The He Zun Vessel, Oldest Inscription of the WORD “China”
A
Bronze Vessel discovered in 1963 on the Shaanxai Province bares the
oldest known Inscription of the word China ever recovered from
Antiquities, the significance of the find was not realised until 1975
when Inscriptions were deciphered and a message discovered with the
Character for the word “Central Region” which means China, it
proves the King of this, the longest Dynasty in Chinese History,
tried to Unify the Country 3000 Years ago,
Wait
till you hear this
Discovered
by a farmer who gifted it to a friend who sold the artieact to a
recycling company to buy grain after an Earthquake forced residents
into Poverty in Baoji before a museum employee spotted the object at
the facility and noticed an Ancient creature, the “Taotie” was
represented on the vessel known as He Zun through its Motif, fast
forward to 1975 when China held an exhibition in Japan where the He
Zun was meant to be displayed, it was here that an expert noticed the
Hieroglyphic character at the base of the object under layers of
rust, it was shipped back to China were the rust was removed and 12
rows of 122 characters were revealed and 119 of the characters
deciphered with only 3 remaining unknown,
It
revealed the name of the King, King Cheng of Zhou who reigned between
1042BC and 1021 BC Who had ordered the construction of the City of
Luoyang by order of the western Zhou dynasty
The
Phrase “zhaizi Zhong-Guo” means “To live in the Middle Kingdon”
This is the Chinese word for China “zhaizi Zhong-Guo” and this
confirms the use of the word China continuously for over 3 thousand
years now. An invaluable Inscription for the History of China and it
reads as translated by David W. Pankenier:
“It
was when the King began laying out his seat at Chengzhou. The King
returned from extolling King Wu in the Feng sacrifice, with
sarificial meat from the Hall of Heaven. In the fourth month, on day
bingxu, the king exhorted the scions of the royal clan in the
ancestral temple, saying: "In the past, your fathers were able
to aid King Wen, whereupon King Wen received this Great Command. When
King Wu conquered the great city Shang, he then made reverent
declarations to Heaven, saying: "Let me dwell in this, the
central region”, and from here govern the people." Hark! While
you are still minors lacking understanding, look to your fathers'
scrupulous respect for Heaven. Comprehend my commands and
respectfully follow orders! Your sovereign's reverential virtue finds
favour with Heaven, which guides me in my slow-wittedness." The
King's exhortation having finished, He was presented with the thirty
strings of cowries used to make this treasured sacrificial vessel for
his father Sire X. It was the King's fifth year."
"Let
me dwell in this, the central region” is the oldest Inscription of
China ever discovered from Chinese Hieroglyphs, it represents 3000
years of the use of the word
The
vessel, dating to the 5th year of the reign of King Cheng of Zhou, is
38.8cm tall, 28.8cm in diameter and weighs 14.6kg.
Inside
the container, at the base, it contains 12 rows of 122 inscribed
Chinese characters. Of the 122 characters, 119 are identified while 3
are unknown.
The
inscription contains this phrase China (宅𢆶𠁩或
(宅茲中國)
inscribed in early Zhou form, structurally different to the modern
form of the characters. The term for China (𠁩或)
here does not carry the same semantic meaning as the modern word,
referring rather to the "central region" of the newly
expanded Zhou political domain, but is the earliest occurrence in the
Chinese corpus of the word for China中國,
which gradually expanded in its meaning over the next millennium.
Scholars
have asserted that the regions surrounding the Yellow River Basin
were called “The Middle Kingdom” in the early years of this
Dynasty, including Luoyang, the ancient capital ordered by the King,
The
He zun is also the earliest known vessel bearing this character for
China (德),and
one of only 64 historical artefacts forbidden from ever leaving
Chinese soil by the Chinese communist party, it resides Today in the
Baoji Bronzeware Museum in Shaanxi but what do you guys think about
this anyway? Comments below and thank you for watching
In the The Tyranny of Nabonidus, a 5th century BC work, we see anger toward the squatter-man, assigning blame to an imposter who worshipped the figure, the apparent anger of the Torus field made the people question godly authority, they called him an imposter and accused him of misguidance, they thought the bad judgment resulted in indiscriminate anger, the people were beginning to think actions on the Earth were effecting the judgment of The Squatter-Man
Wait.. till you hear this
Places of Hindu Worship, Were built to Idolize the fluctuating plasmatic Squatter-Man, Zoroastrians too, personified and Worshipped the Same ancient torus field, these early religions assimilated experiences into Ideas that are found in Egypt, Iraq, China, Scandanavia and even in the tribes of Africa, Australia and the Americas,
Voodoo, Dogon, Aboriginal and Native American traditions all speak of old Sky events unlike any we experience today, they worshipped a figure that appeared to them, and the documentation is evident from the most primitive petroglyphs to the imagery of the ancient mystery religions and even right up to the digital code of this video. we are a species with amnesia, Brainwashed for control, and It is time for all of us to begin to wake up
In 100 BC, in the aeneid, the roman poet Virgil speaks of the rites of the Gods and the Mysteries of Bacchus, God of the night. By recognizing the identifying markers of the squatterman in the ancient imagery we can see that bacchus
is a regional name for the Squatter-Man. Here he is called god of the night because, we believe, that during the night, the plasmatic display of the Squatter-Man would have been that much more brilliant . So too we find many references of the ancient mother goddess to be the goddess of the night.
