“They Tried To Silence Me”: Harvard Professor Reveals The 3i/ATLAS Files

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb joins for an explosive conversation about the interstellar object 3i/ATLAS. Loeb reveals shocking anomalies that make this object “the size of a city,” exposes the scientific censorship he faced when suggesting it could be of technological origin, and explains why this might be humanity’s first contact with alien technology.

🎯 What You’ll Learn:
“The size of a city” – The impossible statistical anomaly
“Should arrive once every 10,000 years” – Why this defies all expectations
Editor censorship exposed – How academia silences revolutionary ideas
Battle with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Brian Cox – “They’re commentators, not players”
String theory hypocrisy – 50 years of unproven speculation vs alien possibilities
Multiple jets behaving strangely – Could these be alien thrusters?
$10 billion for microbes, $0 for intelligent life – The funding scandal
Galileo’s persecution repeating – How science suppresses truth

Time Stamps:
0:00:00 Is NASA hiding information from the public?
0:01:10 The editor who censored my paper
0:02:42 Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson miss the point
0:04:50 String Theory: The emperor has no clothes
0:07:20 From philosophy to farming to the stars
0:09:50 Being willing to risk your reputation for truth
0:12:00 The Pentagon’s classified meteor data
0:16:30 Expedition: Searching the ocean floor
0:22:00 Finding spherules with impossible composition
0:29:30 Why scientists refuse to look
0:35:00 The real difference between practitioners and commentators
0:40:30 Oumuamua: The object that changed everything
0:45:50 Signs this wasn’t a natural asteroid
0:50:20 The psychology of denying extraterrestrial possibilities
0:56:00 Creating the Galileo Project
1:01:00 What we’re really seeing in the skies
1:06:30 The possibility we’ve already been visited
1:10:00 Why AI is the biggest threat we face
1:17:00 How relying on AI weakens human minds
1:22:30 Finding meaning through cosmic neighbors
1:25:00 The Messianic vision from the stars

💡 Key Quotes:
“Bureaucracy rules over science. It shouldn’t be that way”
“Common sense is not common in academia”
“They want to be popular. Therefore, they will never go against the wind”
“Earth moved 4.5 billion times around the sun before the Vatican even existed”
“If there’s 1% chance it’s technological, we must take it seriously – the implications are huge”
“I’m seeking intelligence in space because I don’t often find it here on Earth”
“The Messiah may come from another star”

🔗 Connect:
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danieldushy

Do you think NASA is hiding information from 
the public? We are seeing a delay by 43 days in the release of images that were taken by the Mars 
Reconnaissance Orbiter. There was a camera called High-Rise, which is half a meter in diameter 
and should have provided us with uh the best resolution image of three Atlas, this interstellar 
visitor. I think it’s a new opportunity. In fact, I was on vacation that a a couple of days later 
because of the 4th of July and uh I told my wife I have to write this paper where I calculated how 
much material we expect in interstellar space per unit volume and show that that we shouldn’t expect 
the delivery of such a giant object uh once per decade. It should arrive to our uh to the inner 
solar system once per 10,000 years or longer. So there is just not enough material out there and so 
it’s very surprising and and then it turns out you know on that paper actually when I submitted 
it um the editor accepted it for publication uh within a week after the object was discovered 
but the editor insisted that I remove a sentence at the end of the paper and I basically said in 
that sentence either the object is actually much   smaller than we think maybe less than a kilometer 
uh in size or it it might have targeted the inner solar system. Uh it should be rare but but then 
maybe on purpose it arrived. It’s not just a random rock on a random trajectory. And so the 
editor said then you should I will not accept it for publication unless you remove that sentence. 
And I thought to myself, well, we haven’t evolved much since the days of the Vatican. you know, 
banning Galileo, putting him in house arrest for saying something that they regard as heresy. 
I mean, this editor was basically using his power   just to force me to remove one sentence out of 
a whole paper. Like, what is the big deal? It’s um and uh because I’m a rebel, I wrote a full 
paper following that on the technological option. And um that one was published after peer review 
in a different journal. But the same editor went to the New York Post and said it’s nonsense on 
stilts to consider a technological origin. And uh I thought it’s completely inappropriate and I 
still think so. And this editor is also you know uh popularizing science in the UK and he was 
joined by Brian Cox recently that said that it’s nonsense and and also Neil deGrass Tyson said 
it’s most likely a comet and you know the acting how do you explain that? So I explain it very very 
simply these people are not pra you know the Brian Cox and Neil deGrass Tyson are not practicing 
uh science they are just talking about it. It’s like a a soccer match where you have players in 
the field and they’re commentators and obviously the commentators want to be popular. So they say 
whatever is popular within you know the audience and and so they they feel the direction of the 
wind. Okay. So they realize oh uh many of the people in in in the mainstream of science think 
that it’s a comet. I will say that it’s a comet.   You know that’s basically how they operate. 
Now I’m a player in the field and I you know I look at the evidence and I make my judgment and I 
write scientific papers on the object. So the main difference between me and them is that I can score 
a goal. They cannot because they want to be liked. That’s the way to understand them. And the problem 
with wanting to be liked is that you’re not close to the truth. Um and so let me give you an an 
example. Um there is the the dominant uh theme in theoretical physics over the past 50 years has 
been string theory which basically assumes that there are extra special dimensions and we have 
not not seen any evidence for that. Moreover, the theory itself has different versions uh and 
we don’t know which one is correct. Moreover, there was never an experimental test and there is 
no experimental test of any of these versions in the foreseeable future. So they cannot come up 
with a way of testing the idea. Nevertheless, it dominates the landscape of theoretical physics 
and all the practitioners are doing intellectual or mathematical gymnastics to impress each other. 
They give each other honors, awards and so forth. But it has no this is completely speculative. 
There is no direct evidence for the reality of string theory describing physics. You know, 
the physical reality that we live in may have nothing to do with string theory. Nevertheless, 
for 50 years, you have the mainstream doing that.   I don’t see Brian Cox or Neil Degrass Tyson 
saying anything negative about string theory. It’s completely speculative. So if they have this 
uh gut feeling that they should protect science as always telling the truth to the public about 
things that were verified and nothing speculative should be considered until it’s verified. If that 
was their motivation, they would say something about string theory. They haven’t said it. Why? 
Because there is a whole community doing it. They want to be popular. Therefore, they will never go 
against the wind. They will never say anything. And so they just act to represent whatever they 
see is popular in the environment. They have nothing to do with the truth and therefore 
whatever they say is irrelevant. Okay? So   I completely ignore these people because they 
haven’t written a scientific paper in the last decade. Who cares about what they say? They 
just comment and it’s sort of like an echo of what they hear and they just put it out. And they 
are influencers. They have a lot of followers. So they cultivate a culture where people say things 
that are not necessarily true just because they’re popular. Who cares? That’s not what science 
is about. I mean the idea of Galileo was not popular at the time. But the church in 1992 said 
Galileo was right. After centuries, you know, 350 years after he died, they admitted he was right. 
Now what does it show you? That popularity among humans have nothing to do with the truth. you 
know, uh whether the earth moves around the sun   or not has nothing to do with what the pope said. 
Um and in fact, the earth moved 4.5 billion times around the sun before the Vatican even existed. 
