Harvard Scientist Proposing Mysterious Power Source Fueling Alien Spacecraft

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of an M5.7 class flare on May 3, 2013 at 1:30 p.m. EDT. (Rex Features via AP Images)

A Harvard scientist is speculating mysterious fast radio bursts, which generate as much energy as 500 million suns, could be powering alien probes in distant galaxies, Science Alert is reporting.

The theory comes from Professor Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," Loeb said in a statement by the center. "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."

Loeb admitted that this work is speculative, the center noted.

Asked whether he actually is convinced fast radio bursts are due to aliens, he said, "Science isn't a matter of belief, it's a matter of evidence. Deciding what's likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It's worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge."

Analyzing these powerful bursts have been difficult since they last less than 5 milliseconds. But six were detected coming from a faint dwarf galaxy more than 3 billion light-years from Earth, Science Alert noted.

Loeb and his team raised the possibility that the bursts were coming from a giant radio transmitter on a distant planet that beams the signals across the universe.

The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth, the center reported.

"That's big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances," added fellow researcher Mansavi Lingam of Harvard University.