Scanning that ‘cigar’ asteroid may have woken up all the aliens inside it, UFO expert claims

A strange visitor to our solar system became the subject of headlines around the world after alien-hunters scanned the cigar-shaped rock `Oumuamua.

But while the initial scans didn’t show any sign of alien technology, they may have had an unintended effect, says Nick Pope, former head of the Ministry of Defence’s UFO project.

Pope – a well-known UFO enthusiast – says that the scans may have ‘awoken the intelligence inside’ `Oumuamua.

Speaking to The Sun, Pope said, ‘While nothing has been found yet, there’s another intriguing possibility: If this ship is an alien probe, it’s possible that our scans will awake the intelligence inside.

Pope’s views fly in the face of the scientific evidence – after multiple teams scanned the object and concluded it was simply an asteroid.

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Australia will now discuss with the Papua New Guinean government the building of a lasting memorial and ways to preserve the site.

But Pope says the fact that the exterior resembles an asteroid doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a spacecraft.

Pope says, ‘Because there’s no air in space, an alien spaceship wouldn’t need to be designed in the same way that our aircraft have to be.

‘Rather than building an interstellar spacecraft from scratch, it makes perfect sense to take an asteroid and then build your ship around it, or hollow it out and build inside it, for the protection you’d derive from being surrounded by so much rock.’

A team from Queen’s University Belfast observed `Oumuamua while it was still within reach of the largest telescopes in the world.

They found it was covered in a layer of organic material – but looks much like asteroids in our own solar system.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons commented: ‘We have discovered that the surface of `Oumuamua is similar to small solar system bodies that are covered in carbon-rich ices, whose structure is modified by exposure to cosmic rays.

‘We have also found that a half-metre thick coating of organic-rich material could have protected a water-ice-rich comet-like interior from vaporizing when the object was heated by the sun, even though it was heated to over 300 degrees centigrade.”