Well, folks, it’s still not aliens.
It’s common for rocks flying out of space to explode in our atmosphere at high speeds, a phenomenon known as “fireballs.” In 2014, such a meteor exploded over the Pacific Ocean near Papua New Guinea. A group of curious scientists, led by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, tracked seismometers in the area and then in 2023 searched the nearby seafloor. They discovered tiny metallic spheres (which, much to the chagrin of the astronomy community, made dubious alien claims). found on the ocean floor around the world), and concluded that the materials may have come from another solar system or may have “alien technological origins.”
Now, a group of seismologists who specialize in analyzing vibrations picked up by seismometers has poured cold water on that conclusion.
The seismic reading that attracted Loeb and his companions was almost certainly not an exploding meteor. Instead, seismometers on the ground in Papua New Guinea detected a more mundane event.
“The most likely explanation is probably a truck dropping people off or picking them up, rather than an interstellar meteor or aliens,” Benjamin Fernando, a planetary seismologist at Johns Hopkins University who led the study, told Mashable.
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That means the tiny round objects known as “balls” spotted by fireball hunters almost certainly didn’t come from meteors exploding over the vast Pacific Ocean. These tiny objects are likely just ordinary cosmic matter found on Earth. You can even see these tiny meteorites on your roof.
“They look very similar to what we see on the seafloor around the world,” Fernando said.
The new seismology study has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal and will be presented on March 12 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.
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“The most likely explanation is probably a truck dropping off or picking up people, rather than an interstellar meteor or aliens.”
The results highlight that Papua New Guinea’s special seismometer readings – which meteorite hunters use to pinpoint the trajectory of suspected interstellar fireballs – are not rare or unique. In fact, hundreds of similar signals have been recorded by specific seismometers over several months.
Fernando emphasizes that these vibrational signals do not occur randomly. They occur especially during the day, as so-called fireball readings. “This is a strong indication of human contribution,” he said.
In fact, as the satellite image below shows, there is a road next to the seismometer. What’s more, the seismometer signal follows the direction of the road. The waves reflect the activity of a rumbling truck; not an exploding meteor.
Image of a road showing trucks traveling next to a seismometer. The seismometer periodically detects vibration signals during the day that may come from passing trucks.
Image source: Google Earth/CNES/Airbus
Truck roads are shown in yellow. The seismometer is located in the center.
Image source: Google Earth/CNES/Airbus/Johns Hopkins University
As for the 2014 fireball that did explode over the Western Pacific, seismologists found that other seismometer detections in Australia and Palau suggested the explosion could have occurred more than 100 miles away from where the alleged interstellar sphere was photographed.
“The location of the fireball was actually very far away from where the Ocean Expedition team went to retrieve these meteor fragments,” Fernando added in a statement. “Not only were they using the wrong signal, they were looking in the wrong place.”
To further support their argument, Fernando said the team would like the opportunity to test seismometer readings as trucks actually drive by, but have yet to find anyone capable of working with them.
In August 2014, NASA cameras spotted a bright fireball exploding over Tennessee.
Image source: NASA
There is still zero evidence that life exists anywhere other than Earth. Claims that evidence of life or that certain materials are unnaturally produced deep in the universe require extremely high standards of evidence—or, more accurately, a lot of evidence.
However, astronomers, planetary scientists, and astrobiologists are carefully studying objects in our solar system and beyond, looking for places that might support life as we know it. These include ocean worlds in our solar system, such as Enceladus and Europa, as well as planets in our galaxy many light-years away. NASA explains that there may be trillions of planets beyond our solar system (called “exoplanets”) in our galaxy alone. For example, perhaps conditions suitable for life may exist on distant “super-Earths” where temperatures are suitable for liquid water.
“So far, the only life we know of is on Earth,” the space agency said. “But we’re looking.”