Unforeseen Contingencies

We're close.  At least, researchers can't think of an explanation for Oumuamua other than an alien light sail craft.  It would surely be exciting to further study this object that has traveled from outside our solar system, but unfortunately it is getting away.  This poses a real dilemma.  How are we at Unforeseen Contingencies to decide whether our prediction that extra-terrestrial life would be discovered is right or not?

One conjecture is that Oumuamua is "space junk," a lost or abandoned spacecraft.  If so it's evidence of a heretofore ignored negative externality -- alien garbage.  Environmentalists need to get on top of this.  A first step would be a Pigovian space garbage tax.  I'm sure EPA regulations and German Grünpunkt laws should follow.  No doubt IPCC will need to get involved; while there's no particular relation to climate change, that hasn't stopped them before so why should it now?  All of this is authorized, of course, by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which establishes that all of outer space is the common property of all mankind.  Exactly who will collect the new space garbage tax, and from whom?  Those are details to worked out later...just like all the rest of the monitoring and enforcement of the Outer Space Treaty.

But another conjecture is that Oumuamua is a reconnaissance craft.  If so, its rather rapid pass-by suggests a report of "found nothing of interest, no civilizations, just some undeveloped life forms on the third planet, continuing on" which is rather humiliating to contemplate.

Regardless, if either of these could be established, it's a "hit" for us.  The Unforeseen Contingencies Space Desk continues to monitor the situation.  We'll revisit when we do our annual predictions tally.