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Australasian Tektites as Interstellar Object Debris: Anomalies in Composition, Formation and
Distribution
Bruce R. Fenton
bruce@brucefenton.info
“When you are not ready to find exceptional things, you will never discover them.” - Avi Loeb
Key Points
- Fragmenting satellite debris entering the earth’s atmosphere along decaying orbital paths
offers the best fit for the observed ablation and atmospheric reshaping of australites.
- Australasian tektites exhibit incredibly high content of silica and aluminium, well beyond
that observed in known solar system comets and asteroids
- Australasian tektite formation and distribution represent an unresolved problem for science;
after 200 years of scientific investigation, an interstellar object hypothesis resolves persisting
anomalies.
- The potential for tektites to represent a technosignature is examined and found to be
compelling.
Abstract
The formation processes and distribution mechanisms for Australasian tektite glasses have remained
unsatisfactorily explained after over 200 years of scientific investigation. Many australites and
javanites exhibit morphology consistent with the aerodynamic reshaping of glass spheres during
entry into the earth’s atmosphere from space. The calculated required velocities and angles of entry
for secondary melting to shape the flanged button tektites infer arrival from a parent body in
terrestrial orbit. Efforts to identify an extraterrestrial source for Australasian tektites have focussed
primarily on the moon, though ablation of a glassy asteroid during passage through the earth’s
atmosphere has been investigated and dismissed in previous studies. The current most widely
accepted hypothesis holds that flanged button tektites are distal ejecta propelled into space by an
impacting asteroid before re-entering the atmosphere. The distal ejecta hypothesis remains
contested due to ongoing difficulties in identifying a suitable mechanism to explain the flight paths
of the tektites outside of the atmosphere. For tektites to exit the earth’s atmosphere, a vacuum-
filled region must surround any impact site for several hundred kilometres. As part of our
assessment of a reasonable hypothesis to explain the persisting anomalies in the study of the
Australasian tektite strewnfield, we undertook an extensive literature review, revisiting the wealth
of experimental research data available on the composition, morphology and distribution of
Australasian tektites. We found that all of the empirical evidence indicates that Australasian tektites
are debris from an exploded satellite situated within the moon’s orbit. The composition of the
tektites must closely reflect that of the parent body; the observed chemistry and isotopic ratios are
unlike identified solar system comets and asteroids, inferring that this temporary moon originated in
interstellar space. Australasian tektite glass requires an extended formation period to explain the
observed homogeneity and fining, which is incongruent with the duration of heating during
hypervelocity impact events and unexpected for natural non-volcanic glasses. We explore the
hypotheses and anomalies associated with the tektite distribution across the Australasian
strewnfield, aerodynamic shaping and chemical composition. In our final assessments, we consider
the likelihood that the parent body of the Australasian tektites was a natural interstellar object or
might otherwise have been an artificial megastructure monitoring earth’s biosphere.
Keywords: Tektite Glasses – Interstellar Objects – Aerial Bursts - Strewnfields – Glassy Ejecta
I. Introduction
Australasian tektite glasses have been of intellectual interest since at least the 10th century AD, as
evidenced by a reference to them in the writings of the T’ang dynasty scholar Liu Sun. In Liu Sun’s
book Ling Piao Lu Yi (Notes on the Wonders Beyond the Nanling Mountains in Kwangtung), he refers
to strange black stones with a brilliant lustre that ring when struck, conferring upon them the name
lei-gong-mo or ‘ink stones of the thunder gods’. Sun explains that his thunder-linked name for the
stones was selected because they were found just after thunderstorms. With the benefit of modern
knowledge, we can understand that thunderous rainstorms were not producing tektites; instead,
rainfall washed them out of their ancient sedimentary layers. The association between glass
formation and storms is not entirely fanciful. On occasion, lightning striking silica-rich sands can
produce a form of glass called fulgurite. The lightning strike hypothesis for tektite formation was
among many other hypotheses initially considered by scientists from the 19th century onwards.