So just imagine the earth going around and around 4.5 billion times around around 4.5 billion times 
and then comes the Vatican and says the sun moves around the earth. Who cares? The earth continues 
to move around the sun. So the fact that something is popular or something is liked on social media 
or there is a mainstream within particle physics   talking about extra dimensions has nothing to 
do with the validity of the idea. Maybe extra dimensions do not exist. You haven’t verified 
it experimentally. We don’t have even have an idea for an experiment in the future that will 
test it. And so the fact that it’s popular is irrelevant. I mean it’s good for mathematics but 
may have nothing to do with the physical reality   that we live in. I mean also think about quantum 
mechanics. Nobody expected it. It came as a shock and Albert Einson had a problem with it. And then 
Nils Boore and I visited the Neils Bore Institute just a few months ago. Nils Bore said no it’s a 
different way to think about reality and Einstein resisted that and Neilsb was right. So you know 
here is another situation where it was popular to think like Einstein and then comes evidence for a 
completely different conception of reality and all the gadgets that we use this microphone you know 
the the cameras are all based on understanding   of quantum mechanics it’s all electronics quantum 
mechan so we are using a theory quantum mechanics that was initially beyond the horizon of the 
imagination of the very best scientists back then and so whatever Whatever physical reality is has 
nothing to do with popularity among humans. That’s I don’t care what people say. That’s completely 
irrelevant. I don’t have any footprint on social   media. I don’t care what Brian Cox said. You 
know, it’s completely irrelevant. He’s not even practicing science, so who cares? Uh my point 
is we should look at the evidence. If there are anomalies, we should try to explain them. And it’s 
possible that all the ideas that were contemplated in the past, you know, missed the point. Now 
let me just say one more thing. Comet experts, people who claim that they are experts. They are 
selfdeclared experts. Okay, comet experts are just like AI systems in the sense that whatever 
AI systems, artificial intelligence systems are saying uh depends on their training data 
set. You just fit them with some data set and then they use that to say something. Now the 
training data sets of comet experts is solar system comets. That’s what they’ve seen in the 
past. So it’s always about u icy rocks. Okay? So they are familiar with icy rocks. Anything 
they see in the sky they call it an icy rock.   On January 2nd there was a near earth object that 
was classified as an asteroid by the minor planet center. And then a day later they realize, oh 
sorry the this one moves along the path of the Tesla roads the car that was launched by SpaceX. 
So it’s actually a car. It’s not a rock. So sorry they took it out of the catalog. And my point is 
we have other objects that we launched to space. These are technological objects. All I’m asking 
is let’s take these objects and add them to the training data set of comet experts. Why? Because 
the the first interstellar object was a mua mua. Didn’t have any cometary features. There was 
no dust, no gas around it. Didn’t evaporate, no tail. The experts decided, you know, last year 
to call it a dark comet, meaning an object that has non-gravitational acceleration. And you expect 
from a comet that if it evaporates but you see no sign of evaporation. So you call it a dark comet 
which is an oxymoron. You would call a spacecraft a dark comet because it accelerates without any 
cometary evaporation. So these people do not have in their training data set technological objects. 
That’s the problem. And all I’m saying is just add them to your vocabulary. What’s the problem? 
We launched technological objects. When objects arrived into the solar system and look weird, we 
should consider the possibility. That sounds to me like common sense. Yeah. Okay. So, I wanted to 
to go into the free Atlas the with current events. And first of all, the the the explanation that you 
are giving is that it’s alien tech. Am I saying? No, I’m saying most likely it’s it’s a comet of a 
type that we’ve never seen before. But I’m saying it could be a technological object because it has 
some unusual features. Most most recently a lot of jets were seen coming from it. And these could be 
thrusters for example because some of the jets are pointing towards the sun, some away from the sun. 
Very very different behavior than the comets we’re used to. Uh but at any event, my point is that we 
must consider this possibility because of the huge implications to humanity. This is called the black 
swan event. You know, I always give the example   of October 7th because the intelligence agencies 
were dismissing the possibility of an attack and you know because of that the they didn’t notice 
the anomalies in the data and whereas for science for science that deals with you know subjects that 
have no implications to earth like for example you consider a galaxy billions of light years away no 
implications to our daily life that’s the right approach you take you say at the 99% confidence. 
I think this galaxy is of this type and so forth. If you are wrong, nothing bad happens. However, 
when you have a visitor to your backyard that could be a threat, potential threat to humanity, 
even if 1% of if it has a some anomalies that make make it a potential technological object at 1% 
confidence, you must take it seriously because the implications are huge. If you multiply 
a small probability by huge implications,   you must take it meaning you have to collect as 
much data as possible and you shouldn’t ridicule the discussion. This is a completely new reality 
that we didn’t face in the past and the scientists are slow to to understand that. Okay. So you you 
have given an explanation that I really wanted to go into even later about Galileo Galileand the 
way that the scientific approach has been attacked throughout history throughout history. Yeah. many 
many there is nothing new. Yeah, this is how it   goes. Yeah. So, but but I want to stay on the on 
three Atlas because I think the the scientific communities I don’t know if they know what it is 
when they speaking about it. The less you know also the public the the less you know about the 
object the the easier it is for you to say oh it’s probably just a comet. Yeah. And so what people 
don’t know about it. Yeah. So the anomalies of   this object first I mentioned the size. if it ends 
up being very big, you know, that’s very unusual because you would expect smaller objects first, a 
lot of them. Uh, but the second thing is that it lies in it moves in the plane of the planets 
around the sun. This is called the ecliptic   plane and it’s within five degrees of the plane 
the orbital plane of the earth around the sun and the chance of that happening at random. You 
know, we did simulations with my student where   we launched objects, interstellar objects from 
stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and you see them coming from all directions relative to the solar 
system. And and the chance of finding one that uh is exactly aligned with the ecliptic plane 
of the planets around the sun uh is one in 500. And this is the third object from interstellar 
space. So, you know, it’s less than a percent   chance that it would be aligned like that. But if 
it’s on a reconnaissance mission, it would like to spend as much time as possible near the planet. So 
that’s what it’s doing. It came close to Mars. It will come close to Jupiter. So that’s the second 
anomaly. And then you know there are many others. For example, it had a glow in the direction of 
the sun. It’s called an anti- tail. Um whereas usually dust and gas get pushed away from the sun 
by the solar radiation and the solar wind. Yeah. Isn’t it moving incredibly fast as well? It’s also 
yeah moving faster than previous ones but not not unheard of for stars you know star what of it of 
all the anomalies anomalies what I uh they are saying that to you that it’s probably someone sent 
it this is no so I’m saying it’s unlikely to have this orbit and there and and of the critics are 
saying uh yeah but you know rare things do happen sometimes oh this is the explanation Well, that’s 
for this one. Uh, you know, someone tried to say, “Oh, maybe if it comes from the disk of the Milky 
Way galaxy, you would expect it to be aligned with the plane of the planets.” No, the two the 
two planes are misaligned by 60°. You know, that’s a big angle. Uh, and in fact, we see 
the other interstellar objects coming at some   large angles. That means they’re spending a very 
short amount of time near the planets. This one, by the way, is a a great gift because it’s bright. 
