Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

Written by Avi Loeb

Narrated by Robert Petkoff

New York Times Bestseller | Wall Street Journal Bestseller | Publishers Weekly Bestseller | Publishers Marketplace 2020 Buzz Book  | Amazon Best Book of the Year | Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

“Provocative and thrilling ... Loeb asks us to think big and to expect the unexpected.”

—Alan Lightman, New York Times bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

Harvard’s top astronomer lays out his controversial theory that our solar system was recently visited by advanced alien technology from a distant star.

In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization.

In Extraterrestrial, Loeb takes readers inside the thrilling story of the first interstellar visitor to be spotted in our solar system. He outlines his controversial theory and its profound implications: for science, for religion, and for the future of our species and our planet. A mind-bending journey through the furthest reaches of science, space-time, and the human imagination, Extraterrestrial challenges readers to aim for the stars—and to think critically about what’s out there, no matter how strange it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jan 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9780358393788

Avi Loeb

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University, the longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, the founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and the current director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He also heads the Galileo Project, chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, and is former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. Author of eight books and more than a thousand scientific papers, Loeb is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2012, Time selected Loeb as one of the twenty-five most influential people in space. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

Reviews for Extraterrestrial

[soraxtm-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is an ok book. It has one major argument. That weird thing they found in 2017 Oumuamua might be extraterrestrial and this possibility is much more interesting than the supersymmetry idea behind the CERN supercollider so this is where the money must go.

[publiusdb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m not sure what I expected from a book that posits that advanced alien technology passed through our solar system in 2017. Yes, I expected to read about some kind of weird anomalous, unexplainable object that passed through our solar system, and that’s definitely here. In the 11 days that we astronomers were able to observe it—noticed too late to possibly catch it before the interstellar object was on the way out of the solar system—it didn’t seem to fit all the characteristics of an asteroid or comet. Weird geometry, its luminosity, its lack of a cometary tail, the strange fact that it appeared to have accelerated away from the sun in a straight line, out of its orbit, somehow propelled...

All that I expected. And it’s really interesting. I’m not a scientist, but I find the natural world and Avi Loeb is an excellent writer. His book is replete with examples to demonstrate complex principals of physics. But the Extraterrestrial is not just a scientific argument for an interstellar visitor of alien origins. Also here are Loeb’s philosophical examination for what it means to look for evidence of aliens, why we should care, and why we should question scientific orthodoxy.

Yeah, that. It’s not as if Loeb is finding common cause with Galileo, who died accused of heresy by the Catholic Church because he would not agree with the orthodoxy of the day, though he’s certainly willing to point out the similarities. In his case, it’s the willingness to look for extraterrestrial life, something many of his colleagues in the field of astronomy are unwilling to do. The longest-serving chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, Loeb sees the impact of tenure, and the fight for tenure by young astronomers, as a force that influences young astronomers towards conformity instead of encouraging creativity and out of the box thinking.

Loeb is good writer and his life-long interest in philosophy and an inclination to examine the big questions makes for an interesting narrative and mini-biography intermingled with how he got to a place where he’s mixing with Stephen Hawking, theorizing about black holes, and searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life. It’s really interesting stuff.

Is he right? Heck if I know. But he’s got me convinced that the questions we ask are about as important as the stuff we observe out there. If the universe is as big as we think it is, there’s good reason to think that other civilizations have arisen and, maybe, are even more advanced than we are. When might we find evidence of them? Or they of us?

[Edwin Donald · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An observation of something earlier thought impossible, that is, a visit to our solar system by an object that might have been made by an alien intelligence. Could it be possible? What would it mean? This book is a fine way to see how top minds tackle and debate a puzzle, written in a way that lesser minds can follow the conversation.

[online bible · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved every single drop of word from Avi Loeve. Inspitarional and very educative.

[vikebo · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! Crackpot! and Crackpot!

[aadyer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A really good, albeit short memoir of not only a career, but of mankind’s interaction with a mysterious interstellar object, that may or may not have had extraterrestrial origins. Not overly technical & well explained, this was astrophysics easy listening style. Clearly an enthusiast, this comes across, and more to the better for doing so. Intriguing.

[donhazelwood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is book is part autobiography, part explanation of the scientific process, part argument for the scientific community to take SETI more seriously, and part about why the author believes Oumuamua is our first visitor originating from intelligent life not of Earth.

Parts of this book made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and give me goosebumps ...