In 1844, the famous English naturalist, Charles Darwin, published details of an Australasian button-
type tektite he had received from Sir Thomas Mitchell while visiting Australia. Darwin was the first
scholar to bring scientific attention to Australasian tektites; in his Geology of the Voyage of the
Beagle (1851), he offered the opinion that these mysterious black glasses were a type of volcanic
bomb. Over the following decades, researchers proposed many hypotheses for tektites formation,
ranging from possible relics of an ancient advanced glass-making civilisation or ejecta from lunar
volcanoes to ablative material that rained down from an asteroid as it skimmed the atmosphere.
Charles Walcott first proposed an extraterrestrial origin for tektites in 1898; however, it was only
from 1900 onwards that this hypothesis was made famous as a result of the glass meteorite
argument offered by Eduard Suess, from whom the term ‘tektite’ originates. By the early 1930s, L. J.
Spencer highlighted comparisons of tektites and impact glasses, accurately noting the inclusion of
nickel-iron spherules typically only associated with meteoric events. Spencer proposed that tektites
must be asteroid crater ejecta. The proposal that tektites had splashed out of terrestrial impact
craters came under fire from C. Fenner, a respected expert on tektite morphology. Fenner
highlighted that tektites lacked the foamy appearance and inclusions typical for impact glasses and
noted the lack of correspondence between confirmed impact ejecta and the australite flanged
button forms. Fenner suggested that the tektites could be material ablated from asteroid fragments
circling in a terrestrial orbit; a stream of such bodies had lit up the sky during the ‘great Canadian
fireball precession’ of February 1913.
In 1940, H. H. Nininger proposed that by merging the extraterrestrial origin hypothesis for tektites
with asteroid impact modelling, necessary formation processes and distribution patterns appeared
well explained. The only point of origin for tektites that made sense to Nininger was an asteroid
crater somewhere on the lunar surface. With the development of the rocketry field and space
program during the 1950s and 1960s, aerospace engineers concerned with atmospheric heating
acting on missiles and spacecraft realised that australite flanged button tektites exhibited
aerodynamic shaping from an entry event. The influx of NASA rocket scientists into the tektite field
proved to be a pivotal occurrence, initiating a period of experimental investigations that led to a
solid understanding of australite morphology and geographic distribution. Space scientists such as D.
R. Chapman, H. K. Larson, J. A. O’Keefe, P. D, Lowman, E. W. Adams and R. M. Huffaker all played
essential roles in establishing that Australasian tektite’s spherical parent bodies had formed in a
vacuum prior to a period of secondary heating as they entered earth’s atmosphere. The reshaping of
the glass spheres was enabled by entry along paths nearly parallel to the planet’s surface. The
argument that tektites are lunar volcanic glass ejected during an asteroid impact event and sent
hurtling earthwards needed to account for solar gravitational disruption of the debris cloud. A
diffuse swarm of tektites would become dispersed, resulting in a shower over the entire earth (H. C.
Urey, 1954). To evade disruption by solar gravity, a tektite swarm would require a density of 1 gram
of glass per cubic meter. If a tektite swarm were several thousand kilometres in diameter, the
subsequent deposits would be several million grams per square meter across Australasia. If a highly
compact cluster of tektites arrived from space and broke up in the atmosphere, the strewnfield
would only be around 10km long (O’Keefe J. A. & Lowman, P. D., 1965.
Conclusive refutation of the lunar origin hypothesis for tektites occurred in 1970 due to analysis of
lunar samples. Lunar rocks recovered by the Apollo program revealed that the moon’s surface lacked
geological materials with the required chemical composition for tektites, particularly problematic
was the low availability of silica in the samples. From 1970 onwards, Australasian tektites, indeed all
tektites, have been widely accepted as glassy distal ejecta resulting from hypervelocity asteroid
impacts into the surface rock at highly acute angles. The bulk of the tektite chemistry is explainable
as the fusing of melted surface rock with trace amounts of an impacting asteroid. However, it
remains widely acknowledged that anomalies persist, many of which had been explained by the
lunar hypothesis. These persisting anomalies have prevented a final understanding of tektite
researchers’ formation and distribution patterns. Despite the failure of the asteroid impact
hypothesis to resolve multiple aspects of the tektite evidence, new hypotheses have focussed on
slight modifications to the consensus model rather than offering paradigm displacement. We
explore a new extraterrestrial hypothesis for the origin of Australasian tektites. The scientific
understanding of the chemical composition, formation processes and distribution mechanisms for
Australasian tektite glass remained unclear despite two centuries of serious investigation, making
them a scientifically exciting problem. In this essay, we test our hypothesis that a novel interstellar
object as the parent body for the Australasian tektites resolves the many persisting anomalies. We
propose that the parent bodies of the Australasian tektites formed due to the superheating of a
previously uncategorised type of glassy interstellar object captured into geocentric orbit.
