 When they land, and the hatch opens, perhaps we will be looking at ourselves in the mirror. Many of you will be aware of the interstellar traveler, which visited our solar system from a galaxy far, far away a few years ago. Named Omoamua, it is now recognized as the first known interstellar object ever successfully detected as it passed through our solar system. It was originally designated one 2017 U1. It was discovered on the 19th of October 2017 by Robert Work, while using the Pan-STARS telescope at the Haleakala Observatory within Hawaii. He spotted the mysterious object 40 days post-solar transit on the 9th of September that year. Many people have wondered about the true origins and indeed true identity of the object, yet few have received the backlash which Avi Loeb experienced on November of 2018 when he published a new research paper in an astrophysics journal. Scientists publish thousands of research papers every year. These papers will often attract little public attention. However, Loeb's latest work gained a suspiciously high level of controversy and rejection when he dared to cover the rather taboo subject within this so-called official field, aliens. The subject of the paper was the mysterious supposed space rock. He posits that it likely traveled for billions of years, past countless other stars before reaching our own. Eventually, it will cross the edge of our solar system and into interstellar space again. The leading hypothesis among astronomers is that Oumuamua is an odd-looking comet, a remnant of another solar system, kicked out by natural forces and sent barreling through the cosmos. Loeb, however, offered a rather different explanation, quote, Oumuamua could be a probe one deliberately sent to our solar system by an alien civilization. The detection of extraterrestrial beings, the most significant scientific discovery in human history, if we were ever told about such discoveries, of course. One must remember that as a civilization, many believe systems openly objective to the possibility of alien life, many of which are over a millennial old. The thought of finding sapient life beyond Earth, of learning that we are not alone, however, is the pursuit of countless individuals within the modern world. So it is no surprise that his opinions have been so widely debated. But additionally, there is seemingly another possible reason for why the paper was so widely reported on. This being the fact that Loeb is, in fact, a tenured Harvard professor within the astronomical department. Quote, if this was some random astronomer that you had never heard of from, say, Equatorial Guinea, you probably wouldn't write a story on it, says Brian Gensler, the director of the University of Toronto's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and a former colleague of Loeb's at Harvard. He continued, there's a lot of astronomers that have outlandish ideas, and most of them aren't taken seriously by the community, and most of the time the media don't really give attention to them, end quote. Loeb has two decades worth of experience and is well regarded in the field. So regardless of what others would like him to believe, his opinions matter. Was Umamwa really an ancient alien's exploratory craft, one spying on ours and many other solar systems? If it is, it means we are indeed not alone. What's more, it means we have undoubtedly been found. So the professor's opinions, no matter how controversial, we find highly compelling.