The prestige effect is magnified, too, “if the evidence or arguments are technical enough that it is not easy for laypeople to understand or evaluate them,” he says. The journalists who cover Loeb make him seem even more trustworthy. “Part of what reinforces that credibility is coverage in news outlets with reputations for serious journalism,” Varnum says.

Loeb, pleasantly surprised by the media reaction, has leaned into the press interest. He has given dozens of interviews to a variety of news organizations since his paper was published in November, from The Verge to The New Yorker.

Some astronomers, however, wish he’d stop.

“‘Oumuamua was exciting, but I’m getting a little frustrated,” says Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, and one of the people who discovered the interstellar object. “Now it just won’t die.”

Meech, you might have guessed, doesn’t buy Loeb’s theory.

‘Oumuamua is unlike anything else astronomers have seen in the solar system. It doesn’t orbit the sun, like everything else around here. It has an extremely elongated shape. It’s moving very fast, and even seemed to accelerate as it sped through our part of the solar system.

NASA

But many astronomers, including those who discovered ‘Oumuamua, say that these features can be attributed to natural phenomena. That acceleration, for instance, could have been caused by icy particles of comet melting in the sun’s warmth.

Astronomers also checked ‘Oumuamua for signs that it came from a technologically advanced alien civilization. (I use “checked” loosely here, because the best way to truly determine where ‘Oumuamua came from is to chase after it with a spacecraft, which modern technology can’t do.) In December 2017, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, one of the world’s most powerful radio observatories, tuned toward ‘Oumuamua and listened for faint radio transmissions. The idea to do it came from Loeb himself. The telescope didn’t detect anything.

Read: Astronomers to check mysterious interstellar object for signs of technology

“That doesn’t necessarily prove anything, of course,” says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute. “The fact that we didn’t pick up transmissions doesn’t rule out the possibility that [‘Oumuamua] could be something directed here.”

It’s not the suggestion of alien origins that bugs Meech and other astronomers. When faced with puzzling cosmic phenomena, astronomers must explore myriad possibilities, including extraterrestrial ones. The alien option is the least likely explanation, as history has shown, but it’s always on the table.

What bothers them is how Loeb has presented this potential explanation to the press. Unlike in his paper, which hedges with many a “may” and “might,” the astrophysicist sounds certain in news stories. In The Verge: “I cannot think of another explanation for the peculiar acceleration of ‘Oumuamua.” In The New Yorker: “It is much more likely that it is being made by artificial means, by a technological civilization.” To me, in a recent interview: “In my mind, it’s not speculative at all.”