1.0 Australasian Tektites
Australasian tektites are a chemically unique family of melt glasses that includes four primary
morphological types; layered, splash forms, flanged buttons and microtektites. Australasian tektites
are unrelated to the geological formations at their discovery sites, and examples share remarkably
uniform chemical composition across their extensive strewn field. Widespread scientific consensus
holds that all Australasian tektites fell during a single showering event. Australasian tektites have
been found in the same geological layer as stone axes at the Bose archaeological site in China,
suggesting that the hominins responsible for the tools witnessed the fiery events associated with the
tektite rain.
The current popular consensus theory describes the Australasian tektites as novel distal ejecta
produced during an oblique angled hypervelocity asteroid impact event occurring somewhere in
Indochina. The homogenous glass that Australasian tektites are composed of indicates a glassy
parent body. The fining process required for molten rock to transition into a well-mixed and fined
glass is inconsistent with the rapid heating and cooling occurring during asteroid impacts. There are
no known terrestrial geological formations that, without a prolonged period of heating and mixing,
would correspond to Australasian tektite glass. Assuming that these tektites’ source material was
already homogenous and glassy, an extraterrestrial origin would be most logical. A significant
proportion of Australasian tektite glasses from Australia (australites) and Java (javanites) exhibit
superficial secondary melting only explained by ablation during a hypersonic flight in the earth’s
upper atmosphere. Despite decades of intensive chemical and experimental analysis, researchers
have failed to provide a satisfactory mechanism for this tektite-flight beginning from the earth’s
surface rather than an extraterrestrial location. Various experimental studies have explored the
physical requirements for an asteroid impact to propel tektites outside of the atmosphere, but these
have failed to explain all aspects of the empirical evidence. Further confounding the terrestrial
impact ejecta hypothesis for Australasian tektite formation is the absence of internal crystals, their
unique chemistry, unexpected isotopic ratios, surprising homogeneity and the lack of evidence for
an associated impact crater or local environmental catastrophe in Indochina. An extensive overview
of the Australasian tektites research topic already exists (Koeberl, 1992) (Koeberl, 1994), and as
such, we will not repeat that extensive task.
To recap: The scientific understanding of the chemical composition, formation processes and
distribution mechanisms for Australasian tektite glass remain unclear despite over a century of
serious investigation, making them a compelling scientific problem. In this essay, we test our
hypothesis of an interstellar object of possible artificial origins as the parent body for the
Australasian tektites.
1.1 Australasian Tektite Composition
Australasian tektites exhibit slight variance in composition between morphological forms and at
disparate discovery sites across their strewn field, chemically homogenous sub-groups cluster by
region. The typical chemistry for the significant constituent elements is SiO2 averaging ∼73.5 wt%,
Al2O3 (∼11.5 wt%), FeO (∼4.7 wt%), CaO, MgO, and K2O (all between 2.0 to 3.5 wt%), NaO (1.3%
wt%) and TiO2 (0.7% wt%) (Cavosie, 2018). Australasian tektites have many chemical overlaps with
other tektites despite being isotopically distinct (Koeberl 1990). Australasian tektites are free from
internal crystallisation, contain few bubbles, have a low prevalence of volatile elements and exhibit
an extreme deficit of water content at ~50ppm (Cavosie, 2018). Detailed geochemical analysis
indicates that tektites have a chemical composition similar to impact melted continental upper
crustal rocks (Taylor, 1962; Taylor and Kaye, 1969; Koeberl, 1986, Koeberl, 1994). Analysis of
isotopes hints at a close fit with deltaic sediments of continental crustal origin (Chaussidon, M &
Koeberl, C., 1995). Unlike confirmed meteoric impact melt glasses, Australasian tektites are high in
silica and have an excess of alkaline earths over alkalis, excess of potash over soda, lack of water,
and an absence of trapped organic materials and partially melted rock. Australite samples exhibit an
extreme lack of osmium, well below that of the earth’s crust, a fact that is hard to align with a glass
widely held to be composed entirely of melted upper crust materials (Ackerman et al. 2019).
