Is humanity on the brink of the most profound discovery in history, or are we merely chasing shadows in the dark? This is the central question driving a fascinating new high-stakes gamble between two of the scientific community’s most prominent figures.
The debate has moved beyond academic papers and lecture halls—money is now on the table in a bold move that highlights the friction between scientific hope and empiricism.
In a bid that highlights the growing friction in the search for extraterrestrial life, Skeptic magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer has issued a $1,000 wager.
He is betting that we will remain alone, at least for the next five years, challenging the rising tide of optimism, particularly that of Harvard astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb, who is leading the Galileo Project.
This is no casual handshake agreement. The wager has been formalised through the Long Now Foundation’s ‘Long Bets’ programme, an arena designed for competitive, accountable predictions.
The foundation is famous for its ‘Clock of the Long Now’, a monument under construction in Texas designed to tick for 10,000 years. The wager is a competitive, accountable prediction designed to be settled far in the future.
The Rigorous Terms Of The Long Bet Between Avi Loeb And Michael Shermer
The specific terms of the wager are rigorous and designed to eliminate ambiguity. Dr. Shermer has bet that: ‘Discovery or disclosure of alien visitation to Earth in the form of UFOs, UAPs, or any other technological artifact or alien biological form, as confirmed by major scientific institutions and government agencies, will not happen by December 31, 02030.’
To win, the counter-party—in this case, supporters of Dr. Loeb’s view—must prove otherwise. The adjudication process is strict: by the deadline, at least two out of three specific scientific bodies—NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the American Astronomical Society—must affirm that a discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence has been made.
This discovery could be in the form of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), interstellar objects determined to be technological, or biological life found on Earth. The winner’s $1,000 prize will be donated to the Galileo Project Foundation.
Dr. Shermer’s challenge is blunt, aiming to strip away excuses: ‘You say we will have alien disclosure by the end of the year? O-kay, let’s place a wager on that prediction. I say it won’t happen’. He aims ‘to reveal the actual confidence of UFO/UAP alien believers by getting them to put their money where their beliefs appear to be’.
Avi Loeb’s Optimism Boosted By Comet 3I/ATLAS Anomalies
Taking up the challenge is Harvard astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb, whose confidence is bolstered by recent astronomical events and his argument that the hunt for alien technology has only just begun properly.
Dr. Loeb states that ‘The search for technological artifacts has just started in earnest in 2025 with the discovery of the anomalous interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, the launch of the Rubin Observatory and the construction of three Galileo Project Observatories’.
Specifically, 3I/ATLAS—discovered on July 1, 2025—has exhibited baffling behaviour. These anomalies include a statistically significant ’10-sigma’ non-gravitational acceleration near its perihelion on October 29, 2025, and ‘tightly collimated’ jets that form an unprecedented X-shape, challenging natural cometary models.
Dr. Loeb argues that the sheer scale of the cosmos makes interstellar traffic inevitable: ‘Given that there are billions of Earth-Sun analogs in the Milky-Way galaxy — most of which are billions of years older than the solar system, and that it will take less than a billion years for our Voyager spacecraft to cross the Milky-Way disk, we must engage in the scientific search for extraterrestrial technological artifacts’.
Loeb points to the object’s upcoming closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, as a potential turning point for gathering decisive spectroscopic data.
Skepticism Rooted In Decades of Disappointment
Dr. Shermer’s position, by contrast, is rooted in decades of disappointment. Since founding Skeptic magazine in 1992, he has tracked countless predictions of imminent disclosure, all of which have failed to materialise. He notes that believers frequently appear in the media, confidently predicting proof by year’s end, yet ’33 years later I’m still waiting for said proof’.
Shermer is particularly critical of the current wave of UAP hearings in the U.S. Congress. He highlights the consistent pattern where witnesses claim to have seen aliens or back-engineered technology, yet ‘when pushed for evidence, they always demur, saying that it’s ‘classified,’ ‘top-secret,’ that Men-in-Black threatened them into silence.’
This wager follows a distinguished lineage of scientific gambling dating back to 1870. Notable historical wagers include cosmologist Kip Thorne betting Stephen Hawking that Cygnus X-1 was a black hole (Thorne won), and biologist Paul Ehrlich betting economist Julian Simon that mineral commodity prices would rise (Simon won). This context proves the necessity of neutral referees like the Long Now Foundation to settle such high-stakes scientific disputes.
The wager between Loeb and Shermer is more than a gamble on money; it is a gamble on the nature of our reality. Whatever the outcome, the wager underscores the profound implications of the search.
If Loeb wins, it will mark arguably the greatest discovery in human history. If Shermer wins, it suggests that humanity must continue its solitary search in the cosmos.
Originally published on IBTimes UK
