[Steko]

That's not a general conclusion he's pushing, it's what he thinks would be a likely conclusion if two other hypotheticals are met:

"if it is indeed less than a millimetre thick, if it is pushed by the sunlight, then it is maybe a light sail"

It's not clear at all that he think it's likely that it's less than a millimeter thick or that it is a light sail. That's simply "the only thing that came to his mind" to explain the additional force(s) working on it.

[eggpy]

Ok how about the introductory paragraph that states

> The following October, Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, co-wrote a paper (with a Harvard postdoctoral fellow, Shmuel Bialy) that examined ‘Oumuamua’s “peculiar acceleration” and suggested that the object “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth’s vicinity by an alien civilization.”

or another spot where he says

"Every now and then we find an object of artificial origin. And this could be a message in a bottle, and we should be open-minded."

Seems to me like he is saying it could be worth considering that maybe this is an alien object.

[Steko]

The goalposts are moving. Yes to "worth considering" but that's not what I was responding to above ("is likely an alien device" ... "certainly seems to make that claim").

[eggpy]

I'm not trying to move the goal post. I'm only taking umbridge with the fact the previous poster said "No one has claimed that Oumuamua is likely an alien device". The person interviewed in the very article this discussion is about seems to think that maybe it could be. So we are talking semantics between "likely" and "possibly".

[figgis]

"likely", "maybe", "possibly" can all be used differently.. Especially if you take it out of context of the rest of the article.

> Man that food sure looks tasty.

> You haven't even tasted it! Why are you saying it's tasty?

There are absolutely no claims that it's an alien artifact. What he is doing is providing reasons for why checking out similar solar visitors is something we need to do.

[snikeris]

Here's my layman's understanding of the semantics between likely and possibly:

Likely: greater than 50% probability

Possibly: greater than 0% probability

Saying something is likely is a pretty strong claim. You can make meaningful decisions based on such knowledge.

[erik_landerholm]

“Every now and then we find an object of artificial origin.” Did he just admit we have found aliens before? What other artificial objects or origins have we ever found?

[gridspy]

" It is very similar to when I walk on the beach with my daughter and look at the seashells that are swept ashore. Every now and then we find an object of artificial origin. And this could be a message in a bottle, and we should be open-minded. So we put this sentence in the paper. "