TFTRH #55: Avi Loeb and The Galileo Project

What is a University professor doing investigating UFOs?  Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University heads the Galileo Project, which seeks (in part) to identify the nature of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena by establishing a network of telescopes and instruments with the goal of obtaining the first unambiguous clear photos of UFOs.

We talk about the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the rationale for the project, the challenges it will face, and how it all fits into Professor Loeb's personal philosophy.

0:00 - Introduction
0:05 - A Professor Of Science
2:19 - Avi's articles and love of philosophy
4:28 - Philosophy of science. Demarcation
7:45 - Say I have a million dollars. Why should I give it to the project?
15:22 - How many telescopes, and where to put them
20:17 - Is photography the way to go?
25:21 - What existing data justifies the need for the project?
28:50 - The vagueness of the UAP report.
32:10 - Photos or Video?
32:50 - How will you know where to aim the telescope.
35:10 - Filtering on Motion or Images?
37:02 - Can you triangular with two close telescopes?
40:16 - Triangulating with full-sky cameras
44:14 - The Space Fence and multistatic radar
45:55 - Private sector multistatic radar
46:20 - Anecdote about secrecy and error bars
50:39 - The search for satellites
52:22 - If it's classified, would they let you do it?
53:34 - PR and Science Communication
59:35 - A proof of concept photo of a drone?
1:02:07 - What if you don't find anything?
1:04:28 - Science should be exciting

[Postdisclosureworld]

"I would think that this project should get the blessings of all scientists which it doesn't." We need Avi Loeb. He's the man for this job. Love it.

[PrzyjemnePieniadze]

Mick, maybe you would invite the optics specialists Avi mentioned (39:58), discuss the details of the project with them, or ask about their impressions of the best UFO recordings nowadays. They surely have interesting insights and knowledge to pass on.

[deejin]

For me the defining moment of the interview was the beginning. In the Marines we were taught that if you are caught in an ambush you charge into the ambush and get out of the killzone by assaulting the attacker. Avi immediately counterambushed and turned the tables. Mick West opened with trying to attack Avi's title of professor of Science implying he was a generalist, not, qualified Avi remined him his first Phd was in astronomy and cited the groundbreaking research he did in primordial stars, black holes and more, then Mick opened with a question about a hypothetical million dollars hoping to make it seem like Avi was out for money. Avi immediately said that he already got 2 million dollars from a private donor an that this money did not in any way take away from any spending on other research. For most of the interview Avi simply proactively answered questions that are normally asked in an attempt to delegitimize anyone expressing an interest in looking at the topic with science. Mind you Mick West seems to know very little about the way Nuclear assets and Aircraft carrier groups secure their airspace. One answer he's said on other interviews is "Interesting things a happen over nuclear facilities and aircraft carriers all the time." DEAD WRONG, those airspaces are the most monitored, most patrolled, sensor dense airspaces of all time, WE as country spend billions and billions of dollars, dispatch aircraft, use radars and cameras to make sure nothing interesting, unusual, and more importantly unknown ever enters that airspace. The report says, despite billions of dollars and the best technology of the world, we can't. That alone merits investigation. It's a clear and present threat to airspace and national security to not know what is in our airspace around weapons that can end civilization.

[bartholomewcaldwellmba]

Finally a UAP project that Mick himself could get behind? Doesn't get much more scientific than this.

[TomerKrail]

Christ the comments on this video. Die hard skeptics and believers should get on with each other more, both seem to have a poor understanding of scientific reasoning and a penchant for groupthink.

Cheers for having the conversation Avi and Mick, it's worth having.

[williamverhoef]

This Galileo Project is ill-conceived from the very fact that, despite what Avi Loeb says, it can really only succeed if it actually finds an alien spaceship. That's the fact of the matter. Finding nothing will satisfy no one no matter how much time and energy is out into it. The problem is that scientific plausibility of the idea that alien spaceships are visiting Earth is very close to zero, so this project is almost certainly never going to find an alien spaceship. Finding nothing will never be sufficient for anyone who believes they exist. The other problem is that the cost of actually doing this properly is enormously prohibitive.

Anyway, after two years, it's probably time for an update.

[donwilliams]

As an engineer with more than 53 years in the field I know that curiosity is a key factor in the game. Richard Feynman championed curiosity in his teaching, writing, and public interaction. While on this general subject I should say that I'm slowly writing a booklet for new engineers and folks who want to be engineers. It's far from done but I want to emphasize the importance of curiosity in the "trade". I have one chapter called "Thinking outside the box". THERE IS NO BOX! When you have an assignment or a problem, if you don't have a variety of options, then get out of the business and become a bookkeeper!

I should clarify some things about me. My undergraduate degree is in Physics, specifically "Engineering Physics", and my graduate degree is in "Engineering" but my thesis project was in Radio astronomy and as a result i was invited to work on a radio telescope project in the Netherlands which was sponsored by The Dutch Government. My official retirement was in 2007 but I continue to do a bit of consulting because It's fun.

[superfuzzymomma]

Mr Loeb is a fascinating guest. Thank you gentlemen !

[BeckOfficial]

This conversation is absolutely priceless. Thanks for the great work.

[mgscheue]

Excellent interview. He tends to get pretty much the same questions and, not surprisingly, he repeats himself a lot, but this interview extracted some interesting things I hadn’t heard before.

[grumpyaustralian]

Fantastic video, mick asks all the right questions and Avi expressed his plans and opinions very clearly.
Can't wait to see what the galileo project finds even if its nothing, at least we will have looked - That's what science is, using data to look for the answers regardless of what those answers may be, if we never look, we'll never know.

[SICKBOY]

Did I hear him say the WhyFiles? Great channel

[TheHighlanderprime]

The difference between Avi’s quest and Mick’s is that Mick usually claims that he has the final answer even though his scientific analyses are very opinion based and 99% not scientifically tested. Mick’s claims are the same as that of UFO fanatics who automatic assume that a supposed UFO is an alien spacecraft; it’s just that Mick assumes that his observation is likely a misinterpreted mundane event because it was his observation.

[ChrisParlett]

Avi Loeb?! Holy shit, dude. You done got the Oumuamua guy, lol.

[yeti]

Two remarkable things happened:
1. Mick did not flash his white tic-tac box.
2. He said to a UFO guest, for the first time, “I love it, ” and “that’s great” a few times.

Kudos to Avi. Now you have a green signal from Mick to go ahead with your Galileo Project. Mick did not laugh off Avi’s request for a million dollars either. 😂

Joke aside, great interview between the two no non-sense fellas.

[Fire_Token]

Mick isn't so sure that we need cleaner images. Priceless!

[KilliK]

oh nice, didnt know you had invited professor Loeb for an interview. cool, I will watch it asap.
I only hope the professor will someday capture in HD footage the famous tic-tac. Though, his limited budget worries me that this will never happen.

[Hobbit]

Hi Mick, I would really appreciate it if you could have a discussion with Kevin Knuth. He's a physicist who has published a paper where he calculates the acceleration of the tic-tac object to be 78g.

[GeekFurious]

A possibility does not equal probability. That is what people who worship magical thinking refuse to understand.

[i]

The military, under the guise of searching for aliens, wants to place their toys everywhere. Great.