MYSTERY VISITOR Cigar-spaced shape object Oumuamua may not be comet – and could be alien tech, shock study warns

A MYSTERIOUS interstellar visitor that flew past Earth three years ago may have been an alien spacecraft after all, scientists claim.

That’s because the prevailing explanation of the cigar-shaped object Oumuamua’s origins are fatally flawed, according to a shock new study.

Oumuamua took the world by storm in October 2017 when it was identified as the first known visitor from another star system.

A pair of Harvard scientists suggested the long and thin object was a spacecraft, sparking a frantic flurry of scans by astronomers as it flew by.

Experts found no signs of alien signals, and eventually concluded that the space guest was a comet – a finding supposedly ruled out by the new study.

Scientists had put forward earlier this year that Oumuamua’s molecular makeup suggested the comet was made of frozen hydrogen.

That would explain how Oumuamua was able to propel itself, as hydrogen gas blasted from the object would have pushed it through space.

However, in a paper published Monday, two astrophysicist argue this scenario couldn’t happen in the real world.

The team say such “hydrogen icebergs” cannot last the long journey between stars thought to have been taken by Oumuamua.

“We were suspicious that hydrogen icebergs could not survive the journey – which is likely to take hundreds of millions of years,” said Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University, one of the study’s coauthors.

He added that this is because “they evaporate too quickly.”

Professor Loeb was one of the original Harvard advocates of the theory that Oumuamua was made from alien technology.

Writing in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, he and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) scientist Dr Thiem Hoang pick several holes in the popular comet theory.

Oumuamua baffled scientists because it seemed to behave like something between a comet and an asteroid.