continues. host: welcome back to "washington journal." we are joined by harvard astrophysicist avi loeb, we will be discussing the recent congressional hearing on unidentified annapolis -- analogous phenomenon. good morning. guest: good morning. host: let's start. you have been on the program before. remind our audience about your view of extraterrestrial life in the universe. do you think it exists, and how did you come to your beliefs? guest: i think it is arrogant of

us to think we are believe -- we are unique and special. we are taught we are the central of the universe. the earth moves around the sun. the only thing left for us to believe is we are the most intelligent civilization to have existed. we know there are tens of billions of stars similar to the sun within the milky way galaxy alone. most of them formed billions of years before the sun. they have a planet the size of the earth, roughly the same separation. so, if billions of dice rolls where you have some chance of making a civilization similar to ours, it is likely there are others out there and they have enough time to send a probe that would arrive to our doorstep because it takes less than one billion years for chemical rockets, the types we use, to traverse the entire galaxy. all we need to do is look around

us and go out to our backyard and check if there is any tennis ball that was thrown by a neighbor, in addition to the rocks we see around us. only over the past decade, we started doing that. there was a meteor found january 2014 by u.s. government satellites. we realized with my student that was actually moving very fast, faster than 95% of all stars, it was not bound to the sun, came from outside and moreover, it had material strength larger than all the space rocks we had seen. we decided -- i lead the next division to find the next meteor last month. we found the materials. we are now studying them. the question is, the fundamental question -- is it easier to learn about space from the

bottom of the pacific ocean then it is from washington, d.c.? host: so, last week, the house oversight committee national security subcommittee held a hearing on this issue, ufos or what we now call you aps --uap 's. what did you think of the hearing? particularly, there was an exchange were one of the folks who was speaking at the time -- we are going to watch a little bit of that exchange -- this is representative nancy mace, a republican from north carolina. she is questioning witnesses david gresh on recovery efforts of the uap's by the u.s. and he is talking about how he cannot publicly discuss if the government has made contact with extraterrestrial crafts. he makes some interesting allegations. let's watch a little bit. [video clip] >> you say the government is in

possession of potentially nonhuman spacecrafts. based on your experience and conversations with experts, do you believe our government has made contact with intelligence, extraterrestrials? >> something i cannot discuss in this setting. >> ok, i cannot ask when you think this occurred. [laughter] if you believe we have crashed crafts stated earlier, do we have the body's a who piloted this craft? >> as i have stated publicly already, biologics came with some of these recoveries. yeah. >> were they human or nonhuman biologics? >> nonhuman. that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program i talked to who are still on the program. >> was their document evidence, video, photos, how would that be determined? >> the specific documentation i would have to talk -- about.

host: what are your thoughts about the hearing overall? in this particular portion, it has got a lot of people saying, hey, does the u.s. government have extraterrestrial remains locked away somewhere? can you break down what are your thoughts? guest: i think the u.s. government is the first organization to notice anything unusual in our backyard, because the day job of the intelligence agency is to monitor the sky and check for ballistic missiles. anything threatening the u.s. in the course of doing so, they might see things unusual. sonograms are focused at the edge of the universe, very far away. if anything flies overhead the telescope, the astronomers ignore it. it is possible that the u.s. government has some information. what is inappropriate is that it is withheld in secrecy.

it is very likely to be of relevance to national security if it came from thousands of light years away. does not care how we split the land on this rock call the earth. just inc. of it as a family living at home in isolation. then, you step out of the home into the backyard and noticed a tennis ball thrown by a neighbor. will you keep it secret and not tell your family members that you have a neighbor? i think it is not smart to do so. if your family knows about the neighbor, they may decide to maintain their privacy by shutting off the curtains or they may decide to engage with the neighbor and figure out the nature of this neighbor. or, one day, the neighbor will knock on your front door. it is much better to know the reality that we live in, not to keep it in secret. this is a scientific matter. we better let scientists figure

out what it means. the government has no authority to keep scientific information about the universe in its hands without letting scientists know about it. there are two possibilities, either they have something or not. if they have, please share it with scientists. i would be delighted to have government figure it out. host: this is harvard astrophysicist avi loeb. we want to get your questions or comments for him on this topic of what we have long described as ufos, but uap's is the current terminology. here are the phone lines to call and talk with avi. it is regional. if you are in the central or eastern time zone, we want you to call us at (202) 748-8000. eastern or central. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, call us at (202) 748-8001.