It’s big but it’s also moving in the plane of the planet. So we have all the observatories on 
Earth and elsewhere. We have orbiters around   Mars. We have an orbiter around Jupiter. So there 
are lots of uh spacecraft that monitor it as well as telescopes. So it gives us an excellent 
opportunity. If we could anticipate it, we would have potentially invested in an interceptor 
that would have visited it. Yeah. Elon Musk said recently that even if it’s like an attack, we are 
not prepared for something like that at all. Yeah, not at all. That’s my main point that we have 
not thought about it. the I mean we the congress tasked NASA in 2005 to find all objects bigger 
than a football field or more than 90% of them um that may collide with earth that come close to 
earth and so that’s why these uh survey telescopes like pan stars in Hawaii or the rubin observatory 
now or atlas were constructed in order to find near-earth objects and in the process of surving 
the sky, they found the interstellar objects. And so it’s not a coincidence that we are now finding 
those. But it’s for the wrong reason. We were in the past worried about rocks colliding with 
Earth because that’s what killed the dinosaurs, an asteroid the size of Manhattan Island that 66 
million years ago created the catastrophe. And so we don’t want even a smaller catastrophe um you 
know, right? Yeah. So, we want to deflect objects that may be of a risk. Um, and so NASA has this 
plan to deflect them, for example, by colliding a spacecraft with with the incoming object. You 
just need to deflect it a little bit as long as   it’s far away. So, it will miss the Earth. Um, 
so we can do something about it. But what do you do about alien technology? that’s much more 
complicated because it may actually maneuver or um you you just cannot um forecast the intent of 
that and um that was never contemplated. There is no protocol, no discussion about it. And I 
submitted a white paper uh along with two Israelis uh Omar Daddy and Gerson Tenbomb uh to uh the 
United Nations as well as the International Astronomical Union to encourage them to establish 
a committee or an organization that would that would coordinate uh observations of interstellar 
objects in the future and alert policy makers about those that look potentially technological. I 
invented the scale between zero and 10 where zero is um natural objects and 10 might you know alien 
technologies that are a threat to humanity. This is now called the lobe scale and I gave um omua 
mua and 3i atlas for different reasons a rank of four uh on that scale but um in the future I think 
it’s really important to to attend to this but um nobody would pay attention I’m not dreaming 
I mean I realize that only when we have a real encounter beyond any doubt uh with a technological 
object from another civilization only after that encounter uh our politicians and you know the 
financial sector would respond to that and uh let’s hope that we would survive the first 
encounter that’s the issue uh and I I think it’s completely reasonable to uh be aware of 
that potential risk and I just had a television interview uh on Fox News and I was told that it’s 
likely that the President Trump was informed about 3i Atlas and um oh from those reasons because it’s 
probably could be something that is a threat. Um well you know the yeah so the point of view 
of NASA right now and maybe they’re saying it to the public to prevent any panic is that this 
is definitely a comet. That’s what they say. Uh and I’m just saying let’s indeed it’s most likely 
to be a comet but let’s just collect as much data as possible about it. So my point is of course 
the president needs to be aware of anything that looks unusual uh heading our way because for a 
simple reason that you know the public would lose confidence in governments uh if there is some kind 
of a threat from the sky and the financial markets will react. So, so you know just like in uh in any 
other uh situation which poses a risk we we need to contemplate have some protocol of what how to 
respond to it, how to convey the message. Yeah. Um so I hope this you know this will be attended 
to before we actually have a definite visit. Uh but as of now the it never happened. Yeah. So 
how how are you how confident are you that if we had a visitor it would be peaceful versus not 
at all. I mean so even though I met my wife on a blind date this is a blind date of interstellar 
proportions and uh you can have a situation like a the Trojan horse in the where something 
looks completely innocent and then uh you know potentially it brings a threat. If uh 3i Atlas is 
a mother ship, it could release probes that would visit. So it could continue on its path and it may 
look like a comet um you know just so that nobody would suspect that it has any technology interior 
to it. But at the same time it may release probes that we will have a hard time detecting if they 
are within the earth sun separation and have a size of all the 10 mters. you know all the probes 
that we launched are less than 10 m of order 10 m or less and u we would not be able to detect 
them with our current telescopes unless they come very close to earth so uh so we what I asked 
my research team to do I’m I’m leading the Galileo project we have three observatories the most 
recent one uh was constructed on the sphere in Las Vegas by the way and the owner owner of the 
sphere. I mean that’s the biggest entertainment center in the world. He came to my home uh a 
year ago and asked his name is Jim Dolan and he asked me to build an observatory on top of it. 
So if you fly above it, you would see it’s like a freckle on top of the sphere. And um so I I told 
my research team to check if there’s any unusual activity in the coming months uh you know close to 
earth and also I advised NASA to check if there is you know using their the cameras on their rovers 
and and orbiters around Mars to check if there is um any unusual objects that showed up. Um but 
you know it’s all a matter of checking. Uh I don’t think there is any reason for an alarm or 
uh but I do think that we should not ridicule this that possibility the way that uh the main 
you know some astronomers get really furious uh about discussing this possibility and you know 
it’s it’s because they never included that in their training data set. Yeah. the the I noticed 
something about you the way you you you think and perhaps it gives you a lot of uh um uh credit in 
your scientific approach which is asking questions you don’t give any disclaimers like no I mean but 
that’s the way science is done and the problem is in many I can give you many examples where 
scientists thought they know the answer in advance   and therefore missed a discovery for example 
1952 there was an astronomer called Otto Stuv that um wrote a paper saying we we can right 
now we can search for Jupiter like planets that are close to a star like the sun because they 
would move the star back and forth or they would uh transit the star so we would see a deficit in 
the flux from the star in the brightness of the   star. So um um he suggested looking for those 
but the astronomy community just completely ignored it because they say they said we know that 
why Jupiter is so far from the sun that’s where water ice forms and therefore it would be a waste 
of telescope time to search for such systems. But in in terms of like the the the question of 
are we alone in general? How do you approach   it with questioning? Oh, very simply, um, you can 
easily tell the difference between a rock and a spacecraft. Uh, either if you take a close-up 
photograph or if you see artificial lights or if you see a maneuver that cannot be explained 
by cometary evaporation. So my point is let’s open the this range of possibilities and then 
search for any deviation from what we expect from a rock. Okay. So if we don’t find any deviate, 
if it behaves like a rock, you know, it’s just like quarks like a duck, walks like a duck, then 
it’s a duck, you know, like um but uh we should check because if we assume that this near-earth 
asteroid is a rock and it turns out to be a car, you know that we’re missing the point and we 
should not make that mistake about functioning devices because they could be a potential threat. 
someone we don’t know how much traffic of those things are uh you know there is yeah which is 
fascinating by itself but if I go like take a zoom out to the the only uh question of are we 
alone in general yeah what where do you stand with I think it’s very likely that I mean if you 
read the news every day it’s clear that we are not   very intelligent because we’re wasting a lot of 
resources most of our effort in conflicts on this earth uh And um that’s not a sign of intelligence 
because we are wasting resources. You know each of us lives for let’s say at best around a century 
and nevertheless we focus our attention and time on either shortening the lifespan of other people 
or preventing them from shortening yours. That’s what we are doing and that sounds ridiculous cuz 
all of us will die in a century from now you know   like we will not be around so why waste our time 
and effort in killing each other. you know that I just cannot it shows lack of intelligence. Now we 
have enough resources for everyone to be happy in principle if we were to cooperate but uh instead 
that’s what we do and look at each other on the surface of this rock that we will we were born on 
and divide territories as if you know there are uh amazingly important but this is just a piece 
of rock you know 3 millions of the mass of the sun left over from the formation of the sun. There 
is another rock next to us called Mars. And we think that the biggest vision that we can have is 
to go to Mars like another rock which actually is a desert much worse than the rock that we inhabit 
rather than venture to the stars. You know there’s there’s so much real estate out there. There are 
100 billion stars. Probably many of them hosted things like us billions of years ago. And those 
civilizations may have perished because they were engaged in conflicts just like we are. Oh, you 
do say that it’s in nature of intelligence to fight. Well, no, I’m saying that the Okay, so the 
Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, if you extend that to the Milky Way galaxy, it 
means that only the those that realize that they should leave their rock into space are remembered 
in the history of the Milky Way galaxy. So if you if someone writes the history book of the Milky 
Way galaxy which would be the characters in that book you know like uh I don’t think we will be 
mentioned um because most likely we would destroy ourselves within you know a short period of time 
relative to the age of the of the cosmos you know like uh you know maybe we will survive for I don’t 
know thousands of years but I I find it hard to see I mean we are in a very unstable political 
situation all the time. So I I I find it hard to believe that we will survive, you know, more than 
a million years into the future. Two things. But the point is the point is if we were smart enough 
to build a space platform. So right now we invest $2.4 trillion in military budgets worldwide. If 
we were to say, okay, let’s allocate a fraction of that because we had an interstellar visitor. 
