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Harvard astronomer's "alien spherules" are industrial pollutants (bigthink.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Pons_Aelius@kbin.social to c/science@lemmy.ml

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Finding alien technology on the seafloor would be truly incredible. This extraordinary claim, however, is debunked by the actual evidence.

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[–] jmichaelsturm@fosstodon.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Pons_Aelius Thank you for posting this great discussion of the science related to Loeb’s extraordinary claims. It always bothered me that he was so certain that the spherules his team found MUST have come from the meteor. To me, it seems improbable that they could so easily find fragments in a large search area within a couple of weeks. The isotope analysis counteracting the claim of interstellar origin is fascinating!

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I found it really strange as well. The whole story had me thinking conformation bias from the beginning.

It always bothered me that he was so certain that the spherules his team found MUST have come from the meteor.

Exactly. Especially considering there are at least 5 papers dating back to the 1950s describing magnetic spherules found on the seafloor and being from anthropogenic sources.