating to see if it contains alien technology.

His bold claims frequently make headlines and he has faced criticism from others in his field over his outlandish extraterrestrial theories.

Working with a student at Harvard, Prof Loeb was actually the astronomer who identified the object as interstellar a few years ago.

The pair wrote a paper about it but were instructed not to publish it because they used classified government data for their research.

After the USSC confirmed their hunch on April 7, Loeb is calling for an expedition to find whatever’s left of the object.

In his essay, he noted that a retrieval expedition could be achieved using “scooping” magnets to explore the 10 square kilometre region of the Pacific Ocean where the object is thought to have landed.

“My dream is to press some buttons on a functional piece of equipment that was manufactured outside of Earth,” he added.

The prolific astrophysicist is no stranger to controversy.

He has produced provocative research on black holes, space radiation, the early universe and other topics of his field.

Over the past decade his focus has been trained on a more contentious topic: The possibility that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials.

Prof Loeb has repeatedly claimed that Oumuamua – an interstellar object that zipped through the Solar System in 2017 was technology sent by aliens.

This article originally appeared on the US Sun and was reproduced here with permission.