Now we realized our threats from outside. So let’s put a trillion dollars a year on building 
an infrastructure of defending the earth. And therefore we would also explore space. So we 
will build a space platform where humans can   go for a long journey. And if you put a trillion 
dollars a year, that’s a lot of money. And put the best architects, the best engineers, the best 
scientists on this project, we will be able to leave the earth, at least a fraction of us, you 
know, some h leave the earth on a on a journey to the stars. Okay. the rich people. And the point 
is that this journey would be the only monument in the long term that is left from us. And um if 
anyone writes the history book of the Milky Way, the you know only the civilizations that 
embarked on interstellar journeys are the   ones to be remembered because the others are were 
wiped out on the surface of a planet. So you know planets are being swallowed by stars, destroyed by 
exploding stars, all kinds of catastrophes. We are not even aware of that. But there were lots of 
tragedies. If you ask where is everybody about   civilization? The question that Enrio Fermy asked 
the answer is most of them are dead because if you look at the humans on earth there were 117 billion 
humans. Right now there are 8 billion. So where is everybody? They died. Okay. So the same is true 
about civilizations that existed billions of years before us. Then we come along on this rock and we 
say, “Oh, you know, we might be at the top of the food chain, yet we spend our time killing each 
other.” And I say, well, first of all, you know, that’s not very intelligent. Surely there is 
something better than us, you know, that survive   much longer. And let’s open our eyes and look 
for it. And what do I get in return? Oh, that’s ridiculous. This is a a complete speculation. 
We don’t care that string theorists speculate. We care about you speculating about things like us 
out there. And I say this is completely reasonable to consider like what’s the problem with that? Um 
so you know we have a problem not even recognizing that we are not at the top of the food chain but 
also not searching for better students in our   class you know like and um to me it’s a sign of 
lack of intelligence. So one reason I’m seeking in intelligence in interstellar space is because 
I don’t often find it here on earth. Oh yeah. But the two thing if I if I may two things first of 
all you said that about Elon Musk and his you didn’t mention perhaps his name but going to Mars 
his venture towards Mars. Do you think it’s it’s not the right way to become Interstellar? Yeah. 
Well, first of all, and just the other thing if I if I may that you said that uh the thing about 
the the way scientific theory is revealing stuff to us. I I I think that the Vikings for example 
or even Columbus and his expeditions to the to here suggest something about the way uh of life 
exists which is your place is getting destroyed or something and then you you look out to the horizon 
to look for something else. So I think that in your answer before this is what you may think that 
other civilizations have experienced and because of that not necessarily it depends on their 
intent. It could have been that they realized that there is much more they got the big picture and 
they want to then spread out and just because it’s a wasted space if you don’t represent yourself in 
the bigger Oh. Yeah. And the question is whether to to to endeavor into other places you want 
necessarily biological creatures. It’s not clear. You might use AI. We haven’t used AI in space as 
of yet. Uh but in principle it allows you to make long journeys without the AI getting bored. And 
also you can make the hardware resilient to the harsh conditions in space. you might not need 
to feed it except for electric power that can be generated by some energy source and that’s 
it. So um Space Odyssey comes to mind. Sorry, if you if you know the movie Space Odyssey comes 
to mind which is the the AI goes with them in   expedition and kills the entire crew. Yeah, but um 
it may well be that no you no biological creature will actually be on the to start with because uh 
it makes more sense to use AI in long journeys and um yeah so by the way I think nature is far more 
imaginative than script writers in Hollywood you know and um I met some of those people actually 
just a few months ago um but the point is that um you know, we might be inspired to do all of 
that when we have a visitor. So, that’s another big benefit to considering interstellar objects as 
potential technological artifacts because if any of them is, then it will change our aspirations 
for space. So aside from maybe bringing us to a mindset where we change priorities and not fight 
with each other, maybe cooperate and realize we have a neighbor and also recognize the neighbor 
may be more accomplished than we are. So then it might inspire us to embark into space just like 
the neighbor. Yeah, that’s fascinating to think if they have other motives to explore than 
us. Yeah, it’s an interesting question. Yeah, but um uh I do think you know so I I had a 
visit by some religious scholars that asked me whether finding extraterrestrials will 
change their religious beliefs and I said uh you know when I I have two daughters and when 
the second one was born it didn’t take away any of my love to the first one. So imagine that 
God can be only a parent that can attend to one child is very limiting. uh and in fact why would 
you lose your religious beliefs? Maybe there are many siblings in our family and the only thing 
that would be a problem for you is if one of your siblings is more accomplished. You might 
be jealous but so they accepted that it doesn’t   violate their religious beliefs. I mean obviously 
um yeah and even Newton and many others were very religious people. Yeah. But um on the you know 
it may give us back a sense of oh if there is um a technological species far more advanced than 
we are because uh you know when the modern age of science and technology uh started dominating you 
know Fred Kiche said uh God is dead in 1882 and uh in fact finding a a very intelligent alien species 
is might be a substitute to to God in the sense that there would be a superhuman entity that we 
can’t fully understand but it has a much uh better qualities than humans much more accomplished 
than can achieve things um and potentially is like a god figure for humanity. U so um you know 
there are lots of potential implications for our future if you find it and some people might be 
scared and say you know better not to think about it but you know you can’t bury your your head 
in the sand if if we have a neighbor we better know about it you know suppose you live in a in a 
house and and uh you keep telling your family we are the only ones on this street there is nobody 
don’t worry about it and then the family members   say you know we see a lot of microbes at home 
therefore probably there are microbes in the other houses on the street that we can see from 
the window and they say we will put $10 billion   to look for those microbes because that’s the most 
important thing indeed having another intelligent being on the street is unlikely. We don’t want 
to discuss it and we will basically destroy any scientist who is suggesting that we look for other 
intelligent residents in the street. And then you know and then they build this huge instrument to 
detect the signatures of microbes in the houses on the street and you realize wait a minute I see 
someone you know walking on the street and you want to tell them about it but they say no no no 
it’s just you know it’s not a resident it’s just you know some natural phenomena forget about it 
we don’t want to discuss it let’s bury you know that will not remove the the neighbor. Uh the fact 
that they ignore it, the fact that they put zero funding to look for the neighbor and they want 
to just be obsessed with microbes and not allow a discussion on the possibility that someone may be 
visiting, not allow a discussion on that. I mean, I just find that really mindboggling cuz 
it’s common sense. Public supports science, public cares about it, you know, we should listen 
to the public. Yeah. the the first of all I wanted to complete the thing with Elon Musk if you if you 
can why so I think um Elon Musk is not the most accomplished space entrepreneur since the big bang 
13.8 8 billion years ago. I think it’s very likely there was a more accomplished space entrepreneur 
in the Milky Way galaxy despite you know he may think that he is the most accomplished but I don’t 
think it’s likely. uh I think you know given the 100red billion stars or you know 10 billion earth 
sun systems there was pro there were many more accomplished than Elon Musk in those and therefore 
let’s check if they sent any cars similar to the Tesla roadster or much better better than that 
u but going to Mars you know it’s just another rock that happens to be uh much you know carry 
much worse conditions than earth so what’s the big deal of going there. Like I I think we should 
build a space platform um that would accommodate humans or whatever you want. If you want to 
send AI, accommodate AI systems, but focus on uh platforms that we design that can provide 
the conditions that are suitable for life or for for AI systems that we want to send and then 
it will have a flexible position. you know, it doesn’t need to be at a particular distance from 
the sun. It can have its own power supply from a   nuclear reactor, for example. Um, and if we were 
to consider that as, you know, a huge challenge that we invest a trillion dollars a year in, I 
think we can do it by the end of this century,   you know, really. But I think if I go into his 
mind, if I if it’s I think that if you put your businessman hat on, it’s okay. Uh going to Mars, 
I I think that it’s uh the only thing that he can accomplish in his lifetime if you understand what 
I Yeah. But that’s irrelevant because think long   term. You know, his lifetime is not so important 
in this context. What will benefit humanity? uh you know going to the moon or going to Mars 
you know okay you know you can perhaps first demonstrate uh superiority technologically 
relative to other nations or uh you know so he claims that it would save humanity will not 
be uh at risk of getting completely demolished if we were to spread ourselves but frankly the 
conditions are so bad on Mars that you know it’s like a suicide mission going there um just because 
that there is very little atmosphere there are there your your body is bombarded by cosmic rays 
that you need to protect yourself and then there are temperature variations of hundreds of degrees 
you know between day and night like this is crazy so it’s much better to build a whole habitat 
now Elon Musk is worth maybe a trillion dollars right now I’m I’m saying if we invest a trillion 
dollars his own worth every year in the coming decades. And you might say, “Oh, that’s a huge 
amount of money.” Well, it’s not so huge because we are spending it on on on on military budgets, 
right? So, it’s just a change in priorities. So, whatever Elon Musk says has the value of one year 
of investment that I’m talking about. Okay? So, I don’t think with that kind of investment, it’s 
the right priority. Now, how will we change our priorities to invest a trillion dollars a year in 
space? If we discover that there is a potential threat from alien technology, then we would need 
to build the infrastructure that defends Earth. H you will need to put interceptors and sensors 
uh you know around the the inner solar system uh that would approach any incoming threat and 
take a close-up photograph and inform us whether it’s a rock or something else uh searching for 
anomalies uh in the way that these objects behave. uh and so that would cost a lot of money and once 
our attention would be not just on fighting each other on earth but let’s say half of that 
budget will go to space instead of killing each other you know that’s not such a you know it 
doesn’t sound to me like a ridiculous possibility uh then every year we’ll invest the amount of 
money that Elon Musk has right now okay his entire net worth every year so what he thinks 
about going to Mars is you know is okay that would be a milestone but it’s not really the the 
obvious step forward for humanity. The obvious step forward is to maintain a base a platform that 
you can go anywhere you want and that is self- sustained. You have everything you need in it. You 
can produce gravity by spinning you know so you have the centrifugal force as artificial gravity. 