you can still send us a text message at caller:, make sure you include your name and where you live. we will get to your questions and comments on that topic. in a moment. let's keep going. the has an article. its title says, ufos are a common site. former military official tells congress about this hearing that was held earlier last week. one of the big takeaways from the hearing was improving the process for reporting unidentified aerial phenomenon. how common are these reported sightings? what information is collected, and what happens to that information? guest: right. the two pilots that spoke at the hearing in the house of

representatives, it is common. ryan graves was describing it as a daily occurrence. we have to understand it could be a mixed bag. most of those objects maybe balloons or drones that are mistaken, that are not identified. the question is, is there anything else that is not human made? as the testimony by david gresh is different. he says the u.s. government is in possession of materials of space. that is very different. we are not talking about a report of seeing something unusual, which could be balloons mistaken for something else. he is talking about the u.s. actually having a reverse engineering program and retreatment programs of materials from crash sites of unidentified objects, which is different. then, you can study the materials. you can figure out these are

indeed not human made. what we would like to know is whether these things exist. the good news is that, some representatives asked gresh to have a -- with him so he could give details and locations of those programs. if indeed this is real, the representatives can move along this path and speak to the people involving this program, figure out if it is real. if it is real, we should all know about it. host: another question before we get to the phone lines, because we want to answer reader questions. i want to ask you about the stigma that is associated with the reporting of ufos or unidentified anomalous phenomena

. i have an article pulled up, this is a cbs news article. the headline says, what are uap 's and why do ufos have a new name? again, this is a cbs news article. i want to read a little bit. in the article, it does talk about the stigma associated with one of the reasons why they are not called ufos anymore. it says, ufos still carry an association with a strain of conspiratorial and paranoid thinking that discouraged many pilots from coming forth with their own experiences. bearing a negative impact on their careers or reputations. graves, one of the people who testified at that hearing last week, the other fighter pilot who testified before congress, told lawmakers that "the stigma attached to uap is real and

powerful and challenges national security. it silences commercial pilots who fear professional repercussions, discourages witnesses and is only compounded by recent government claims questioning the credibility of eyewitness testimony." that is a cbs news article. can you talk a little bit about the stigma, and how do you think that affects the number of ufos that are reported? guest: there is a reason for the stigma. a lot of people in the public talked about things that make no sense. people talk about being objected. people talk about events that are not corroborated by any evidence. they basically spoke nonsense. that should not deter us from listening to pilots, military personnel who have had real experiences. in those circumstances, these are reliable people that we trust who defend our nation.

we should just get to the bottom of it. there is some risk to the safety of these pilots if we do not understand what flies high. ok? irrespective of what it is, we should figure it out. it is something real. these are not crazy people. these are military personnel that report things they have seen. we should do a systematics study. we build observatories aimed at doing a systematic study of the sky and figuring out whether we are talking about natural objects like birds, bugs or maybe human made objects like balloons, drones, airplanes. or, something lentz -- something else. it would have a huge impact on the future of humanity. i face a challenge in the scientific community.

