Was it an alien spaceship?

In 2018, astronomers discovered a strange object about 30 million kilometres from Earth.

At first, they thought it was just a lone wandering asteroid, one of the rocks that exist between the planets in the solar system. The asteroids are debris left over from the creation of the planets, and most of them are in stable orbits around the Sun, between mars and Jupiter.

But some asteroids are knocked out of their circular orbits, by comets or collisions with other asteroids, and travel through the solar system alone.

So, at first scientists though Oumaumau was one of those lone asteroids. But then, when they studied it more closely, they soon realised that Oumaumau could not be a normal asteroid at all. All the asteroids in the solar system are roughly cubes or spheres, with the same width as length and height.

It can’t be natural

Oumaumau is completely different and unlike any asteroid ever observed. It is 10 TIMES as long as it is wide. There is nothing natural that could create an asteroid of that shape.

The only conclusion scientists could draw is that Oumaumau has been reshaped artificially – or it is a spaceship! All over the world, governments and astronomers scrambled to get more information. An American team based in Chile used space radar to get measurements of the size of the mystery object. They found it is about 400 metres long, but less than 40 metres wide (it could be much less wide than that, as measuring small sizes is not easy in space at the distances involved).

And the object is also spinning. The astronomers could see the light level changing regularly, as darker and then lighter areas faced the Earth. They found Oumaumau spins every seven hours.

The cover-up soon began

When astronomers started revealing the details of Oumaumau, and it became obvious it is not natural, a cover-up quickly began. The American government started speaking about it, and they got scientists who rely on government contracts to comment too, even thought none of them had studied the object at all!  These scientists didn’t look at the evidence but started creating grand new theories that they said could explain how something the shape of Oumaumau could be created. But even they had to admit their idea was far-fetched and probably impossible:

They said Oumaumau had been created in a supernova explosion, the biggest explosion known in space. A supernova happens when a giant star (hundreds of times bigger than our Sun) explodes. But supernovas are very rare events, and the most recent one close to Earth is over 168,000 light years away – which means it happened 168,000 years ago. But at the speed Oumaumau is travelling, it would have had to have been travelling through space for tens of millions of years and then come so close to Earth, it could be seen. The odds are really astronomical – almost impossible.

That’s why many astronomers think there is a much simpler explanation: that Oumaumau is not natural. But of course, no government would admit this, because they don’t want us to believe that aliens could exist!

The characteristics of Oumaumau mean it is most likely a spaceship. its shape isn’t just like a lot of spaceship designs from movies (like the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey), but it is also very similar to designs that scientists have devised for interstellar missions.

And the way Oumaumau spins is also important, because this is exactly what a spaceship would need to do to create artificial gravity to overcome the weightlessness of space. Again, this is just what human scientists say we would need to do with our own spaceships.

Think of this: Oumaumau is probably a spaceship, the size of a skyscraper like the Empire State Building in New York. But there are no signs of an engine, or any radio signals or heat signatures. So, it is probably abandoned or derelict: a wreck drifting through space.

It is not just another sign that we are not alone in the universe. It is a sign that it is possible to travel between the stars. Why are governments desperate to hide this? Because they think we would fear aliens., and because they want to keep the knowledge they get from aliens for themselves, to make money and get power.

Perhaps even now, a secret space mission is travelling to Oumaumau to investigate close up? The object will not leave our solar system for years, so there is time! But any mission should not be secret – it should be public and on behalf of all of us, not just the elite who control our world.