AVI LOEB

THE HARVARD ASTROPHYSICIST

Loeb chaired Harvard's astronomy department for nearly a decade and has published prolifically across astrophysics. He became a public figure in the anomaly debate with his 2021 book Extraterrestrial, which argued that ʻOumuamua — the first known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, detected in 2017 — had properties unusual enough that an artificial origin should not be ruled out without study.

THE GALILEO PROJECT

In 2021 Loeb founded the Galileo Project, an effort to bring systematic, instrument-based science to the search for anomalous objects — building observatories that record the sky with calibrated sensors rather than relying on grainy eyewitness footage. He also led an ocean expedition to recover fragments of an interstellar meteor from the Pacific seafloor. His through-line is consistent: collect real data, then let it speak.

SCIENCE AND THE RECORD

Loeb's posture is a useful lens on the PURSUE files. He is neither a true believer nor a reflexive debunker — he insists the only honest path is measurement. That is exactly the spirit in which Umbra presents the record: the primary sensor data and documents, rendered as released, for you to assess. Read the evidence first.