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editorial

The story, as we non-scientists understand it, is that a cigar-shaped object was spotted in our solar system last fall, and that it behaved in strange ways that can’t be explained by existing scientific theory, and therefore it might have been an alien spaceship or probe.

Humanity should pray this isn’t true. Otherwise, those aliens caught us at a really bad time.

What is known of Oumuamua, the name given to the object after it was spotted by telescope in Hawaii in October, 2017, is that while it looked like an asteroid, its trajectory was more like that of a comet. But while it moved through the heavens like a comet, it didn’t have a comet’s tail.

Furthermore, after it arrived in our solar system from deep space and spent a little time in the neighbourhood, it abruptly sped away more quickly than the laws of gravity should allow, as if it were in a particular hurry or had seen something that spooked it.

This is what led two Harvard University professors to posit that the unusual visitor “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.” Other scientists have looked at their argument and countered that they are “probably wrong,” but that is as far as the evidence will allow them to go.

We’re no experts, but the fact the object accelerated away from us like a frightened rabbit certainly suggests the presence of intelligent life: How else to react upon discovering a small, tired planet inhabited by an easily irritated and unpleasant species that appears to communicate in short bursts of harsh static. If we came across ourselves now, we’d probably scamper in the opposite direction, too.

Of course, maybe that’s all for the better. If aliens landed on Earth today, descended their saucer and said, “Take us to your most powerful leader,” most of us would probably respond, “Do we really have to?”

Of all the solar systems in all the universe, aliens had to walk into ours in late 2017. Come back, Oumuamua, and give us another chance. Try again in, say, early, 2021. And give us a warning next time. We clean up pretty nicely if we know company is coming.

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