Extraterrestrial

Avi Loeb accepts skeptic's $1,000 wager over alien visitation by 2030

By T.K. Randall
November 29, 2025 ·  11 comments

Image: Avi Loeb (file photo)
Credit: Christopher Michel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Loeb, who seems adamant that there is more to interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS than meets the eye, has responded to a bet put forward by Skeptic magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer.

The precise wording of the wager is that the "discovery or disclosure of alien visitation to Earth in the form of UFOs, UAPs, or any other technological artifact or alien biological form, as confirmed by major scientific institutions and government agencies, will not happen by December 31, 2030."

Whoever wins the $1,000 will donate the money to the Galileo Project Foundation.

"Believers appear in the media boldly predicting that by the end of the year we will have proof of alien contact - 33 years later I'm still waiting for said proof," said Dr. Shermer.

Loeb, meanwhile, maintains that the hunt for alien life is just getting started."The search for technological artifacts has just started in earnest in 2025 with the discovery of the anomalous interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, the launch of the Rubin Observatory and the construction of three Galileo Project Observatories," he wrote on his blog.

"It is better to be an optimist because life is sometimes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Which of the two men will win the wager remains to be seen, but it would also be fair to say that Loeb has a bit of an uphill battle if he hopes for alien life to be proven within five years.

Not only that, but he will have to prove that it has been visiting the Earth as well.

No doubt we'll be reporting on the outcome of the wager when the time comes.

Source: New York Post | Comments (11)

Tags: Avi Loeb, Alien