they say, we do not want to engage with this subject because of the crazy claims made by nonprofessionals over the last couple of years. it sounds like noise. 1000 years ago, there were people saying the human body has a soul. therefore, it should not be -- there are people saying we should not touch the human body because it does not have a soul. that is nonsense. we do not want to do anything about it. where would modern medicine be? we would never have operation. the correct way to approach it is to say, let's examine eight the scientific way by using evidence to guide us. let's get to the bottom of this, whatever the answer is. if it ends up being balloons, so be it and let's move on. but, just speculating about it makes no sense, especially since military personnel talk about it

as if it is a risk to their safety. separate from that, there is the issue of what the u.s. government knows. some people that have high clearance know something others do not, according to gresh. we need to get to the bottom of that, as well. altogether, i would say it is best to approach in a scientific way. unfortunately, my colleagues are not willing to do so. i am trying to pave the path for that. believe me, every week i have to argue with people who claim that everything in the sky must be stones. rocks. i call that the stone age of science. where everything in the sky must be stone. that makes no sense at all. we sent out five probes into space. voyager one, voyager two, pioneer 10, pioneer 11 and new horizon. they will exit the solar system

in 10,000 years and become space trash. if we did that over the past 50 years, other civilizations that preceded us by billions of years could have littered interstellar space by a lot of probes. you can think of it like plastics in the ocean. they keep accumulating over time. these probes are filling up interstellar space. by looking around, we may notice space trash from other civilizations or some functional devices. host: let's go to the phone lines now. we are ready to take questions or comments from you to harvard astrophysicist avi loeb. the numbers to call if you are in the eastern or central time zone, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. first up is joe calling from florida. caller: good morning. this is a very interesting topic.

it is like relevant particular early what has been happening of late. there has been sightings of numerous objects. as a matter of fact, i want to point out supposedly there is a satellite orbiting the earth that people claim were sent here, like the guest mentioned, years ago from another constellation. what does that mean? it means as humans, we probably do not know what we think we know. we cannot be as smart as we think we are. you think, for example, some of the billionaires now. what is elon musk thinking about? going to mars. did we go to mars, destroy mars, come back here and are getting ready to destroy the earth and moved back to mars? this is an interesting topic.

disclosure in the long run will -- disclosure in the long run will allow us to know, are there other civilizations that look like us and are sending probes to get us to connect? these are relevant questions and a relevant discussion. guest: thank you. i should comment that many of these multibillionaire's visited my home past couple of years after my book appeared. they are funding some of it, funding my research. this expedition to the pacific ocean cost $1.5 million. it was fully funded by a donation. i did not have to go around and fund raise. people came to me because they were inspired by the vision. the implications for humanity are huge if we find clear evidence using the scientific fed. the problem is, a lot of scientists say, extraordinary

claims require extraordinary evidence. at the same time, they are not seeking the evidence. if you are not searching, you will not find anything. i am searching. with respect to implications, i describe them in the book that will come out next month called interstellar. i think this is the most exciting subject that science has to offer. the public resonates with it. for the politicians in washington, d.c. resonates with it. it is our duty to attend to it, rather than allowing speculations. that puts it back in the same place where it was decades ago. we are much better now. we have exceptional instruments we can use to figure out what is out there. host: let's go to falls city, oregon now. russell on the line. caller: hello, mr. loeb.

i was wondering if you are considering the energy factor of these vehicles. if we have contact with a vehicle that has this technology, with no exhaust and a mysterious way of using gravity or something, that should be utilized by the american people to be able to help our country to tackle global warming, maybe the whole world? thank you. guest: the way i look at this, this is a subject scientists should be engaged in. it is not a government duty to figure out things that come from interstellar space. the government is supposed to worry about national security. this is not a matter of national security. this is a matter of science. of course, once we figure out what these things are, if they do exist, we can use it to our advantage like any other thing in science.

