A recent report by US Pentagon officials suggests that alien civilizations may be exploring our solar system with small probes that could gather and transmit data.
The report, co-authored by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the US Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard University’s Department of Astronomy, was published on March 7 and examines the physical constraints of unidentified aerial phenomena, reports jpost.com.
The authors propose that extraterrestrials may be using what they call “dandelion seeds”, which are very small spacecraft that can collect and transmit information, similar to NASA’s probes.
“An artificial object carried on a small aircraft that will release several small tracking devices may visit or has already visited earth,” the authors wrote.
“The aircraft can rely on the gravitational force of the sun, or move on its own.”
The report cites two examples of possible alien probes that were detected by NASA’s telescopes in Hawai’i. The first one is “Oumuamua”, a cylindrical object that was observed in October 2017 and was believed by some to be artificial.
The second one is an object approximately one meter in length that collided with the Earth six months before the appearance of “Oumuamua”.
The report claims that such objects could likely reach Earth without being detected by astronomers as they would be too small to reflect enough sunlight to see them with most of NASA’s telescope technology.
“All these [potential spy devices] could be equipped with a parachute with a large area-to-mass ratio, slowing their entry to Earth’s atmosphere,” wrote the report authors.
“This would prevent [the device from catching on] fire and [allow them] to pursue their targets wherever they land.”
The authors speculate that aliens may be interested in rocky planets with liquid water. They also note that any alien civilization that sends probes our way may no longer exist at all.
Most of the stars in the galaxy were formed billions of years before our sun. A habitable planet with intelligent life could have sent these spy devices long before the Earth was formed and they may still be roaming around our solar system.