Virgil also states,
“Mars was able to destroy the Lapiths Monstrous race” ‘
This statement takes on a profound meaning when we realize he is referring to the squatterman.
Mars, AKA, ares. The god of war indeed is presented originally displaying the identifying markers of the squatterman. Either holding the two or being flanked by the two whatever those two might be and treading on the beasts.
Virgil also says,
The Father of the Gods himself yielded to Dianas rage”
The goddess
’ Diana also bears the identifying markers of the Squatterman . And her rage is paralleled in the hindu tales of the destructive dance of shiva the destroyer
Based on the totality of evidence from ancient texts, the petroglyph records and confirmations from modern plasma physicists we cant help but conclude that our solar system experienced dramatic and traumatic changes still embedded in our so called blood memory.
Glimpses seen even in the old chicken little story where the sky is falling
The ancient archetype of the assembly of the gods is a key to these mysteries and it seems that
The emanations of the assembly of the planet gods goes through a process that was of course held sacred. A pillar... a triangle.. even said to have once been shaped as an hourglass. And of course the Squatter-Man and ladder.. the Egyptian Obelisks appear to be a representation of that ancient sacred pillar, and
An analysis of Egyptian DJED pillars will give insight into the morphology of these ancient emanations.
By searching for the identifying markers in ancient imagery It is becoming apparent that names of planets were originally names for the squatterman. For example
The planet we know as Venus today was not always called Venus. The greeks and romans called that planet hesperus and phosphorus. Ultimately they chose to change the name to venus. The old mother goddess. Can you imagine the ancients relaxing on their rooftops in the evenings and marveling the mother goddess , Venus.. The Squatter-Man.
Its remarkable to Compare the imagery of Quetzalcoatl , medusa, pluto, cupid and yaldabaoth and see the undeniable similarities.
The farther back we peer, the more accuracy we see. But As the imagery crosses generations the meanings are forgotten. This shield here and variations of it are a memory of the assembly of the gods and the cosmic mountain, a projector of sorts which would ultimately manifest the squatterman. The cosmic mountain wasThe connection between heaven and earth that is now lost. The norse rainbow bridge that connected midgard to asgard. And its trembling was a sign of ragnarok. The end of the world of gods.
A thunderclap is globally thought of as the anger of the Gods, it’s a trauma, the lightning in the sky, a trauma from when these events were overwhelming to the observer, it effected our thinking and destroyed the World we once knew, the Ones that survived would believe they were Gods chosen people, Religions formed and assimilated over time as Empires emerged and collapsed, but we still intuitively remember the trauma inflicted on the soul of humanity
Using the template of the identifying markers, we can understand the origins of the mysterious roman religion of Mithraism...the central figure flanked by the two, under the assembly and treading on the beasts.. we can understand the Degraded imagery of the Menorah with the 2 birds or the two 2 dots, the squatterman under the winged disc of the assembly flanked by the two and thousands of other examples highlighted on our channels
Such as the Durga goddess Treading on the beasts, as well as the goddess Asherah, the so called Wife of God, our motivation is the search for truth and giving it freely to help whoever it may. There are many ancient mysteries that remain, but as to that goddess of the night
They saw it in the sky!!
Imagine
if such a place existed that was modelled after the Axis Mundi, The
Assembly of the Gods, the concentric circles once seen in the sky as
detailed everywhere we look on our World,
The
Azores must be the remains of sunken Atlantis, If you read Ignatius
Donnelly’s works on the subject he gives amazing accounts of land
masses rising and falling throughout human history. One problem with
Plato’s story that no one ever mentions: If the story came from an
Egyptian priest, he would have never used the word ‘Zeus’
The
ancients suffered severe effects of a catastrophic demise of a
presence in the Sky that made this Earth plentyful, they tried in
vain, almost relentlessly to recreate a World lost in the Cataclysmic
demise of the Ancient Golden ERA, THE AGE THAT IS NOW FORGOTTEN TO
US, WAS remembered in Antiquity, All Pyramid structures, Temples,
structures like the Kailasa temple, All these places are efforts to
recreate the Cosmic Mountain, the Age of Kronos.
All
across Siberia the squatter-man is found, All through out the most
Ancient cultures, the Squatter-Man is found, this is an influence
that assimilates until the meaning becomes lost, Symbolic in every
religion, yet it seems no priest or cardinal today even knows the
truth about our god-like perceptions, the light of the World.