what these things mean has to be the job of scientists. not of the corporations that try to make a profit, and not of government officials that try to make politics out of it. it should be scientists, the best scientists in the world inking about it. the challenge is great. most likely, whatever arrives to our doorstep is far more advanced than the technologies that we possess. he did not get to their doorstep -- we did not get to their doorstep, they arrived first to our doorstep. they could be billions of years more danced than we are. we just have one century of science and technology. that is all. they could have millions of years of science and technology. for us to meet the technological gadget a more civilized organization produced, that cave

dweller would look -- oh, it will look miraculous the way the burning bush appeared to moses in the bible. it would look like a miracle. it would take a wild to reverse engineer that. but, to figure it out, you need the best minds in the world. if you keep it closed and in the hands of corporations, they will not figure it out because they do not have the best minds in the world. it needs to be open, the way science is done. this is knowledge that should be shared by all humans. we are one family on this earth. if we have neighbors, we better work together. in fact, that is my hope, that it will bring people together to realize we have neighbors. host: all right. next up, jim in massachusetts. what is your question or comment? caller: yes. i would like to talk about roswell, new mexico, 1947.

also, a ufo that crashed 60 years later in the nevada desert , 1953. what do you know about that? what do you know about roswell? is it true that it is possible that we have been in some stuff that got us -- a lot quicker by stuff that we got salvaged from that crashed from roswell, new mexico 42 years earlier? guest: the problem is, any data on this historical event was not released publicly. i cannot assess what is behind it. it looks as if some of it was confiscated by government. for good reason or not a good reason, we do not know. that is why we need to see the evidence, the data, before we can make judgment. i do not dismiss these stories. i say, i went to see the meat,

the evidence to figure it out. unfortunately, it is held behind a veil of secrecy. that is what the hearing in the house of representatives was all about. the fact that there may be something hidden. of course, if we find something like that, it will change our perspective about our place in the universe and where we came from, what our neighbors know that we do not know. the one thing we should always keep in mind is, we should be modest. humans came to exist on earth only a few million years ago. that is one in 110,000th of the age of the universe. we are not the center of space. if you come to a play like that, you arrive at the end of the play and not at the center of

the stage. the play is not about you. that is a simple conclusion. we keep insisting everything is about us. and that we are at the center, we are the only smart beings. albert einstein with -- was the smartest scientist since the big bang. i think that is arrogant. we should be modest. it is possible as the previous listener mentioned, it lost its atmosphere 2 billion years ago. one thing we could do is go to these caves on mars, the lava tubes and check the walls. whether there are any cave paintings that could have been created by intelligent beings on mars 2 billion years ago. who knows? maybe intelligent life on mars preceded intelligent life on earth by 2 billion years. that is just a factor. it is possible. point is, we keep thinking that

it is an extraordinary claim to think we have partners out there. i say, if you are single and you say, i do not have a partner. obviously, it is a self fulfilling prophecy. what you need to do is go to dating sites, or at least look for the window, or at least go to your backyard and search for any objects that came from the street to figure out whether there are partners out there. it will change our life if we find a partner. host: the dating advice through me for a loop, avi. i will be honest. [laughter] larry in california. what is your question or comment? caller: yes. my question is -- i am 70 years old. i have heard this ufo stuff forever. ever since we got the drones, it is drones.

we also bought balloons. all this talk is just for profit to sell books. we have no evidence. the three guys that were there that day was like the climax after five days on this news station they had over there. they kept on saying they were going to show us that day, spill the beans. when the time came, the guy wanted to go to a skiff. he did not realize, this is your big chance. these guys are all former military, none of them have security clearance. what are they worried about? this was a chance to drop the bomb on everybody and say, here is the pictures, here is what we got. they have nothing. it sounds really weird that only the american government is hiding stuff. how about all the world? nobody has anything? another thing i have a problem with is, pilots are always alcoholics. how are we trusting these guys? we do not know them. please, stop it. until we have evidence, then we

are good to go. guest: i completely agree with you. i do not think we are at the mercy of government, by the way, because the sky is not classified. the oceans are not classified. we can figure it out as scientists. i agree with you, it is all about evidence. it is not about setting up stories. we need to see the evidence. the hope i have is that in the skiff he promised to have, david gresh would provide details about people who have firsthand expense with these programs. we just need to wait months and see if anything comes out of it. if nothing comes out of it, it means there was no fire behind the smoke. there is really nothing out there. i agree with you, we need to see the evidence. there is now a path for congress to get to the bottom of it. that is what should happen. rather than not discussing our

