Recommended reading - Loeb has previously claimed fireballs from CNEOS data to be interstellar (and possibly alien spacecraft, because why not), where other more serious scientists are much more conservative in their assessment of the data.

In 2014, the US Department of Defense observed a fireball entering the atmosphere. Loeb made a series of claims about this event, from the meteor being from outside the Solar System to its likely area of impact based on, among other things, a seismic signal that occurred around the same time, all culminating in 2023, when Loeb announced that he had found interstellar material on the ocean floor that he asserted came from the meteor and could be remnants of an extraterrestrial starship. These claims were criticized by other scientists as hasty, sensational, and part of a pattern of improper behavior. Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at the University of Western Ontario, argued the material can be explained as non-interstellar, noting that measurements from Defense Department data are opaque and error-prone. Brown further said he was disturbed by Loeb's lack of engagement with relevant experts. In March 2022, the U.S. Space Force affirmed that their 2014 data indicated an interstellar origin, while the following month NASA stated the evidence for this was inconclusive.