The
Sumerians prayed to the Squatter-Man, from the library of our great
collaborator Kronos, one such prayer reads that,
‘rising
flood storm approaches mankind, people bring their prayers to you
like anxious birds rising, Imbued with awesomness, no one is
almightier than you, YOU, of terrifying appearance, endowed with
fearsome splendour, you are inbued with great awesomness. You are a
Hurricane that approaches mankind, a great storm that sweeps men
down, In the Mountains you measure the fields like a miracle emitted
from Heaven, You who brings daylight to the mountains and flashes
like lightning
You
are the lord of the Plantations and Gardens and green reed beds, of
the quadrupeds of the wide high desert, of the animals, all living
creatures of the plains, An, King of the gods has put them in your
hands, he has put them in your hands and you are their lord, Hero of
all, they cannot escape your clutches
August
wisdom fills the land like the Abzu, of his pure house, he tends to
this carefully, he calls the house of Cedar, he pours light over the
fields. The Lord of the Holy Mouth, standing on the high mountains,
the light keeping guard over every living thing, present constantly
every month in the great shrine, Uta-ulu, lord of the gods, Great
hero of An’s, GREAT lord of Enlils, Ninurta, August Son of E-Kur,
Lordly Son of his own father, your praise is sweet’
The
e-kur is the assembly of the gods, Enlil is the personification of
the cosmic mountain that the squatte-rman emerges from, Ninurta is a
name for the Squatter-Man and if you change the end of this prayer to
match these words as suggested by Kronos then it would read “ The
Lord of the Holy Mouth, Standing on the High Mountains, the light
keeping guard over every living thing, present constantly every month
in the great shine, Lord of the Gods, Great Hero of An’s, Great
Lord of the Cosmic mountain, Squatter-Man, August son of the Assembly
of the Gods, Lordly son of his own father, your praise is sweet
The
very word E-Kur translates to the assembly of the gods, it is a
Sumerian term meaning "mountain house". It is the assembly
of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to
Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient
Sumer
There
is a clear association of Ziggurats with mountain houses. Mountain
houses play a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and
Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with deities such as Anu,
Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag. In the Hymn to Enlil, the E-kur is closely
linked to Enlil whilst in Enlil and Ninlil it is the abode of the
Annanuki, from where Enlil is banished. The fall of E-kur is
described in the Lament for Ur. In mythology, the Ekur was the centre
of the earth and location where heaven and earth were united, so when
the prayer says “Son of E-Kur” the are praying to The Son of the
assembly of the Gods, The Squatter-Man.
“Mountain
house” is a poor translation. A better one is “the dwelling place
of the gods upon the mountain”.
But
the mountain is of course ‘cosmic’ In the texts sometimes they
differentiate the cosmic e-kur with the “brick built e-kur” This
is the same concept REGARDING Atlantis emulating the assembly of the
gods in the sky
If
you use the poor translation for “son of the e-kur” to mean son
of the mountain house... it makes no sense But if you say “son of
the assembly of the gods upon the mountain”, it makes perfect sense
thru the lense of our understanding of the THE squatter-man under the
assembly.
Here’s
the thing though, according to scholars “ninurta” is the
equivalent of “Saturn” So “Saturn “ was originally also a
name for the squatter-man
This
assembly... they were the anuna gods. The Anunnaki refers to gods
that came down from heaven. That doesn’t mean aliens that landed in
spaceships. It means the planet gods and their moons no longer
occupying their heavenly positions they once held.
Zecharia
sitchin muddied the waters badly with this understanding. In many
minds, Anunnaki automatically means ‘aliens’ ,
The
words are derivatives of the god ANU
In
the epic of Gilgamesh, ishtar (squatter-man) is enraged when
Gilgamesh refuses to marry her. So she rushes up to heaven to ask ANU
if she can wield the bull of heaven to attack Gilgamesh.
ANU
doesn’t want to allow this. Ishtar threatens to unleash a zombie
apocalypse upon the earth so he relents and gives her the bull of
heaven. Gilgamesh and Enkidu ultimately slay the bull of heaven. And
ishtar goes to the underworld - It’s the personification of real
events relating to the catastrophic demise of the assembly of the
gods and the squatter-man that was ‘lording’ over the earth
In
the lament for Urim, passages 179 through to 207 it reads,
Enlil brought Gibil as his aid. He called the
great storm of heaven -- the people groan. The great storm howls
above -- the people groan. The storm that annihilates the Land roars
below -- the people groan. The evil wind, like a rushing torrent,
cannot be restrained. The weapons in the city smash heads and consume
indiscriminately. The storm whirled gloom around the base of the
horizon -- the people groan. In front of the storm, heat blazes --
the people groan. A fiery glow burns with the raging storm.
After the haze had lifted at noon, he made fires
blaze. He locked up the day and the rising of the bright sun together
with the good storm. In the Land he did not let the bright sun rise;
it shone like the evening star. In the delightful night, the time
when coolness sets in, he redoubled the south wind.
The scorching potsherds made the dust glow, the
people groan. He swept the winds over the black-headed people -- the
people groan. Sumer was overturned by a snare -- the people groan. It
attacked the Land and devoured it completely. Tears cannot influence
the bitter storm -- the people groan.