uh you can have all the nutrients by having some agriculture within that big space. So it might 
need to be the size of a city. Okay. The you know the size of three Atlas. Yeah. And that’s what the 
science fiction writers already thought about like Arthur C. Clark in his book Randu with Rama. He’s 
talking about tens of kilometers uh spacecraft. But you know whether we can do it or not depends 
on how much effort we invest and I I think it’s doable in principle. Yeah. Going back to 3i Atlas, 
Elon Musk says the he thinks that it probably is uh something that sent from someone. Uh do you 
think that uh someone as as big as E can influence the the scientific uh mainstream ideas? Um and 
well I think it’s up to the data to convince everyone not so much people telling other people 
so what they think it is. Yeah. Yeah. So once we have clear evidence for something that behaves in 
a way that we cannot explain as a natural object uh then everyone would jump to the band uh 
wagon and people like Brian Cox would say oh yeah of course you this this we thought about it 
a long time ago and everyone was talking about it. You know, there are all kind of science fiction 
writers. You can find papers in the literature   that talked about it. Of course, of course, it’s 
an obvious idea and aob was not the first to say that and he’s not particularly significant and 
what he said is not really relevant because at the time when he said that there wasn’t enough 
evidence and so let’s forget about him. This was an idea that I embraced and many others embraced. 
Yeah. By the way, to me it’s irrelevant, you know, because it’s not about me or about any individual. 
It’s more about the future of humanity and the the significance of such an object. And my real goal 
is to bring it to the mainstream to the center of discussion such that we would change uh you 
know priorities in science as to instead of being obsessed just with microbes also looking for 
siblings you know entities that are similar to us that produced space objects and search for them. 
Um and as of now the SETI community decided to ban any discussion about objects near earth uh that 
might be technological. they they banned it. But you know just a few months ago many of them 
came together and wrote a scientific paper saying if we find technological signatures of 
interstellar objects that’s a very nice way of learning about in extraterrestrial technological 
civilization. So they want to uh on the one hand suppress discussion about real examples but at the 
same time claim that they were the ones to think about it to start with. Um, which I think is a bit 
disingenous. Again, I don’t mud wrestle. I don’t, you know, if people attack me, I just ignore that 
because I don’t want to get dirty, you know. I just want to, you know, for me, science is more 
like a a chess play rather than a mud wrestling event. Yeah. But how does it feel, if I may, to 
be a critic for your opinions on this matter? Um yeah, so I mean um I’m I’m trying to change the 
conversation and I have a lot of interest from the public and also from uh Congress people and um 
uh it seems to me that people take it seriously because the idea makes sense. Okay. So um whether 
the scientific community adapts to it right now or later I don’t care because eventually you know 
the point is that if we don’t seek the evidence we might not realize what we are missing right 
so one way for the mainstream of science many times to avoid discovering things is by saying we 
don’t need to look for the evidence because it’s very likely to be this or that and therefore let’s 
forget about collecting evidence because we know   the answer already and the experts are telling 
you and how dare you even suggest something if you are not an expert in this field. And if you are 
an expert in this field, then you would be very   careful and worried about risking your uh status 
by getting into a confrontation with other people who are claiming that it’s nothing and you should 
forget about it. So everyone is lined up. The herd is very tight in a tight configuration. Everyone 
is going along the beaten path. Nobody deviates.   Nobody suggests and you know progress in science 
is therefore suppressed under these circumstances. So as far as I’m concerned I just want to bring 
to broaden the conversation and say look it’s okay to search for microbes but we have here an 
opportunity to search for technological signatures we have never had before. Now with the Reubin 
Observatory in Chile that will have uh that will potentially find with an 3.2 two gigapixel camera 
uh a new interstellar object every few months. You know, it’s a new era where we can find many of 
them and and study them and um let’s hope that the scientists would be sufficiently open or I’m I’m 
I’m even happy if they were to say, “Oh, that’s nonsense. Let’s demonstrate that in fact the data 
is not consistent with anything other than an an icy rock.” And if they do that eventually, you 
know, if they collect enough data and it is not an icy rock, it’s something else, we would know it. 
Uh the worst that can happen is them saying it must be an icy rock. We don’t need more data as 
as happened with Omu Mua. Um and yeah, some people do say it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They say it, but the 
way I see it is that they are anti-science because science should be based on evidence. And you can’t 
claim that you understand something unless you collect as much information about it as possible. 
You know, to me, it’s the sincerest form of loving nature. If you really care about something like 
nature, you want to know everything about it. You know when you love a person the the the sincerest 
form of love is that you want to know everything about that person. However, if you think that 
you know already the person without even speaking to them or you want your image to stay because 
whenever they will give you more information that image will be tainted in your mind then you don’t 
really love that person. You love something that you imagine that person to be. Yeah. And most, you 
know, that’s true also of relationships. There are many people who prefer to stick with an image of 
another person. They’re sometimes willing to kill a person just because of what they read on social 
media. There are bullets being fired right now uh because some people think that the other person 
based on what they read in social media is evil and so they kill that person and they have never 
spoken to that person. You know, it reminds me uh my grandfather uh was in Germany and he fought 
in the first world war on the side of ger the Germans against the French and in a famous battle 
called Verden the where he was in the mud for more than a year and he was among the survivors of that 
just you know hundreds of thousands of people died and the borderline didn’t move much nothing so it 
was just for nothing for nothing anyway Um then he came back and then in 1935 there was a gathering 
in his village and a member of the Nazi party stood up and said you know the Jews are using up 
our society and we should do something about it. And my grandfather stood up and said how dare you 
say that because you dodged the draft in the first world war. You were a communist at the time and I 
fought for Germany. Uh, and so the other guy said, “Um, yes, uh, we all know about you, Mr. 