[ericlee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Avi Loeb is the head of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University and is one of the world leaders in his field. He believes that ‘Oumuamua, an object detected in 2017 as it flew through our solar system, was advanced technology produced by an alien civilisation. Most scientists rejected the idea, but in this book Loeb makes a convincing case that we shouldn’t be took quick to dismiss this explanation.The problem is that he makes that case very early in the book, and spends the rest of the time talking about his life growing up on a moshav in Israel, his parents, the second world war, where he goes on holiday with his family, his love of seashells, etc, etc. Surely he had enough material to fill up an entire book on ‘Oumuamua, but maybe his editors told him not to lay on the science too much. For whatever reason, this reads like a magazine article with some autobiography and unrelated musings about life tagged on.On the other hand, it’s an amazing story and he may well be right.

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I Want to Believe

Are we here on Earth the only intelligent life there will ever be in the whole enormous universe? Yes, to this question is harder to believe than no, an acknowledgement that because we exist other intelligent life must exist as well. This is not the same as saying we will ever see these intelligent beings, nor that they will physically visit us. Space is just to vast and the known laws of physics are just too restricting. However, we might detect them in the same way they may detect us, by radio signals and by long-distance exploratory efforts wandering into our realm, though probably not quite as spectacularly as in Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. Avi Loeb’s case for ‘Oumuamua being such an effort of a faraway civilization probably is closer to the truth. And even this, if you listen to critics, is just too hard to believe.

To all of you who have copies of the Fox Mulder poster “I want to believe” and to all the more of you, of us, who agree with the sentiment and believe we are not alone, Avi Loeb’s book will be akin to a scientific thrill ride. Loeb describes the arrival and quick departure of interstellar object ‘Oumuamua and his scientifically reasoned argument that this was probably our first contact with an artifact created by intelligent extraterrestrial life. Among other things, he describes what sets this object apart from a naturally occurring one, such as comet. That it was moving too fast, that it changed course slightly when it encountered our sun, that it was bright and uniquely shaped, being quite flat, suggesting it was fashioned for a purpose.

Naturally, as you would expect, Loeb, an astrophysicist, among other things, builds his argument on scientific facts and accumulated research, which, if he had used strictly scientific language, would certainly have been dense and impenetrable to the layperson. Fortunately, Loeb is one of those gifted people who can express himself in easily understood language, and even better, able to draw examples explaining concepts from most people’s everyday experiences.

Now, whether you accept his argument is entirely up to you. If your desire to believe that we might know in some definitive way whether other life exists in the vast universe, you’ll probably be on his side. Of course, you shouldn’t wait for extraterrestrials to drop in any time soon. The laws of physics and the distance between stars almost certainly guarantee that will not happen, and may never happen. And, honestly, would we really want a technologically superior civilization dropping in on us?

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Avi Loeb astrophysicist plays with the thought what if the first object we found arriving from outside the Solar system, the Oumuamua had an artificial origin. Like a good scientist he backs his hypothesis with data and fact but of course this always remains a hypothesis and we`ll never know the truth. In the second part of the book he contemplates about the consequences IF it was the truth.My only criticism that he clearly was struggling to fill the mere 200 pages long book with it so sometimes he takes long and useless sidesteps talking about his own life and work in general.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For someone who continually brings up the need for humility throughout the book, Loeb is nothing by brazen in his polemic against the scientific establishment and what he characterizes as a "gamble" that alien technology is whizzing around our solar system. Just as we don't know who exactly built the Sphinx, resorting to aliens is not Occam's Razor, as he claims. There are logical problems. Still, it's a fun read and he does have a point that alien space trash is probably everywhere, if it is anywhere. This could open a new avenue for SETI research.

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth by Avi Loeb makes an interesting and compelling case for both extraterrestrial life and thinking outside the box (or at least being willing to push against the sides).It actually took me a little while to get into the book, it starts almost like a memoir. But that short bit sets up the aspect of the argument that urges us to think big picture and to not get too stuck in our own specialties that we are essentially wearing blinders. If the first part makes you consider putting the book down, don't, it will all come together and be worth it.The writing is accessible and suitable for any reader with an interest in the topic. Enough science to support his theory, all explained clearly. Big ideas expressed with an openness and curiosity that will make active readers consider the possibilities.I think we all tend to have less of a problem with abstractly or theoretically accepting an idea than with actually acknowledging something tangible that might support that idea. It seems that while many scientists have no problem believing that there is likely to be some form(s) of life on other planets, they are resistant to considering this interstellar object as possible evidence of intelligent life elsewhere. It is just that wall which Loeb appears to be trying to scale in this work, with both fellow scientists and laypeople.I recommend this to any reader with an interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.