The reaping storm dragged across the Land. Like a
flood storm it completely destroyed the city. The storm that
annihilates the Land silenced the city. The storm that will make
anything vanish came doing evil. The storm blazing like fire
performed its task upon the people. The storm ordered by Enlil in
hate, the storm which wears away the Land, covered Urim like a
garment and was spread out over it like linen.
The storm, like a lion, has attacked unceasingly
-- the people groan.
Then the storm was removed from the city, that
city reduced to ruin mounds
It then describes how Corpses are piled and
rotting all around the City as the survivors turned their heads, they
couldn’t bare what had happened and left as refugees,
With bright insights from Kronos, we can see thru
the confusion in the literature and gain insight into the events and
into the mindsets of the people that experienced this
There is much talk of “the squatter-man”
destroying the rebel lands. The lucky survivors would of course see
it that way from their perspective and write about their god helping
them. This is Indra destroying with his thunderbolt. It was so
destructive that the survivors describe scenes similar to nuclear
war. And this is why you see people claim the ancients had a nuclear
weapon war. They didn’t. They experienced all of this from events
taking place in the sky, THEY Saw it all IN THE SKY!
#TheSquatterManProject
Hymn 18, Mandala 4 IV Reg Veda BIRTH of the Squatter-man
The
Squatter-Man left the Earth in 3102 Years BC, This is the day Kali
Yuga began, Specifically, on the 18th of February at
midnight in 3102 years BC, This is the departure date of Vishnu,
Krishna, the Squatter-Man, the end of the connection, the beginning
of this current wave of existence,
In
Genesis, it begins to explain that ‘In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light”
Perhaps
it refers to the beginning of an event rather than the beginning of
Human existence, perhaps it refers to a time when a great darkness
consumed the Earth when Solar system movements of the Planets became
jolted, When Saturn began to expel supernova powers, demolishing the
asteroid belt, creating Earths Moon, the cataclysmic upheivel between
this time and the Golden age is bordered by a severe cataclysm that
was only survived in the Cave systems of the Earth, this could be why
places like Derinkuyu exist
Ancient
texts in other cultures speak of this as a birth, a time when all was
lost and the Ancient God sent a Son, When Saturn exchanged Plasma
with other Planets, Generating a torus field, the survivors seen this
as a miracle, a god-like figure, indiscriminate, the Son of Saturn’s
cosmic demise,
The
Hindus remember the Birth of Indra, a God whom came into being and
Immedietly conquered the Darkness and dominated the Heavens and the
Earth and brought fourth the flood, as Kronos says, the Flood as
strange as this might seem, the waters came down from above, it’s
as if the Water came as a vapour in the form of Hydrogen and Oxygen
Vapour effected by gravitational forces that brought the great flood,
This
is immortalised in Hymn 18, Mandala 4 of the Reg Veda, as provided by
the reg veda analysis blog with thanks, it reads:
What strange act shall he do, he whom his
Mother bore for a thousand months and many autumns? No
peer hath he among those born already, nor among those who shall be
born hereafter. Deeming him a reproach, his mother hid
him, Indra, endowed with all heroic valour. Then up he
sprang himself, assumed his vesture, and filled, as soon as he was
born, the entire earth and heaven.
The greatest god of the ancient world is about to
be born. A god, without peer among those born already or among those
who shall be born hereafter, this is the birth of the squatter-man
Vrtra, the dragon, had imprisioned all the waters
in the world. None of the gods, could free the waters and had given
up this task as a lost cause. Only a cataclysmic event could achieve
what even the gods could not. It needed the arrival of a god more
powerful than any that existed or would come later, the Torus field,
the birth of Indra
I cast thee from me, mine,-thy youthful
mother: thee, mine own offspring, Kusava hath swallowed. To
him, mine infant, were the waters gracious. Indra, my Son, rose up in
conquering vigour.
The goddess Earth, who bore him for a thousand
months and many autumns, hid him, deeming him a reproach . She passed
his embryo, and it was swallowed by Kushava, in whose womb it
developed favorably, since “the waters were gracious to the child”.
Hereby could one be born though waxen mighty.
Let him not, otherwise, destroy his Mother. Not this
way go I forth: hard is the passage. Forth from the side obliquely
will I issue. Much that is yet undone must I
accomplish; one must I combat and the other question.
Indra defied the ancient and accepted way by which
all gods have come into existence. “Not this way go I forth, hard
is the passage. Forth from the side obliquely will I issue”, he
proclaimed, even as he lay in the womb of his mother. His time had
come, and ominously he declared, “Much that is yet undone must I
accomplish; one must I combat and the other question.” the
immediate task to be accomplished was the slaying of the dragon
Vrtra, bringing light to the world and releasing the waters held by
him,
Thou art mine own, O Mag havan, whom Vyamsa
struck to the ground and smote thy jaws in pieces. But,
smitten through, the mastery thou wonnest, and with thy bolt the
Dasa’s head thou crushedst. He bent his eye upon the
dying Mother: My word I now withdraw. That way I follow. In
Tvastar’s dwelling India drank the Soma, a hundred worth of juice
pressed from the mortar.