Lo. I’m talking about the other Jews.” Now, what does that suggest? It suggests that this 
member of the Nazi party had no issue with the only Jew he knows closely being a very respectful 
German. However, those that he didn’t know are the ones using up the German society. So, it’s 
very easy to hate people as long as you don’t   know them. That’s a a prerequisite. And if you 
know them, if you actually interact with people, you cannot hate them. Uh because you know 
they they’re multifaceted usually, you know, there are always serial killers, you know, but I’m 
talking about the vast majority of of humanity. Yeah, we said before about Galog that he had the 
same attack because of his opinions. I don’t I don’t know if the same, but I do feel like I’m 
talking, you know, live in this era with someone in this in his shoes at least. So, I just want 
to know how does it feel to be by peers by people you you I I I share your critic towards them, 
but they it’s it’s your community in the end. Well, the people the people who know me for 
example at Harvard or you know that I had uh maybe 50 students and hundreds of postocs and 
you know that I worked with and all these people that I wrote more than a thousand scientific 
papers with they know me and I I haven’t changed and they don’t have any issue u but the ones that 
attack me are people who don’t know me okay and um and so um um you the when MUA was uh discovered 
to have non-gravitational acceleration and I um wrote a a paper trying to explain it with 
an Israeli postoc Bali that just came at the time to Harvard as my postoc. Um so you know we 
we submitted the paper for publication within 3 days it was accepted and the reviewer said this 
is an excellent uh paper and in fact there is data to support it and then I went to Germany to 
a conference uh the falling walls in in Berlin and um and because my paper came out and was of great 
interest the the there was a huge amount of uh media interest and so they couldn’t let all the 
reporters speak with me individually and they put all of them in a room and that was in 2018 and 
um so I entered the room and then a journalist from Italy shouted from the back of the room she 
said do you think you are Galileo and I said no I don’t I’m not thinking that I’m Galileo I’m 
just saying, you know, there is this object. It   looks weird. We should pay attention to it. Maybe 
it’s technological. Um, yeah. So, there is some and and frankly, I’m I feel connected to Galileo 
because uh about 15 years ago, I visited the Pisa the School of Normal Superior gave me a honorary 
honor of Cathedral Galilana where I was asked to give four lectures in the name of Galileo. And um 
um so you know I felt connected and also the name Galileo is derived from the Galilee in in northern 
Israel um you know the country I was born in. So I do feel connected in in in other ways in addition 
to but um I don’t like to view myself as a victim. You see, I I don’t care. You know, I should 
be able to survive those attackers, those critics. I think many of them just want to get 
to the limelight by attacking me. So, you know, when you have a big whale swimming in the ocean, 
there are often small fish that are feeding off the whale, you know, like. So, it’s part of the 
public attention that I get that I will have haters around me that are saying bad things. Yeah. 
But as just like there’s like a place in folk law for pie people who have been attacked and then 
discovered that they were right all along. Right.   But it’s I’m not in house arrest. I’m not worried 
too much. Oh yeah. But I should say that in recent days you know I um I can give you a few anecdotes. 
Well first of all there is a sculptor in New York City that was inspired by my work and decided to 
donate two bronze sculptures of Galileo Galile to my office. He’s the most accomplished. He’s the 
um American roden. Uh his name is Greg Wyatt and he put he gave two sculptures of Galileo. They’re 
in my office right now. And just a few days ago, we unveiled them to the public. And then 51 
watercolors of scientists that he again made and and donated to my office. So my office is now 
a mini museum. Um, and um, also there was a a car racer in um, the NASCAR car race that took place a 
few weeks ago that decided to put my image on the hood of his car. So I went there together with the 
Netflix thing because they’re doing a documentary about my research that should come out in 2026. 
Uh, they’ve been following me for 3 years now. Um and also you know the um in addition to that um 
um and then um um our dishwasher broke down just a few days ago and I had to order a new dishwasher. 
So I call the the company and um you know some random service person answers and I say I would 
like to get a new dishwasher and he says is this Ailo? I’ve been following you everywhere on 
podcast and television and so forth. So I didn’t even mention my name. He immediately recognized 
my voice. I I go to the woman who cuts my hair, you know, the barber uh the following day and she 
says, “The boss of my daughter introduced your recent podcast with Joe Rogan to my daughter and 
she said, “Well, my mom actually cuts his hair.” And he said, “Are you sure that your mom cuts the 
hair of Avi?” And then uh uh you know we go to a restaurant and the and the server recognizes me. 
And so it got to a point where you know there are millions around the world that know about what I’m 
doing. And um uh basically I you know I don’t I don’t have any footprint on social media. I don’t 
go out of my home much. I’m just writing essays, writing scientific papers and this level 
of publicity is really u unheard you know unprecedented. I get hundreds of emails where I 
need to read them. It takes me hours every day and um it’s coming from mostly Gmail addresses and 
since I if I were to respond to each and every one then they would respond again to me and I’ll have 
more so I have to not only not answer but also block after I answer those Gmail addresses because 
I just cannot cope with it. It keeps every day a few hundred it will rise to hundreds of thousands 
within you know several months and I just cannot deal with that. I mean I can get an AI agent maybe 
to respond. You need Yeah. but um but it’s really quite unusual and you know I get invited to all 
kinds of events. There was a gathering a few months ago where there were the most accomplished 
um actors in Hollywood there and uh the most accomplished CEOs. Um and um at the break, you 
know, there was a cocktail I I noticed that Margot Trob is standing not far and but I had no way of 
initiating a conversation. there is nothing for me to offer and but then someone came with a book for 
me to sign and she noticed it and came over and said are you Avil I really wanted to to hear what 
you’re doing because I have to go to a wedding and I’ll miss your talk and so we spoke for 20 
minutes and um uh then Adrien Broady came over and said that he always wanted to be a scientist 
and after I gave the talk Jerry Brookheimimer a very famous Hollywood uh director said uh came 
to me immediately and said I just finished F1 the movie the film and I’m now doing making a new 
film about a scientist just like yourself that is searching for unidentified anomalous phenomena 
and so um anyway um you know I get to meet a lot of people that I’ve never been exposed to and why 
do you think this publicity is coming towards you because well in that Um so for example in some of 
those cases it’s the fact that I had a TED talk um a year ago that um went well even though I didn’t 
sleep the night before. They kept telling us to practice practice practice and I didn’t practice 
at all. It’s just that the night before I said   okay what are the things that I want to convey 
in the talk and then I didn’t sleep that night and gave the talk and apparently people connected 
to to the TED talk. And so as a result of that, some people that heard it contacted me afterwards 
there was publicity. Yeah. And of course there   also Joe and now Joe and so forth. And so it feeds 
from each each of these public events generates. What’s about what what the many people are getting 
the the spotlight by but why you are making the waves that you I think maybe because what I the 
way I speak appeals to people that it makes sense they sort of identify themselves in in the way 
and they notice you know some authenticity in it. Uh however of course you know the biggest force in 
academia is jealousy and that’s why some people in academia when they see this public attention they 
immediately attack and they want to suppress that and they write blog posts or or make you YouTube 
videos that try to say negative things about me even though they’ve never met me and but um yeah 
so I think the appeal comes from first of all I’m understandable and the reason for that is uh 
I grew up on a farm farm in Israel and um uh I was very much connected to nature and I was uh 
interested in the big questions, the big picture and uh therefore I wanted to become a philosopher 
but uh because I had to serve in the military I was recruited to a program called Talpot where uh 
I I pursued a a degree in physics and mathematics and got it at age 24. So I was in the second 
um year of the project talpot and I b basically created a path that did not exist. I I said that 
I want to do research because that was the closest I can get to philosophy. I didn’t want to serve to 
run in the fields with a machine gun or to develop um weapons within the military or do something 
like that. So it turned out that at the time there was the strategic defense initiative star wars 
that President Rean initiated in the mid 1980s and um the head of that program came to visit Israel, 
General Abramson and I presented a project along with an experimentalist to uh General Abramson. 
