The Harvard physicist says the meteorite fragments could be pieces of “technological gizmos” from outer space

(NewsNation) Nearly a decade ago, a meteor traveling faster than 95 percent of nearby stars crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb says there’s a possibility it wasn’t a space rock at all.

Loeb has just returned from an excursion in the Pacific Ocean, the purpose of which was to recover pieces of that meteor. He says those fragments could be the remains of a technological gadget from another solar system.

The 50 tiny spherules, or molten droplets, are thought to be made of a steel-titanium alloy that is stronger than the iron found in other meteors. This, coupled with the speed of the meteors, has Loeb and other researchers sure of one thing: It’s not from this solar system.

It’s the first time humans have held material from a large object from interstellar space in their hands, Loeb told CUOMO Wednesday as he held up a vial containing one of the spherules.

Loeb and his team recovered the molten droplets in the ocean off the coast of Papua New Guinea, where they determined that the meteor, IM1, crashed in 2014. The Defense Department confirmed to NASA in 2022 that the velocity of the meteor indicates an interstellar trajectory.

Setting out to search for fragments of the object, Loebs’ team dredged the ocean floor in June with a magnetic sled that collected mostly volcanic ash.

About a week into the expedition, the researchers found the metallic marbles, as Loeb described them, buried within the ash. The spherules are less than a millimeter in size.

We found them concentrated along the meteor’s path, and what’s more, the composition may be completely different from solar system objects, Loeb said. We are planning to use electron microscopes to also view them and examine what kind of isotopes they contain, such as radioactive isotopes.

Loeb leads Harvard University’s Project Galileo, set up to look for signs of UFOs and other interstellar objects. The latest expedition to the Pacific Ocean cost $1.5 million and resulted in a discovery that opens up a new frontier in astronomy, Loeb said in a Medium blog post.

The samples will undergo further testing at Harvard to determine exactly what they are made of.

Or it’s a rock that was created in an environment very different from the solar system because the strength of the material was harder than all space rocks, including iron meteorites, Loeb said. But it’s also possible that it was some kind of technological gadget. Just think of the Voyager (space vehicle) (from NASA) which in a billion years time collides with an exoplanet and burning in that planet’s atmosphere it would look like a meteor.

Loeb’s discovery comes on the heels of a whistleblower claiming the US government is withholding information about a UFO recovery program. Congress is investigating the matter, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the whistleblower, former intelligence officer David Grusch, isn’t the only person to have made such claims.

Now that he’s found the tiny fragments, Loeb hopes he can salvage a craft himself, if there’s large debris from the meteor’s impact.

If there’s a large relic, we know where it should be, Loeb said. We’re thinking about the next expedition, where we’ll scan the ocean floor with sonar and potentially find the core of this object, and then it’ll be easy to tell if it’s a rock or a technological gadget.