Harvard professor says interstellar meteor he discovered could be relic of alien spacecraft

Examples of spherules from IM1’s path. (Image credit: Avi Loeb/Medium)

Harvard professor Avi Loeb claims to have found remains of an interstellar object that crashed into the ocean in 2014. Loeb and his team recovered 50 unusual iron spheres off the coast of Papua New Guinea last week as part of their underwater search operation.

The object of Loeb’s curiosity is a meteor that came hurtling towards the earth in 2014 and exploded into tiny fragments about a hundred kilometers off the coast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. The trajectory of the object suggested that it originated outside our solar system.

The meteor, named IM1, could be the first recognised interstellar object to reach the Earth. According to Loeb, the object’s interstellar origins were confirmed by NASA in 2022. He strongly believes it originated outside our solar system, partly because of the speed at which it crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Loeb’s discovery

Now, Avi Loeb’s US government-backed quest to search the ocean floor for the mysterious interstellar object has concluded.

On June 21, 2023, he discovered tiny spherical fragments called "spherules" on the ocean floor along the likely path of the IM1 meteor.

“We got it — material from the first recognised interstellar meteor,” Loeb, 61, told The Times. “[It’s] the first time humans have put hands on an object from outside our solar system.”

But the controversial Harvard astronomer has another theory about the interstellar object – he believes it may be “artificial” in origin, meaning it may have been part of an alien spacecraft that crashed above the earth.

“We will analyse it, figure out what it’s made of and determine whether it’s natural, or a relic of a probe or a spacecraft,” he explained.

“If it’s natural, we will learn something new about the environment beyond our cosmic backyard. In principle, there’s a chance it could be artificial, in which case the impact on humanity will be far greater.”

The spherules are composed of iron, magnesium, and titanium. “This composition is anomalous compared to human-made alloys, known asteroids, and familiar astrophysical sources,” Loeb wrote in one of his Medium blog posts, noting the absence of nickel in the composition.