Monday, July 6, 2026
Contact    |    RSS icon Twitter icon Facebook icon  
Unexplained Mysteries Support Us
You are viewing: Home > News > The UFO Phenomenon > News story
  
All ▾
Search Submit

The UFO Phenomenon

Alien 'mothership' could be watching us with probes, researchers suggest

By T.K. Randall
March 23, 2023
UFO abduction
Image: AI-generated (Midjourney)
Avi Loeb and Sean M. Kirkpatrick discuss the possibility of such a scenario in their recent paper on the subject of UFOs.
Entitled 'Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena', the paper, which is still undergoing peer review, examines the alleged movements and capabilities of unexplained objects sighted by US Navy pilots off the coast of the United States.

Its authors are certainly no strangers to UFOs; Loeb is an astrophysicist who has been heavily involved in the search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence while Dr Kirkpatrick is the director of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

In a previous story about their paper, we reported that they had concluded that the alleged capabilities of "highly maneuverable" objects spotted by US Navy pilots are so extreme that the sheer friction involved should have produced a visible fireball as well as a corresponding radio signature that could be picked up on radar.

Now it seems as though the pair have also been looking into the idea that an extraterrestrial mothership passing through our solar system could have released a number of smaller probes designed to enter Earth's atmosphere and study us without our knowledge.
"[Interstellar meteorite impacts inspired me] to consider the possibility that an artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions," Loeb told Live Science

"These 'dandelion seeds'... could be separated from the parent craft by the tidal gravitational force of the Sun or by a maneuvering capability."

In the paper, Loeb and Kirkpatrick suggest that these probes could reach Earth and enter our atmosphere without being detected by astronomers.

It is also possible, given the amount of time that it would take to travel vast distances through space, that the civilization from which the mothership originated might not even exist any more.

Source: Live Science




Our new book is out now!
Book cover

The Unexplained Mysteries
Book of Weird News

 AVAILABLE NOW 

Take a walk on the weird side with this compilation of some of the weirdest stories ever to grace the pages of a newspaper.

Click here to learn more

We need your help!
Patreon logo

Support us on Patreon

 BONUS CONTENT 

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can gain access to a wide range of exclusive perks including our popular 'Lost Ghost Stories' series.

Click here to learn more

Recent news and articles