It came from outer space

The object was shrouded in mystery from the start.

It was cigar-shaped, dark red in color, and big, like a good-sized skyscraper. And it was moving fast, at 196,000 mph, as it hurtled through our solar system.

You might remember it. Its detection last year in October by a telescope in Hawaii created quite a buzz. Astronomers named it “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word which means roughly “first distant messenger.”

Oumuamua puzzled scientists. They thought it was an asteroid. When that was found lacking, they deemed it a comet. But it didn’t have the signature tail. It emitted no radio signals. And it accelerated as it passed the sun, with no orbit controlled by the sun’s gravity.

They ended up coining a nebulous term for it — “interstellar object” — because Oumuamua was the first of its kind, the first object seen in our solar system that came from somewhere else.

And there it stood, science flummoxed, until a pair of astronomers from Harvard University published a new theory last week.

“Oumuamua,” wrote Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy, “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”

Sent . . . on purpose . . . by aliens.

The Harvard duo said Oumuamua could be “lightsail” — a way to propel spacecraft that proposes using mirrors to harness radiation pressure from the sun. The technology is taking baby steps on Earth now, but my default is to believe humans are behind the rest of the universe on these things.

Such a power source could explain why Oumuamua wasn’t subject to the sun’s gravitational pull. And if it was just some random rock hurtling through space, why is this the only one we’ve seen?

Now, I’m a mere layman, emphasis on “mere.” And other scientists scoffed at the Harvard guys’ theory. But Loeb cites one of the greatest mystery solvers ever. “I follow the maxim of Sherlock Holmes,” he told NBC News. “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

I’m going with the alien probe. Which creates new mysteries.

What did it see as it passed through our neighborhood? What did it report back to its makers about us, and what did they think?

True, it never slowed for observation, but if it was from another solar system using technology we can’t begin to understand, it didn’t need much time to size us up.

In the weeks before and after Oct. 19, 2017, the day it was spotted, Oumuamua would have seen dozens of people massacred at a country music concert in Las Vegas. It would have seen 26 people shot dead in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. It would have seen Yemeni civilians killed by indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes, and Syrians killing other Syrians in an awful civil war. It would have seen wildfires raging in California, industry pumping pollutants into our air and water, and most nations conspiring to heat up our galactic vessel enough to make life here ever more intolerable.

If Oumuamua was on a scouting mission, its report was something like: No threat here. They’re too busy destroying themselves.

And I picture Oumuamua’s creators, more advanced than we are, unified in a common purpose, aware of their vulnerability in the vastness of space, shaking their heads at our crudity and cruelty.

Oumuamua is long gone, but I hope it returns on its way back home. And I hope it slows down to take a longer look. Perhaps it will see the beauty that’s here, and the individual acts of kindness and grace that take place daily, and the warmth and the dreams and the desires of people who love their families and want to make the world a better place for them.

Then Oumuamua will be just as confused as we humans about how we got to where we are.

Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.

By Michael Dobie

michael.dobie1@newsday.commwdobie

Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.