The Heifer hath brought forth
the Strong, the Mighty, the unconquerable Bull, the furious
Indra. The Mother left her unlicked Calf to wander,
seeking himself, the path that he would follow. Then to
her mighty Child the Mother turned her, saying, My son, these Deities
forsake thee. Then Indra said, about to slaughter
Vrtra, O my friend Vrtra, stride full boldly forward.
Indra, of his own volition, insisted on being
delivered the unusual way, eventually resulting in the death of
Kusava. Kusava, so incapacitated, was unable to care for the newborn.
Allegorically, Vamadeva the composer of this hymn, says, “The
Heifer hath brought forth the Strong, the Mighty, the unconquerable
Bull, the furious Indra. The Mother left her unlicked Calf to wander,
seeking himself, the path that he would follow.”
Are they addressing him with words of welcome?
Will the floods take on them the shame of Indra? With
his great thunderbolt my Son hath slaughtered Vrtra, and set these
rivers free to wander. With lively motion onward flow
these waters, the Holy Ones, shouting, as ’twere, together. Ask
them to. tell thee what the floods are saying, what girdling rock the
waters burst asunder.
Worse still, Kusava’s husband, Vyamsa, did
everything he could to ensure the newborn was put to death. Vyamsa
struck to the ground and smote Indra jaws in pieces. Undeterred,
Indra seized a bolt and crushed Vyamsa’s head. After all, even at
birth, Indra was endowed with all heroic valour. As soon as he was
born, he sprang himself, assumed his vesture, and filled the earth
and heaven.
Having widowed Kusava, Indra took one last look at
her, even as she lay their dying and hurried towards Tvastar’s
dwelling and drank an enormous amount of Soma. What was ordained had
to be fulfilled and even a dying mother could not bind the god. The
orphanded god, forsaken by the other gods, now turned to his only
friend Visnu, “O my friend Visnu, stride full boldly forward”.
Thus saying, Indra slew Vrtra, liberating the waters, which burst
forth from the COSMIC mountain stronghold where they had been
imprisoned.
With great pride, the goddess Earth exults, “With
his great thunderbolt my Son hath slaughtered Vrtra, and set these
rivers free to wander”. And given the single handed accomplishment
of her son, then mocks the other gods, “Are they (the gods)
addressing him with words of welcome? Ask them (the gods) to tell
thee what the floods are saying, what girdling rock the waters burst
asunder”.
This extraordinary account of events must be a
record of an ancient epochal milestone in the history of humankind,
it’s the Birth of the Squatter-Man,
The imprisionment of waters in the world, the
capture of the sun god, and long lasting nights – a recurring theme
in the Rig Veda, related to the Vrtra legend, point to a period in
the history of humankind similar to conditions that would have
existing during an ice age, a time when the Earth had a diminished
Sun, before the prevailing light we see today came into being
Only a cataclysmic event would have reversered
conditions. What we do know is around 13,000 years or so ago, a
global meltdown resulted in the birth of several rivers and rise in
sea levels the world over,
The composers of the Rig Veda, linked an ancient
human memory with the birth of their great god Indra. While this
particular hymn, gives no clues to what the exact cause of the
meltdown might have been, the association is apparent. From this
hymn, we may infer that the cause is earth bound – for his mother
“bore him for a thousand months and many autumns”. We are told of
the gargantuan scale of the event because at its occurence it was
“endowed with all heroic valour”. “Then up he sprang himself,
assumed his vesture, and filled, as soon as he was born, the entire
earth and heaven.”
The result of this event is the demise of Vrtra,
the demon, that no other gods were able to put an end to and the
release of waters the world over, out of the darkness, life again
would prevail
Avi Loeb is no stranger to controversy. The prolific Harvard University astrophysicist has produced pioneering and provocative research on black holes, gamma-ray bursts, the early universe and other standard topics of his field. But for more than a decade he has also courted a more contentious subject—namely, space aliens, including how to find them. Until relatively recently, Loeb’s most high-profile work in that regard was his involvement withBreakthrough Starshot, a project funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Yuri Milner to send laser-boosted, gossamer-thin mirrorlike spacecraft called “light sails” on high-speed voyages to nearby stars. All that began to change in late 2017, however, when astronomers around the worldscrambled to study an enigmatic interstellar visitor—the first ever seen—that briefly came within range of their telescopes.