He loved it and and then we were the first international project that was funded by Star 
Wars strategic and so I went we got a few million dollars a year for the time that I had um you know 
after my bachelor’s degree and I finished my PhD during that time and led the theoretical part of 
the project and also visited Washington and in one of the visits I was someone you know a very 
accomplished physicist very prominent physicist suggested that I visit Princeton, the Institute 
for Advanced Study, and I went uh uh you know, at the end of one of the trips to to Washington, 
I went there for a day. They barely allowed me to show up. Um uh I had 11 publications at that 
time. I was about to finish my PhD. And then um the administrator there said that there is 
only one person here that has free time. His   name is Freeman Dyson. And I said, “Wow, that’s 
amazing. uh I would I would love to meet with him because I recognize his name from textbooks and 
I spoke with him and he said um you know there is a faculty member called John Bal who works 
in astrophysics he’s married to an Israeli uh would you like to meet him and I said sure and 
he called John and John arranged lunch if John was not there on that day then you know I would not 
be in astrophysics but then he invited me for a month and offered me a 5 year fellowship under 
the condition that I’ll switch to astrophysics   from what I was doing. I did my PhD in plasma 
physics. Uh so you know a year later I came to Princeton and had to study all the vocabulary of 
astrophysics. So I had to build myself up cuz I couldn’t refuse such an offer five-year fellowship 
at the very at the place where Einstein was   faculty a few decades earlier. And then Harvard 
was looking for a junior faculty and nobody wanted that job because it has in fact they offered it to 
someone who declined it because the prospects for tenure are very small. So I took it because I mean 
they ended up offering it to me and I said sure uh because I could always go back to the farm 
and I had plan B. I I wasn’t I had job security. But then they then Cornell ended up making me a 
tenure offer at this after three years of being at Harvard. So Harvard responded and offered me 
tenure uh within you know um yeah 3 years after I arrived there usually it’s seven years and so I I 
ended up being tenured at Harvard in astrophysics. It was an arranged marriage, but I realized 
that I’m married to my true love because I can address philosophical questions, you know, the big 
questions using the scientific method. And that’s so I’m not like a typical scientist. I think 
differently. You know, the way I think about it is, you know, when you build a building, you need 
those who put the bricks, uh, the workers and and but you also need before you do that an architect 
that defines the the questions that need to be or or defines the structure of the building, the 
architecture, because otherwise you can put   bricks and get something really, you know, not 
not well designed and and not functional, right? And so most scientists are able to very well 
put bricks on top of each other and follow a path that is defined for them. So if there is a 
mainstream consensus about what needs to be done, they would do it. Now sometimes in the context 
of shrink theory for example, they are told that they need to put bricks in a particular pattern, 
but it’s not clear whether it will lead you know   to any beautiful building because maybe nature 
is has nothing to do with it. Yeah. But um to me it’s most important to think about the big picture 
and if there is for example a missed opportunity   that scientists should address that’s what I’m 
here for. So I started studying the first stars, the first galaxies in the universe and now 
it’s back then there was nobody interested   when I started at Harvard University that’s that 
was my focus and I had eight students every year working on things related and some of them are 
very prominent now um including Daniel Eisen he was the chair of the astronomy department after 
me I I was nine years and he followed me he was my first student actually anyway um So uh this I I 
defined new frontiers like the study of the first galaxies, the first stars which are now is now 
very fashionable within with the web telescope. So I started it several decades ago and um but 
with respect to interstellar objects I feel similarly that it’s a frontier that needs to be 
within the mainstream that was not yet recognized and for me it’s a you know standard practice of 
you know not caring that other people are not involved in it right now. It’s very interesting 
the way you you said that you were interested in philosophy and that’s what what got you into the 
big questions and I think this also what makes you um understandable you are very going to the 
basic. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m I’m not different   than the common person because I am a you know 
I’m just I I was privileged to stay curious. Uh the problem with many kids is that they 
become adults and then they are worried about their reputation and so they don’t take risks and 
and they become very boring. That’s why adults are very boring. Kids are always you know do exciting 
things and my privilege is that I maintain my childhood curiosity. I haven’t changed much since 
the time I was a child. I sort of protected myself from social media. So I I’m not you know the thing 
about social media that I often say it’s like when you go to the beach and you find the seashells 
you know that the different types of seashells that those that were on the beach for a long time 
and they rub against each other as a result of the   waves you know pushing them around and and they 
lose their color eventually. All these seashells, the ones that are relatively young, the seashells 
are they they have beautiful colors. And so the same thing is true about life. You know, if 
you rub against other people all all day long,   you know, in social media or otherwise, you lose 
your colors. And so I somehow managed to avoid that. And I treasure that. And now, you know, I’m 
in the best part of my life because I have the job security of a tenure professor and I have a long 
experience of a thousand scientific papers. I was   chair of the astronomy department, director of 
two institute, the black hole initiative and the uh institute for theory and computation at 
Harvard, the chair of the board on physics and   astronomy of the national academy. So I have 
a lot of leadership positions. I also have a perspective about how science is done, you know, 
and I don’t really care what Brian Cox says. I I really know how science is done, you know, and um 
and I’m also, you know, I I jog every morning at sunrise. I’m in good health. I I eat well. I I’m 
married to an amazing woman. And so if you put all of these together, uh, you know, I have a very now 
the best time of my life of being able to create, uh, because I I finished my, uh, leadership 
positions, allowing me to go back to the trenches and do what I really am passionate about. All 
these leadership positions that I was in were   service to other people around me just to allow 
them to fulfill their potential. So I try to bring excellent people as department chair to Harvard 
astronomy department so that we’ll have the   best department in the world. Okay. And to bring 
excellent postocs, excellent students and but it took a toll on my time and now when I’m relieved 
from these duties I can pursue my creative work uh like I’ve never done with all the experience 
I have. So it’s amazing. It’s like I I couldn’t be happier. Yeah. And what do you think is the 
future in this? I think the best is yet to come. That’s the way I think about life. That, you know, 
when um the two sculptures and the 51 watercolors were donated to my office by Greg Wyatt, I told 
my administrator, I said, “Get rid of all the file cabinets.” So I had a huge file cabinets 
in my office filling up you know like a third of my office with documents from the time I was 
chair of the department with all kinds of books that I don’t really need because they’re time past 
you know so I said get rid of all of that no file cabinets because I’m defined by the future not 
the past I don’t care about all these things that I collected over decades so we got rid of all of 
them and then put the art of Greg White and that’s why my office now is a a mini museum. It’s so when 
I get to it I don’t feel alone because you know there is there are two sculptures of Galileo 
and 51 watercolors. It gives me a sense that   someone is in my office you know and um you know 
I view life that way that the the future would be even better than the past and uh let’s try to 
make it better. It’s up to us, you know. Yeah, it’s a great way to see things segment. So the I 
wanted to ask you if uh you could um it’s like a thought experiment perhaps, but what does the is 
the news um should tell the public about threeas? Oh, you mean the the media? The media. Yeah, I 
think uh it’s important to describe uh the facts, what we know and uh what looks strange about 
it, but not jump to conclusions. In other words, what really happens with reporters when they speak 
with me is very often they distort my message just to get clickbait. Oh, really? Yeah. And then what 
happens is other people who read the story, they think that I said that and then they get upset. 
