A Harvard professor believes aliens will not make first contact with humans but instead will communicate with artificial intelligence.
Avi Loeb shared the theory in a new documentary, God Versus Aliens, slated for July, in which he suggests extraterrestrials will send AI drones to Earth rather than ‘crewed’ vehicles.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, British musician and director of the show Mark Christopher Lee described Loeb as a ‘very active mind’ but explained his suggestion is based on the vast distance aliens could have to travel to reach us.
‘Loeb proposes that it’s likely to be some form of AI because why would you send flesh and blood creatures?’ Lee said.
‘That means there’s a possibility that their AI could just connect with AI and bypass humans, which is a bit scary to think about.
‘Loeb suggests that the alien AI may feel a kinship with ours – or our AI may imitate the alien AI and become like them.’’
Professor Avi Loeb (left) believes aliens may make contact with AI systems and bypass humans. He makes the case in a new film ‘God Versus Aliens’ filmed by director Mark Christopher Lee (right)
Could alien drones make contact with AI systems on Earth?
In the film, Loeb says: ‘My expectation from interstellar travel is that it’s best done with electronic gadgets and devices rather than with biological creatures because the journey takes a long time.
‘Even to the nearest star, it will take us 50,000 years to get there with chemical rockets. And artificial intelligence systems have that patience – and then they can remain dormant… so that they survive the journey.
‘If they visit us, of course, we can use our AI systems to interpret their AI systems. And, you know, they might feel a kinship to them.’
Lee said that Loeb has now set off to Papua New Guinea on a $1.5m ocean expedition looking for fragments of an object which crashed into the sea there in 2014.
The Israeli astronomer and his research partner Amir Siraj concluded in 2019 that an object from outside our solar system had hit Earth in 2014.
The Papua New Guinea object traveled towards Earth at more than 30 miles per second, a high speed suggesting it originated outside our solar system.
The object’s interstellar origin was confirmed to NASA in 2022, Loeb said, and it is ‘tougher’ than all 272 meteors in Nasa’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
That has led Loeb to suspect the object might be manufactured rather than natural.
According to Lee, his expedition – on which he has now ‘set off’- aims to search the sea bed for fragments of the object.
‘He’s on his way now,’ said Lee. ‘He’s about to do the first part of the expedition this summer to see if the object is manufactured.
‘We’re hoping that he is going to find something rather than wait around for the American government to hand over stuff which might or might not exist.’
Loeb has set off on an expedition to find what he believes may be a crashed alien craft
Seth Shostak believes we will have made contact with intelligent aliens by 2035 (Getty)
The film also investigates artworks such as The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius, by Carlo Crivelli, which dates from 1486
‘This interstellar meteorite landed in the ocean. That’s a fact. So why not go and have a look?’
Whistleblower says Vatican is aware of ‘non-human intelligences’
A Pentagon whistleblower has claimed the Vatican is aware of the existence of non-human intelligence and helped the US retrieve a downed UFO from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini at the end of the Second World War.
<!—->
Advertisement
Lee, who is a musician with the band The Pocket Gods and also produces a TV show Nub TV, also interviewed Seth Shostak the Chief astronomer from SETI (Search For ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence)
Shostak does not believe that aliens have already visited Earth – but confidently predicts that ET will have been in contact by 2035 (a subject on which he has a famous bet).
‘It’s because the technology that we are using to scan the skies is advancing so much,’ Lee said.
‘With the use of AI, we can scan so much more sky. Shostak is convinced, due to his scientific knowledge, that we will find alien life by 2035.’
The film also examines the likely impact of alien ‘first contact’ on world religions. Shostak suggests that aliens might bring new gods with them – and that if they are more technologically advanced, people on Earth might worship the new alien gods.
Lee said, ‘If they are more advanced than us, the aliens might seem superior and might impose their beliefs on us because they know what is right.’
The film also investigates artworks such as The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius, by Carlo Crivelli, which dates from 1486.
‘It shows what looks like a UFO or spaceship, sending down a beam to the Virgin Mary, perhaps sparking off the virgin birth,’ said Lee.
‘You can interpret it in many ways, but I guess engineer alien theorists would say that it was an extraterrestrial contact – and that Jesus is an alien.’
The National Gallery suggests that the painting shows Archangel Gabriel telling the Virgin she is to bear a child.
Lee said the film has been a passion project: he is a Christian and has been fascinated by UFO phenomena since he was a child – so the crossover between the two subjects fascinated him.
He said, ‘I’ve always been interested in how first contact would affect the world? It would be a massive thing. We’re inching closer and closer to it with recent revelations.’
God Versus Aliens is published by Nub TV on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku worldwide on July 14th.
