Well, it’s exactly the approach that I took. I approached this with a scientific mind, like I approach any other problem in astronomy or science that I work on. The point is that we follow the evidence, and the evidence in this particular case is that there are six peculiar facts. And one of these facts is that it deviated from an orbit shaped by gravity while not showing any of the telltale signs of cometary outgassing activity. So we don’t see the gas around it, we don’t see the cometary tail. It has an extreme shape that we have never seen before in either asteroids or comets. We know that we couldn’t detect any heat from it and that it’s much more shiny, by a factor of ten, than a typical asteroid or comet. All of these are facts. I am following the facts.

It’s possible that the civilization is not alive anymore, but it did send out a spacecraft. We ourselves sent out Voyager I and Voyager II. There could be a lot of equipment out there. The point is that this is the very first object we found from outside the solar system. It is very similar to when I walk on the beach with my daughter and look at the seashells that are swept ashore. Every now and then we find an object of artificial origin. And this could be a message in a bottle, and we should be open-minded. So we put this sentence in the paper.

we need to consider the possibility that ‘Oumuamua was sent by aliens, the dangers of unscientific speculation, and what belief in an advanced extraterrestrial civilization has in common with faith in God.

An invitation, in Klingon, to attend a performance (on Earth) of a Klingon opera

The models of three Lego figurines sent with the Juno spacecraft are Galileo Galilei, and the Roman gods Juno and Jupiter.

Indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to send (though it’s a bit macabre) would just be whole cryonically preserved humans (and, yes, they should keep well at the temperature of interstellar space!). Of course, it’s ironic how similar this is to the Egyptian idea of making mummies—though our technology is better (even if we still haven’t yet solved the problem of cryonics).

Impressively, that’s exactly what happened: people spammed the line with stories about space aliens. Which led to an amazing statement from ICE, describing the calls as a cheap publicity stunt “beyond the pale of legitimate public discourse” that is both “absurd” and “shameful.”

fast radio bursts sweeping across outer space have puzzled scientists for years, but some scientists are examining the possibility that these millisecond-long radio emission flashes come from advanced alien technology in extragalactic civilizations.