Nov 7, 2021
Everything You Need to Know about the Galileo Project
Scientists and activists have come together to search for extraterrestrial equipment near Earth. As such, the Galileo Project is likely to pick the low hanging fruit but even one piece will change the world.
The Galileo Project is a search for extraterrestrial equipment near Earth. It has two branches: the first aiming to identify the nature of interstellar objects that do not resemble comets or asteroids, like `Oumuamua; and the second targets Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), similar to those mentioned in the recent ODNI report to the US Congress.
The Galileo Project has drawn a remarkable base of expert volunteers, from astrophysicists and other scientific researchers, to hardware and software engineers, to non-science investigators and generalists who volunteer their time and effort to the project in various ways.
The project brings together a broad community of new research affiliates, including UAP advocates like Lue Elizondo, Chris Mellon or Nick Pope and skeptics like Seth Shostak or Michael Shermer, united by the pursuit of evidence through new telescopes without prejudice.
The project values the input of many different voices, and the rapid progress it already made, is a testament to its open approach. As different as the perspectives of the researchers and affiliates may be, however, every contributor to the Galileo Project is bound by three ground rules:
- The Galileo Project is only interested in openly available scientific data and a transparent analysis of it. Thus, classified (government-owned) information, which cannot be shared with all scientists, cannot be used. Such information would compromise the scope of our scientific research program, which is designed to acquire valid scientific data and provide transparent (open to peer review) analysis of this data. Indeed, the Galileo Project will work only with new data, collected from its own telescope systems, which are under the full and exclusive control of Galileo research team members.
- The analysis of the data will be based solely on known physics and will not entertain fringe ideas about extensions to the standard model of physics. The data will be freely published and available for peer review as well as to the public, when such information is ready to be made available, but the scope of the research efforts will always remain in the realm of scientific hypotheses, tested through rigorous data collection and sound analysis.
- To protect the quality of its scientific research, the Galileo research team will not publicize the details of its internal discussions or share the specifications of its experimental hardware or software before the work is finalized. The data or its analysis will be released through traditional, scientifically-accepted channels of publication, validated through the traditional peer-review process.
All members of the Galileo Project team, including researchers, advisors and affiliates, share these values and uphold the principles of open and rigorous science upon which the Galileo Project is founded.
The Galileo team developed a design of telescope systems optimized for imaging UAP, as well as a blueprint for a space mission to image unusual interstellar objects like `Oumuamua.
I will carry a printed version of the Galileo plans with me and hope to share it with high-level attendees of the Ignatius Forum “Our Future in Space”, in which I am honored to take part at the National Cathedral in Washington DC this coming Wednesday, November 10 @ 7PM, with registration available for online viewing. The Galileo Project was also mentioned recently in an amendment proposal SA 4281 by Senator Gillibrand, filed on November 4.
The outcome of scientific research cannot be forecasted. The Astronomy Decadal Survey in 2010 did not anticipate the main discoveries of the last decade, such as the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015, the discovery of the first interstellar object — `Oumuamua in 2017, and the imaging of the black hole in M87 in 2019. These items were not even listed as high-level priorities in astrophysics a decade ago. Here’s hoping that the findings of the Galileo Project will be the highlight of the next decade in Astronomy.
As Robert Frost noted in his poem “The Road Not Taken”:“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood… I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
There is a great advantage to taking the road not taken. If there is any low hanging fruit along that path, the Galileo Project will harvest it.
Avi Loeb is the founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos.” He is the head of the Galileo Project.
Trail of the Saucers is edited by writer/producer Bryce Zabel and published by Stellar Productions. Zabel co-hosts the popular new podcast Need to Know with Coulthart and Zabel that can be found on all major platforms.
