Are we alone in the universe? Most likely not, as most scientists believe the universe is so huge it is virtually impossible that there is not any other form of life.
If extraterrestrials do exist, the question remains whether they would ever show up. According to the Pentagon, the latter hypothesis is not to be ruled out entirely. In a draft report released last week, Defense officials speculated that extraterrestrial visitors to our solar system could launch smaller probes similar to those sent by NASA to examine other planets, including our own Earth.
UFOs are the focus of a draft research report released March 7 and authored by Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and Abraham Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department.
The AARO was created in July 2022 and is charged with monitoring objects in the air, sea, and space, as well as all carriers that have the ability to travel between these domains.
“An artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions,” the report claims. “These ‘dandelion seeds’ could be separated from the parent craft by the tidal gravitational force of the Sun or by a maneuvering capability.”
According to the study, in 2005 Congress instructed NASA to identify 90 percent of all near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters, which led to the development of the Pan-STARRS telescopes.
In October 2017, the super-telescope discovered a strange interstellar object, which was given the name ‘Oumuamua – which means ‘explorer’ in Hawaiian. The object was cigar-shaped, appeared flat and moved away from the Sun without revealing a cometary tail, leading experts to conclude that it was not a celestial body.
“With proper design, these tiny probes would reach the Earth or other solar system planets for exploration, as the parent craft passes by within a fraction of the Earth-Sun separation — just like ‘Oumuamua’ did,” the authors wrote. “Astronomers would not be able to notice the spray of mini probes because they do not reflect enough sunlight for existing survey telescopes to notice them.”
This latest study is the result of more than a month of investigations into strange flying objects over U.S. skies-a topic that has become hot in the news since the downing of an alleged Chinese spy balloon last month.