opinions, they should contact those people that gresh gives them and see if there is anything behind it. then, let the public know. that is it. we have a path or word. in a years time, if we still do not know anything, i agree with you. there is probably nothing. host: speaking of some of the skepticism, last month, you lead an expedition on the western pacific seafloor. you mentioned it earlier in this program. there is an article in the new york times about that expedition . the headline, scientists deep dive for alien life leads his peers dubious. it is talking about you. i am going to read a little of this article. this is an article regarding your trip last month. it says last month, dr. loeb led an expedition to retrieve fragments from several years,

2014, a fireball from space. you lead an expedition to retrieve fragments of the fireball off the western pacific seafloor. on june 21, he claimed he had in such discoveries, he said, may be the way scientists find evidence of extraterrestrial life. i am going to keep reading. here's her quote. "not biological creatures like what you see in science fiction movies, it is mostly a technological gadget with artificial intelligence." many astronomers see the announcement as the latest example of dr. loeb making an outlandish declaration that is too strong and too hasty. his pronouncements in a promotional video in times square about the search for extraterrestrial life skew public perception of how science actually works, they say.

so, i amriing that up to say, you know, explain wt d you find? a showing a picture of you holding something that you found. tell us, what did you find? you know the picture i am referencing. what did you find and how do you respond to those who say, you are not helping this. you are creating more skepticism. guest: let me explain what i am doing. i am sinking evidence. this meteor discovered by the u.s. government sensors in 2014, i realized together with my studt that this object was moving very fast. it is not bound to the sun. it came from interstellar space. i wrote a scientific paper saying, here is a meteor, the first one that was recognized, to come from outside the solar system. a scientific paper. my colleagues were, no, we do not believe the u.s. government.

i was chair of the board of physics and astronomy at the national academies at the time. i was frustrated. at dinner, i mentioned it to both members. one suggested to have me. he attended that with the white house official, contacting the u.s. space command. the u.s. space command on march 1 2022 issued a formal letter to nasa, saying they confirmed the discovery of the interstellar origin from outside the solar system of this meteor. the 19 9.99% confidence, and official letter. put the reputation on the line in an official statement. my paper was accepted for publication at that point. the u.s. government released

data about the fireball, which allowed me to conclude that it was made of material strength with space rocks we have seen before. itxploded in the lower atmosphere in the earth where the friction is high, so the stress on the object was high and it was able to maintain its integrity on the way down to about 20 kilometers above the pacific ocean. so, it was tougher than all meteors in the nasa catalog from the past decade. 272 of them. moreover, this meteor was moving very fast outside the solar system. 60 kilometers per second, faster than 95% of all stars. we went there, to the pacific ocean, built a magnetic sled with magnets on both sides and dragged it on the ocean floor and collected magnetic

particles. the type you can see in this vile here. most of it was volcanic ash. between those volcanic ash particles, by now, we found 711 metallic marbles that look very distinct from their background. they are basically molten droplets from the surface of the object when it was exposed to the immense heat from the fireball that was detected by the u.s. government satellites. these molten droplets were found by our sled. we had 711 of them. now, we can examine their composition. roughly a millimeter in size, a milligram in mass, each. that is what we are doing with the best instruments in the world at harvard university, uc berkeley, the broker corporation in portland, germany and the

university of technology in papa new guinea. just to explain, i am following the scientific method. i am looking for the evidence. yet, my colleagues have opinions. what the paper published two weeks ago, saying the u.s. government was wrong. this object was moving three times slower. it was made of stone. at the time this paper appeared, i came back from the expedition with materials in my hand and i already knew it is mostly made of iron. this paper was wrong. that was the kind of situation i am facing, where i have colleagues who argue that anything in the sky must be stones. i am trying to collect the evidence. that is exactly the way science works. the way i am pursuing it is the way science works. we will publish the result in a scientific paper that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. on the ship, i was joking at

