In the past 10 years, the expanded telescopes of earth astronomers have detected three interstellar objects that have hurtled through the solar system at incredible speeds, and exited back into the universe. No doubt there were many such travelers previously, but astronomy had not developed to the point of being able to detect these fast-moving rocks.
The first, Oumuamua - (Hawaiian for "messenger") arrived in 2017. Its cigar shape gave rise to speculations that it was a spaceship from intelligent beings "out there", but investigation showed no evidence for this. The second, named Borisov after its discoverer, whizzed through in 2019.
The most recent, 3I/ATLAS, is still on its way out, having circled the sun in late October 2025. It has many unusual features which seemed to hint at alien forces maneuvering it. Avi Loeb, astrophysicist at Harvard, counted 13 oddities, all of which have now been explained scientifically. Despite the public excitement about this object, it is officially classified as a comet, and all speculations about it being a spaceship or alien probe have been dismissed.
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These visitors stirred memories for me. Back in the 1980's, I studied with a swami from India, Dr. Rammurti Mishra, who taught about cosmic consciousness. This was not some sort of mumbo-jumbo, but rather a series of lessons about our place in the cosmos. We were shown how our California sunset is sunrise in Japan. We were encouraged to follow the changing length of days as the earth circles the sun.
In 1982, I faithfully performed a fire ceremony at sunrise and sunset for the whole year, noting the outburst of bird song at daybreak, and the fading of color at eventide. It was humbling, changing my sense of identity. Since then, I have seen myself as a tiny point in the vast matrix of the universe.
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The three recent interstellar visitors have given astronomers a glimpse into the chemical makeup of other worlds. More profoundly, the universe is now perceived as porous, with matter being exchanged from star to star, galaxy to galaxy, by small speedy travelers, that may even seed life.
As astronomers expand the scope of their telescopes, they are constantly discovering new features that don't fit into their models. The diversity out there parallels the diversity of life on our planet.
We humans project constructs from our experience on earth onto astronomical findings. Stars have life cycles; they are born, mature, grow old and die. Galaxies clash, black holes devour stars, small objects travel.
Given that ordinary perceivable matter/energy makes up only 5% of the universe, and the rest is "dark matter" or "dark energy" which we have not penetrated with our human intelligence, we should be humble enough to admit that we know very little.
Earth instruments checked AI/ATLAS for emissions that might signal that the visitor was monitoring us. They honed in on emitted radiation of various sorts, part of the 5% of ordinary matter/energy. No signals in this small sector of existence were detected, but perhaps another sort of probe is taking place.
If one of these interstellar objects were indeed an alien probe of our planet, it theoretically could be looking into consciousness. This sort of probe would not be detected by human instruments.
What would observant cosmic visitors make of earth consciousness? They would see a vast greediness despoiling earth's green mantle. They would hear groanings of pain from oppressed and starving humans, from animals losing habitat, from forests burning or being cut down, from all the creatures suffering from the greed of a few. They would also see human inventiveness, creativity, willingness to live and change to meet current challenges.
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