10 Sec
The object’s discoverers dubbed it ‘Oumuamua—a Hawaiian term that roughly translates to “scout.” The unavoidably cursory examinations of this celestial passerby showed it had several properties that defied easy natural explanation. ‘Oumuamua’s apparent shape—which was like a 100-meter-long cigar or pancake—did not closely resemble any known asteroid or comet. Neither did its brightness, which revealed ‘Oumuamua was at least 10 times more reflective than one of our solar system’s typical space rocks—shiny enough to suggest the gleam of burnished metal. Most strangely, as it zoomed off after swooping by the sun, the object sped up faster than could be explained by our star’s waning gravitational grip alone. Run-of-the-mill comets can exhibit similar accelerations because of the rocketlike effect of evaporating gases jetting from their sunlight-warmed icy surfaces. But no signs of such jets were seen around ‘Oumuamua.
To Loeb, the most plausible explanation was as obvious as it was sensational: taken together with its possibly pancakelike shape and high reflectivity, ‘Oumuamua’s anomalous acceleration made perfect sense if the object was in fact a light sail—perhaps a derelict from some long-expired galactic culture. Primed by years spent pondering how we might someday find evidence of cosmic civilizations in the sky’s depths, he became increasingly convinced that, with ‘Oumuamua, the evidence had instead found us. In late 2018 Loeb and his co-author Shmuel Bialy, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow, published a paperin theAstrophysical Journal Lettersarguing that ‘Oumuamua had been nothing less than humanity’s first contact with an artifact of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The paper has been a smash hit with journalists but has fallen flat with most of Loeb’s astrobiology-focused peers, who insist that, while strange, ‘Oumuamua’s properties still place it well within the realm of natural phenomena. To claim otherwise, Loeb’s critics say, is cavalier at best and destructive at worst for the long struggle to remove the stigma of credulous UFO and alien-abduction reports from what should unquestionably be a legitimate field of scientific inquiry.
Loeb has now taken his case to the public with the book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life beyond Earth, which is just as much about the author’s life story as it is about ‘Oumuamua’s fundamental mysteries. Scientific American spoke with Loeb about the book, his controversial hypothesis and why he believes science is in crisis.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Hi Avi. How are you?
I’m good, but I have been losing sleep, because in order to cope with all the media requests, I’ve been doing interviews with, for example, Good Morning Britain at 1:50 A.M. and Coast to Coast AM at 3 A.M.—plus appearances on U.S. network and cable television. I’ve got about 100 podcast interviews to do in the next few weeks. And I already recorded long conversations with [podcasters] Lex Fridman and Joe Rogan for their shows. I’ve never seen anything like this; there has been so much interest in the book. I mean, there were 10 filmmakers and producers from Hollywood who contacted me over the past few weeks! I joked with my literary agent that if a film comes out of this, I want to be played by Brad Pitt.
Ha, indeed, the resemblance is uncanny. Based on your productivity, I’ve never gotten the sense that you get a lot of sleep anyway.
My routine is to wake up each morning at 5 A.M. and go jogging. It’s really beautiful when nobody's outside—just me and the birds, ducks and rabbits. And, yes, because of the pandemic, the past 10 months have been the most productive in my career. I don’t need to commute to work. I don’t need to meet so many people. And most importantly, I don’t need to think about what’s wrong with all the things that other people say!
Speaking of important things, here is one I think we both agree on: in science, we must keep each other honest. I mention it only because there’s a point in Extraterrestrial where you claim you don’t want the limelight and that you’re not interested in self-promotion. How can that be true?
Let me explain. I think talking to the media is an important opportunity because it allows me to share my message with a broader audience that otherwise would not have exposure to it.
What is your message, exactly? I take it you’re talking about more than ‘Oumuamua.
Yes. My message is that something is wrong with the scientific community today in terms of its health.
Too many scientists are now mostly motivated by ego, by getting honors and awards, by showing their colleagues how smart they are. They treat science as a monologue about themselves rather than a dialogue with nature. They build echo chambers using students and postdocs who repeat their mantras so that their voice will be louder and their image will be promoted. But that’s not the purpose of science. Science is not about us; it’s not about empowering ourselves or making our image great. It’s about trying to understand the world, and it’s meant to be a learning experience in which we take risks and make mistakes along the way. You can never tell in advance, when you work on the frontier, what is the right path forward. You only learn that by getting feedback from experiments.
Which is the other problem with science today: people are not only motivated by the wrong reasons; they are also no longer guided by evidence. Evidence keeps you modest because you predict something, you test it, and the evidence sometimes shows you’re wrong. Right now you have many celebrated scientists doing mathematical gymnastics about lots of untestable things: string theory, the multiverse, even the theory of cosmic inflation. Once, in a public forum, I asked [physicist] Alan Guth, who originated the theory, “Is inflation falsifiable?” And he said it’s a silly question, because for whatever cosmological data an experiment gives us, a model of inflation can be found that accommodates it. And therefore, inflation is in a very strong position because it can explain anything! But I see this as a very weak position because a theory of everything is sometimes a theory of nothing. There may be no difference between the two.
