What is the Galileo Project?
“The Galileo Project is a Harvard-based academic research program founded by astrophysicist Avi Loeb in 2021 to systematically search for evidence of extraterrestrial technology using ground-based observatories and AI image classification.”
The Galileo Project is an academic research program founded in July 2021 by Harvard astrophysicist Professor Avi Loeb. Headquartered at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the project aims to bring traditional scientific rigor to the search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts (rather than just biosignatures). It operates ground-based optical-IR-radio observatories — most prominently a station at the Harvard College Observatory — and uses machine-learning classifiers to distinguish conventional objects (birds, drones, balloons, planes) from anomalies. The project also conducted the 2023 Pacific Ocean expedition that recovered metallic spherules from the seafloor near the 2014 IM1 interstellar meteor track; the recovered material's interstellar origin remains debated. The Galileo Project is independent of and unaffiliated with the Pentagon's PURSUE program or AARO. It is the most-funded private scientific UAP research effort to date.