Shiny, reddish in color, oblong, somewhere between 300 and 3,000 feet in length and moving at an eye-watering 16 miles a second, the object zoomed into our system and past the sun. When Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk first noticed the thing in a telescope survey in October 2017, it was already on its way out of our system.
Astronomers were baffled by this object, which they named “`Oumuamua.” That’s Hawaiian for “scout.” No one knew for sure what `Omuamua is—or isn’t.
Just one leading scientist was willing to say what others may only have been thinking. `Oumumua’s speed, course and shape were possible signs it’s an alien craft, according to Avi Loeb, a Harvard physicist. “The possibility of an artificial origin for `Oumuamua must be considered,” Loeb wrote in a hallmark 2021 study.