To me, this bubble of imaginary stuff is like being high on drugs: You can get high and imagine that you’re wealthier than Elon Musk, who is now the richest person in the world. That’s a very fun thought. You can feel really good about it and talk about it with your friends. And if you’re part of a big like-minded community, everyone can support and respect one another, and you give one another awards, and that’s great, right? But then if you go to withdraw funds, if you want to really spend that money you think you have, you realize that you don’t actually have anything. Just like going to an ATM, doing experiments can serve as a reality check. And in science, it’s essential that we have that check—that we make testable predictions and put some skin in the game—because otherwise we won’t learn anything new. I don’t think that’s properly recognized anymore.
So speculating about string theory and multiverses is bad, but speculating about alien civilizations and their artifacts passing through the solar system is okay? You could say appealing to “aliens” can explain anything, too.
The difference is: you can make predictions and test for the latter, and the speculations come from a conservative position.
If ‘Oumuamua is a member of a population of objects moving on random trajectories, then based on its discovery with the Pan-STARRS telescope, you can estimate that we should very soon begin finding, on average, one of these objects per month after the Vera C. Rubin Observatory comes online. We can also establish a system of instruments—satellites, maybe—that would not only monitor the sky but also be able to react to the approach of such objects so we can get photographs of them as they come in rather than chasing them as they go out, because they move very fast. Not all this work needs to be in space, either: You can imagine meteors of interstellar origin as well, and we can search for those. And if you find any that ended up on Earth’s surface, you might even be able to examine them with your own hands.
People ask why I get this media attention. The only reason is because my colleagues are not using common sense. Contrast string theory and multiverses with what I and many others say, which is that based on the data from NASA’s Kepler mission, roughly half of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have a planet about the size of the Earth, at about the same distance of the Earth from the sun, so that you can have liquid water on the surface and the chemistry of life as we know it. So if you roll the dice on life billions of times in the Milky Way, what is the chance that we are alone? Minuscule, most likely! To say that if you arrange for similar circumstances, you get similar outcomes is, to me, the most conservative statement imaginable. So I would expect most people to endorse that, to hug me and say, “Great, Avi, you’re correct. We should look for these things because they must be very likely.” Instead what I see is a backlash that shows a loss of an intellectual compass—because how else can you explain working on string theory’s extra dimensions or the multiverse when we have no clue for their existence? But that is considered mainstream? That’s crazy.
Allow me to put this in a very specific context. I’m obviously not a rebel outsider; I’m in leadership positions. I chair the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies [of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine], okay? That board is overseeing the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, which will set major science priorities for NASA and the [National Science Foundation] when it is released later this year. Now, I see astronomers talking about future telescopes costing billions of dollars, with the main motivation being to find life by looking for oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets. That is a noble wish. But if you look at the Earth for its first two billion years or so, the planet did not have much oxygen in its atmosphere even though it had a lot of microbial life. That’s point number one. Point number two is that even if you have oxygen, you can get it from natural processes such as breaking apart water molecules. So even if you if you spend these billions and find oxygen and maybe even find methane along with it, people will still argue about it forever. Look at how much discussion there has been about the potential detection of phosphine on Venus, which is a very unusual molecule, compared with oxygen. Anyway, my point is that with these same instruments—you don’t need any extra investment of funds—you can actually get conclusive evidence for life, intelligence and technology. What would that be? Industrial pollution in the same atmosphere. You could, for instance, look for chlorofluorocarbons, these complex molecules only produced on Earth for refrigeration systems. If you found that on another planet, there is just no way nature would produce these molecules naturally. You would have conclusive evidence that life—and more—existed there.
So what is the problem with saying that looking for industrial pollution is a worthwhile thing to do? What other than some sort of psychological barrier that prevents some scientists from admitting they want the search for technological signatures of alien civilizations to be at the periphery, with very little funding? What I’m saying is that these sorts of things should be prioritized and that they are conservative things to do because they will bring us the most information about the existence of alien life. And yet the opposite is being done right now.
You write about a concept you call “‘Oumuamua’s wager,” after Pascal’s wager, 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal’s argument that the benefits of assuming God exists outweigh the drawbacks. Similarly, you say believing ‘Oumuamua is an alien artifact would be a net good because it could catalyze a revolution in space science and technology centered around a more vigorous search for life and intelligence beyond Earth. Even if that hunt finds no aliens, your reasoning goes, we’d still gain a much deeper understanding of our cosmic context. And the investments behind it would enhance our ability to answer other questions about the universe and perhaps even help stave off our own extinction.
But if the stakes are so high, what about the counterargument that going “all in” on promoting ‘Oumuamua’s putative artificial nature is reckless and dangerous? Your critics say you are doing more harm than good. For instance, you mentioned you appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, one of the most popular in the world. That’s great for selling books. But given Rogan’s reputation for spreadingdangerousmisinformation on his podcast, is that sort of thing a wise move? Would you also agree to be a speaker at a gathering of UFO “true believers” outside Area 51? Where do you draw the line for public outreach that risks enhancing the so-called giggle factor that has stymied progress in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) for decades?