sunrise. i usually jog at sunrise at home and i did it on the deck of the ship. there was a filming crew on the ship. the director of that filming crew asked me, it looks like you are running. are you running away from something, or toward something? my answer was, both. i am running away from some of my colleagues who have strong opinions without fitting evidence. and, i am running toward a higher intelligence in interstellar space. host: all right. we will look forward to those conclusions. let's hear from wanda, chico, california. caller: ok. back in the 1950's, have you heard of averell byrd? he wrote about his in town or with lost civilization in antarctica. according to his hollow earth. . -- hollow earth theory.

byrd met in the south pole. did you know the south pole was once ice free? you can see admiral byrd's testimony, videos on youtube. maybe you should look at antarctica instead of way out there somewhere. guest: thank you. there are all kinds of claims in literature. what we want to do here is, rather than study stories from the past that did not use the instruments we currently have, let's just figure it out ourselves, the way kids figure out what is out there, rather than listening to stories from decades ago. decades ago, people did not have the instruments we have now. let's just figure it out. it could take us months, years, we find out if there is anything unusual around earth.

that is what i am after, rather than digging into the history books, reading about what people said three decades ago. we cannot revisit those things. host: next up, we have ellen in oyster bay, new york. caller: good morning. so excited to be listening to dr. loeb's presentation and watching the presentation that was on c-span a few days ago with the scientist. i am a phd rn. i went to cornell and other universities hand have been a scientist my whole life. i find this refreshing. i am a contac-d. i have written a book called synchronous connections about my own experiences, direct experiences, with what you might call extraterrestrials who have visited here. that has gone on in my personal life since 1958, and ongoingly.

i am so excited to see the scientific inquiry to something that is totally a part of my life. guest: thank you. i should mention i was in the washington national cathedral in november, 2021, together with averill haynes and jeff bezos on stage. april has a bachelors degree in physics from the university of chicago. she is the director of national intelligence. at the time, it was about half a year after she delivered the first report about unidentified anonymous -- anomalous phenomenon. i said to her, what do you make of this? do you have any gut feeling about what these things are? she said, i do not know. i believe her. i think the government, if it has anything, probably does not really know what it means. that is why i am advocating if

the government does have something, please, let scientists look into it and figure it out and help you. host: calling from denver, colorado, let's hear from andrew. caller: hi, yes. host: go ahead, andrew. caller: all right. host: you are speaking with dr. loeb and tia. go ahead. all right. well, dr. loeb, i will ask you one final question as we finish up the show today. again, going back to that hearing. you talked about, the government should be more transparent. how much information do you think should be released? saw the testimony where he was like, i can only release it in a very secure, private mechanism for congress. how much of that should be released publicly?

guest: i think in his case, it is a legal issue. he is worried because he signed documents in the past, nondisclosure agreements and so forth. he is worried legally about what may happen if he releases some information publicly. the bigger picture is forgetting about david gresh. you did not want to compromise national security. you do not want to release information that could include details that adversaries can take advantage of. that is all. now, if your are materials that were collected decades ago, obviously, it is irrelevant for national security now because what happened decades ago -- any discovery from decades ago was using sensors or instruments that the u.s. used, that are not used anymore. even if adversaries know about how this was discovered or what these materials are, that will not compromise national security because it is such old

information. my point is, there must be some details that can be released, if indeed such programs exist. perhaps it became sort of bureaucratic nightmare to get to the bottom of this, but now that gresh is willing to provide details so he does not face legal issues, the representatives need to follow-up up on those details and figure out if there is anything behind them. it is not -- if not, let's move on. why do we need to keep speculating? we need to figure out and move on if there is nothing behind it. host: we will end there. harvard astrophysicist avi loeb, who serves as the head of the galileo project. thank you again for joining us this morning. also, the author of the book extraterrestrials, the first sign of intelligent to chairman

we