The trace levels of siderophile elements found in Australasian tektites fit with the presence of
around 0.01% meteoric material (Shirai et al., 2016; Shirai et al., 2017). Exceedingly small quantities
of nickel-iron spherules are among the minor constituents of some tektites, with meteorites being
the only known natural source for such spherules (Adams, E. W. and R. M. Huffaker, R. M., 1962).
The search for highly siderophile elements has indicated that Australasian layered tektites Muong
Nong might be a chaotic mixture of material from an extraterrestrial body and melted surface rock.
Muong-Nong type tektites preserve conspicuous layering and have other distinguishing features
such as relict minerals, including quartz, zircon, rutile, chromite and monazite (Cavosie 2018). The
claim that Muong Nong tektites include melted material from the neighbouring rocks remains
contested by some researchers (Schnetzler, 1992). However, there is compelling evidence that
Muong Nong layered tektite comprises sheets of welded microtektites (O’Keefe and Adler, 1966;
Walter and Cassidy, 1968; O’Keefe, 1969; Peeuss et al., 1989.; Futrell, 1986).
In common with Muong Nong tektites, Australasian microtektites are heterogeneous in their
chemical composition. The discovery of shocked minerals and shock lithified rock fragments
associated with the Australasian microtektite layer (Glass and Wu, 1993) (Glass and Koeberl, 2006)
tends to support the cosmic impact origins of the Australasian strewn field. A positive correlation
between Australasian microtektite fluence and raised levels of iridium has been observed in
Southeast Asian ocean cores, further indicating an extraterrestrial component (Schmidt et al., 1993;
Koeberl, 1993). Intriguingly microtektites from three tektite strewnfields, including the Australasian
ones, contain pyroxenitic material. Pyroxenite is a rare class of minerals in the terrestrial surface
rock, and it is highly improbable that three of the four known tektite-producing events would involve
asteroids impacting sites rich in pyroxenes. The logical deduction here is that the source body for
Australasian tektites and other strewnfields contained extraterrestrial pyroxenitic material.
Problematic too is the observation that tektites share a remarkably narrow O18/O16 isotopic ratio
that is unlike that of the sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks abundant on the earth’s surface
(H. Taylor and Epstein, 1962), and the same divergence exists for Strontium Sr87/Sr86. Australasian
tektites contain the mineraloid lechatelierite, a product of quartz undergoing either extreme heat or
high-pressure shock metamorphism. The presence of lechatelierite represents an additional problem
for the asteroid impact hypothesis, as it should be destroyed during the inferred heating and fining
process (Barnes, V. E., 1958). The high-temperature melting of the tektite glass must have been brief
and not hotter than 2400K (Macris et al., 2018). Solar system asteroids and comets do not contain
quartz; thus, the presence of lechatelierite in Australite tektites is not explainable by direct transfer
from any known type of cosmic impactor.
As discussed, Australasian tektites have a chemical profile often explained as inferring a geologically
well-mixed source of surface sedimentary rock. The overall chemical and isotopic makeup of
Australasian tektites concerning the most abundant and the trace-element abundances, including
the lead and strontium isotope ratios, suggest extraterrestrial origin as products of an entirely
similar planet (Taylor, S. R. & Sachs, M 1964). Experimental analysis of the chemical trends in
australites conducted through vaporisation in a vacuum and vapour fractionation in an oxidising
atmosphere revealed characteristic indications of fractional crystallisation occurring in a cooling
magma. The inevitable conclusion of that experimental analysis was that the tektite chemistry
closely reflects that of a pre-existing parent body composed of igneous material. Australasian
tektites are chemically unlike earth’s igneous rocks, suggesting that an igneous parent body would
be of extraterrestrial origin. The significant differences between the tektites and the earth’s igneous
rocks suggest magmatic evolution at lower pressures than possible in the earth’s interior (Chapman,
D. R. & Scheiber, L. C. 1969). The suggestion that Australasian tektite composition closely resembles
the parent body is problematic when we consider that no known asteroid or comet is composed of
>60% silica (Randy L. Korotev, 2020). As previously noted, the quartz required for lechatelierite
formation would not be present in these cosmic bodies.