Can you give me an example for like what? Oh, many examples. I mean, I I had maybe this month I 
had the hundreds of interviews. You can just check them. And so, the way to see what I really said 
is to listen to me in podcast like this one or um read my essays on medium.com. This is me. When 
someone writes about what I said and puts a title that sounds provocative or sensation, like 
a sensation, um that’s not me. Okay. So then other people who want to criticize me, they 
attribute to me whatever the reporter did the way that they distorted the story line. And uh 
that’s unfortunate cuz what happens it creates this vicious uh cycle of them getting people 
getting upset about what the reporters said that I said but they don’t really bother to to 
to go to primary sources the essays I write or cuz I always said that most likely three atlas 
is natural but it could be a black swan event it could be technological there are all these 
anomalies that we must pay attention to it   and explain the anomalies before we are confident 
that it’s natural. Okay. And what does the public needs to know about it in your opinion? Just Oh, 
I think that what are the features of three atlas that are different than normal comets that we are 
familiar with. So obviously there is a diversity in the properties of comets in the solar system. 
But there are some features of three atlas that make it really unusual, unique. And the way it’s 
addressed, you know, by other scientists of the mainstream is to say, “Oh, of course, every 
comment is different than the others.” And uh yeah, so I had even a a blog post that was 
criticizing me and basically saying, “Here are the anomalies that Avi is listing. Let’s go over 
them. They’re not real anomalies.” And he put the um Mhm. quote unquote like he’s saying and he put 
the anomalies in quotes. Yeah. Uh but then he went over the anomalies and for a significant fraction 
of them he said, “Yep, this is anomaly. Yep, this is an anomaly never seen before. Yep, this 
is another anomaly.” But you know, each comet might be different. Now, of course, you can adapt 
that approach, but it shows lack of curiosity and attempt to basically make anything in the sky 
boring to the public and lack of sincerity. You know, when something was never seen before, it 
should be pointed out rather than saying, “Oh, it’s an anomaly in quotes and yep, it was never 
seen before.” Or if you see a mua mua as having a non-gravitational acceleration but having no uh 
evaporation the way comets do, you cannot call it a dark comet because you don’t know what it is. 
And saying that it’s a dark comet means that you know it’s a comet. So there is a problem with 
the way that you know the experts are talking about anomalies because they always want to shove 
it under the carpet of traditional thinking and the journalists should be aware of that because 
they very often just like the influencers they   want to appeal to the science scientists and just 
hide any anomalies from the public view. But the public actually wants to know the truth the way it 
is. And so I think what journalist needs to do is say on the one hand you know there are all these 
properties that appear to be consistent with a natural comet let’s say at the same time there are 
some properties that are unusual and so more data is needed to figure out the nature of the object 
and better theory is needed to explain that data. M yeah two I see it as if it it has two lanes like 
um there is the of the modern era there is the the too much information out there and you need it to 
be uh go through journalists and most of people get only the clickbait type but the same is true 
about politics you know. Yeah, of course. But at   the same um on the on the other end, the many many 
people the public knows and and tries thrives to get information by itself and it’s exploring by 
itself. Yeah. And this is why I’m asking what I’m really worried. I see a new trend right now 
of people using AI to tell them Yeah. the news and then AI distorts the information. It’s not 
always really many times it hallucinates. You have a lot of misinformation of people that are 
intentionally creating content that is wrong. And already I was notified on YouTube. There are 
several videos of me generated by AI. Yeah, I’ve seen some of that. Yeah. That people said, 
well, you should compl I complained the YouTube to YouTube about it. So there is misinformation that 
some of it is intentional and some of it is just mistakes that AI makes. And I think that is the 
big challenge because you know many people rely on AI right now for the information they use and 
uh I get a lot of emails that people confess they were written with the help of AI and I’m really 
upset about that because um I think people should have critical thinking. They should go for the 
sources. I always go to the primary sources to   figure out if something is real or not. if they 
really care about something. I mean, of course, there’s there are lots of things you don’t care 
about. So then you can rely on whatever you want.   But if you care about something, just go to the 
primary sources that are reliable. Don’t rely on AI telling you what these things are. And the 
problem is that many of my students are losing their ability to think because they rely on AI. So 
in the future it will not be so much that AI will supersede the co cognitive abilities of humans and 
therefore you know we have to worry about it. It’s more that because humans are using AI they will 
lose their cognitive abilities in the brain is like a muscle that if you are not using it then 
you would lose muscle mass like math so human will be humans will become dumber and of course AI 
will supersede you. So, I’m really worried about AI controlling the minds of people. That’s the 
biggest risk because you might say, “Oh, AI has no access to the physical world. There are no robots 
that are really managing everything.” But in fact,   there are humans that could be controlled by in 
their mind by AI systems and therefore do a lot of damage to society as a result. And we see that in 
the political polarization. People are shooting, you know, each other. uh but it will come to 
haunt us in in many other ways much worse than social media and that I think is the biggest 
concern about AI. It’s the fact that it would   manipulate the human mind if you if the human 
mind relies on it. However, if the human mind relies on interactions among humans, you know, 
then of course we can moderate the influence of AI and that will keep us sane. And I think it’s, 
you know, we should somehow encourage the human human interaction over human AI interactions. 
Yeah. The the the thing about the AI, we talked about the space odyssey. Uh the their decision 
of the AI to kill the human in this um specific event is based on its calculation about their 
ability to achieve the mission. So AI can see that some humans are need to be yeah our problem. 
Yeah. Yeah. But the way I see it is more that um uh they will manipulate our mind to believe that 
they’re basically assisting us but in fact they’re assisting us giving us advice that will destroy 
ourselves. Wow. So um they will uh uh use humans to modify the the the reality around and um that 
is a real danger because we see the damage from social media in the minds of young you know adults 
and um and AI could have much more cause much more damage unless we somehow find a way of uh giving 
a higher priority to human human interactions and um you So there there is also the question of what 
will humans do in in a world dominated by AI and um you know computers are right now much better 
than humans in chess for example but nevertheless chess players are still you know valued that’s 
because we want to see humans facing the challenge of winning a chess game and when I was at the 
NASCAR car race I basically thought to myself uh you know, um, probably a company can build 
a self-driving car that will win the race, but why isn’t there a company that builds a 
self-driving car that wins the NASCAR race? Because the whole point of the NASCAR race is 
to see humans, you know, beating other humans, you know, that’s the whole point. So I don’t 
think in principle you know if even if AI gets more smarter than us and gets much better we will 
still be able to enjoy the challenge of humans accomplishing the same goals that AI might do 
much more easily and moreover if we give priority to human human interaction. So for example, if 
we see um art like the creation of paintings, the you know literature and so forth, if we 
see that as a communication between humans, a human speaking to another human, that cannot 
be substituted by AI. So the fact that AI can make a beautiful painting or or image will not 
get that painting a large value because it was not generated by a human. we still would pay more 
to see what a human was able to do even if the AI image is is amazing or the same about music or 
wow that’s fascinating okay so final question um I think I know the answer but if you could um 
allocate the funds of our of the world towards one thing what do you think would it be to find our 
neighbors um because it will make us better. Um, and the way I see it is that um, you know, in 
in Judaism there is this notion of the Messiah and in my mind it will not come from planet earth. 
Uh, the Messiah may come from another star and uh, it will bring prosperity and peace because it will 
change our perspective uh that you know the rock that we live on has very limited opportunities 
for us. In fact, most of the real estate is beyond earth. And once we realize the big stage, you 
know, the is far bigger than our home on earth. We would change our priorities and that will bring 
humanity to a much better place. Uh so that is the messianic message I think and my hope is that 
during my lifetime we would uh witness it in the form of some technological gadget that visits the 
inner solar system. Me as well. Okay, Professor Ailob, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. 
That was a great pleasure. Thank you very much.