Okay, here is my point of view. By and large, the public funds science. And the public is extremely interested in the search for alien life. So I must ask: If scientists are supported by the public, how dare they shy away from this question that can be addressed with the technologies they are developing?
There are, of course, science-fiction stories about aliens, and there are many unsubstantiated UFO reports. Now, suppose there was some literature about the magical properties of COVID-19 that had no bearing in reality. Would that mean scientists should never work on finding a vaccine to this pandemic? No! I don’t see the search for technological signatures any differently from the search for the nature of dark matter. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in searching for weakly interacting massive particles, a leading dark matter candidate. And so far those searches have failed. That doesn’t mean they were a waste: going down dark alleys is part of the scientific process.
And in terms of risk, in science, we are supposed to put everything on the table. We cannot just avoid certain ideas because we worry about the consequences of discussing them, because there is great risk in that, too. That would be similar to telling Galileo not to speak about Earth moving around the sun and to avoid looking in his telescope because it was dangerous to the philosophy of the day. We should not want to repeat that experience. We need an open dialogue among scientists where people present different ideas and then allow evidence to dictate which one is right. In the context of ‘Oumuamua, I say the available evidence suggests this particular object is artificial, and the way to test this is to find more [examples] of the same and examine them. It’s as simple as that.
So how do you change this situation? I think the answer is to bring it to the public as much as I can.
In your book, you link your outspokenness about ‘Oumuamua with a phrase, an ethos, you learned when you were a conscript in the Israel Defense Forces: “To lay your body on the barbed wire.” That is, to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. Are you to be a martyr for this cause, then? Have you lost friends or stature over it?
No one has violently assaulted me or anything like that. Maybe people talk behind my back, which would make more sense, given my leadership positions. But I don’t really know. I have zero footprint on social media. Although I should say that I think my critics who are most vocal with nasty remarks on Twitter and elsewhere are relatively mediocre scientists. Most really good scientists would not behave that way—they would make arguments for or against my claims, and that would be enough. Nasty remarks don’t make sense—except, well, deep inside, I would not be surprised if many of these critics are actually quite intrigued by this possibility that ‘Oumuamua is artificial. But they don’t want to admit it. So they loudly say the opposite.
Unfortunately, my situation is different from that of the young postdocs who I’ve worked with because they need to apply for jobs. I’m sure that people have approached them and said, “Look, this is dangerous for you.” And so they froze and basically stopped working on anything related. This isn’t surprising. If you create a hostile intellectual culture where something like SETI is not being honored, then young, bright people will not go there. But don’t step on the grass and then complain it doesn’t grow as you stand on it. Don’t block brilliant researchers from working on SETI and then say, “Look, nothing is being found. SETI is a failure!”
None of this means all of space science should be about SETI. If you look at the commercial world, companies such as Bell Labs in the past or Google now, they incentivize and allow for their personnel to pursue innovative “blue-sky” research that is not immediately applicable for profit. But if you look at academia, it’s much more conservative than the commercial sector. That doesn’t make sense.
How do you respond to the idea that for a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail? Someone could uncharitably say what you are really doing here is attempting to curry further favor with wealthy benefactors, such as Yuri Milner, because you are an adviser for his Breakthrough Initiatives programs, which fund research related to SETI and light sails.
It’s true for me—and everyone else, I think—that my imagination is limited by what I know. I can’t deny the fact that my involvement in Breakthrough was influential here. I was the one who suggested the light sail [proposed by physicist Philip Lubin] to Yuri Milner as a promising concept for interstellar spacecraft in the first place. So I had it in my vocabulary, and as a result of that, I imagined it as applied to ‘Oumuamua. Now, you might ask, “Okay, well, isn’t that a biased view?” I would say this occurs again and again in physics and in SETI. In the context of SETI, you know, once we developed radio technology, we started searching the sky looking for radio signals. It was the same for lasers. It’s just natural that once you work on some technology that you imagine maybe it exists out there and search for it. So I would not deny that the reason the light sail idea was in my brain is because I had previously worked on it, yeah. But in terms of trying to motivate Yuri, that has nothing to do with it. Why would I do it this way when I can just approach him directly whenever I want to advocate my views? And it is not as if my work on ‘Oumuamua was coordinated with or supported by Breakthrough Initiatives. They have issued no press releases about my ideas. If anything, they might be worried—they have their own reputation to preserve and so forth. On this issue, I’ve had zero support from or communication with them. This was me being curious, not using ‘Oumuamua as some sort of a political vehicle in the context of Breakthrough. That has nothing to do with my motivation.
After this, what comes next for you? Do you have plans?
I just stepped down from being chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, so I really do have the ability now to move to the next phase. And the question is: What would it be? Life, of course, is not always what you’ve planned, but another leadership opportunity would be so tempting because I could try to shape reality in a way others would not. I couldn’t pass that up. But maybe we should exclude leadership possibilities from this. Maybe I won’t be offered anything again because of my ideas about ‘Oumuamua! That’s a possibility. Then I’d write more books, do more research and continue to jog every morning.
