In what has been termed the "first evidence" of an alien civilisation, a Harvard professor claimed that the cigar-shaped asteroid that appeared in 2017 was actually a piece of "wayward alien technology".
In a new book, Professor Avi Loeb said that the first confirmed asteroid to have come from a solar system beyond our own and christened 'Oumuamua', was the "first evidence of an alien civilisation" among the stars.
The asteroid, estimated to be between 100 and 1000 metres, moved in a strange way and was studied by scientists as it flew through our galactic neighbourhood, a report in the metro.co.uk stated.
The object was deemed of "purely natural origin" in July 2019. It came into the solar system from the direction of Vega, a nearby star some 25 light years from Earth. On September 6, 2017, it intercepted our solar system's orbital plane and came close to the sun on September 9, the report said.
Professor Loeb said that because humans have only ever witnessed asteroids in space, we naturally assume that's what it was.
"What would happen if a caveman saw a cellphone," he said. "He's seen rocks all his life and he would have thought it was just a shiny rock," he added.
Professor Loeb said that the peculiar acceleration of Oumuamua led him to think that it may be a light-sail produced by an alien civilisation.