The low levels of BE and AL in Australasian tektites appear parsimonious with an asteroid impacting
surface rock, but there is some difficulty reconciling the observed levels with those detected in
tektites from other strewn fields. The Ivory Coast tektites are regular splash-forms (Koeberl et al.,
1997) indicated to be related to the Bosumtwi crater formed 1.07 Ma. Ivory Coast tektites are widely
considered ejecta from an asteroid striking surficial materials, just as suggested for Australasian
tektites. Therefore, concentrations of 10Be should, in theory, be virtually identical. The 10Be
concentrations of Ivory Coast tektites are consistent with production from near-surface sediments,
but they are 77% lower than levels in Australasian tektites (Serefiddin et al., 2007). A proportion of
the difference in 10Be could be the result of the age differences for the respective tektite
strewnfields, nature and antiquity of source materials, depth of sample in the soil column and
environmental conditions at the time of formation. Even after factoring in all considerations for the
difference in 10Be levels between Ivory Coast and Australasian tektites, it is clear the latter spent
some additional time bombarded by cosmic rays. Despite having higher levels of cosmogenic
isotopes than examples from the Ivory Coast, low levels of the 26Al and 10Be in Australasian tektites
still constrain their origination point within the Earth-Moon system (Urey 1955) (Viste and Anders
1962). The low levels of cosmogenic isotopes could result from cosmic rays remaining limited to
interaction with the surface layer of an immense parent body that later became well-mixed glass
during tektite formation.
The chemical composition, isotopic ratios and morphology of Australasian tektites make them
strikingly unlike impact melt glasses found in and around almost two hundred identified craters.
Asteroid impacts produce instantaneous intense heat and pressure sufficient to melt surface and
basement rock. However, due to the fleeting nature of those high-energy events, the glassy ejecta is
very foamy, with lots of bubbles, including partly melted rock, crystals, organic materials and water.
Due to similar formation processes, asteroid impact melt glasses exhibit a remarkably similar
morphology to glasses produced during tests of nuclear bombs, such as trinitite. There are virtually
no notable composition differences between typical asteroid melt glasses and the rock walls of the
source crater. While there are well over a hundred asteroid impact craters with melt glass inside and
proximal to the impact structure, no tektite glasses have ever been discovered proximally to a
crater.
1.2 Anomalous Glass Fining Process
The rate bubbles move through fluids is governed by Stokes’ Law, with the speed of bubble
movement being proportional to the heat, pressure and viscosity. The principles of Stokes’ Law
govern the process of glass fining. Short-lived high-energy events such as lightning strikes, bomb
explosions and meteorite impact events initiate rapid temperature rises, followed by fast cooling.
Shock or impact glasses formed during short-duration heating events are neither homogenous nor
fined; the bubbles lack time to escape and become fixed in the cooling fluid, making the final form
very foamy. A chemically well-mixed homogenous glass, free from bubbles, requires heating in a
crucible over an extended period. There are three types of homogeneous fined glass, artificially
produced, volcanic obsidian and tektite. Australasian tektites differ significantly from confirmed
impact melt glasses but are remarkably similar to volcanic obsidians. The mixing and fining process
for obsidian involves extended heating of heterogeneous geological materials in volcanic calderas,
allowing time for bubbles and volatiles to escape. Australasian tektites must have formed from a
heating process that closely parallels volcanic or artificial glass production. Production of fined
tektite glass during an asteroid impact is incompatible with Stokes’ Law. Unlike tektites, obsidians
contain microlites, tiny crystals (Park A.F., 1989), and a significantly higher water content of 0.07% to
1.66% (Stevenson M.S. et al. 2019). The extreme absence of water in Australasian tektites (other
than Muong Nong) is most congruent with the formation occurring in space.
One hypothesis is that water and volatiles escaped from tektites through the process of bubble
elimination or ‘bubble stripping’, boiling away while the molten glass was at an extremely high
temperature of ~4000K – 9000K and therefore low viscosity (Melosh H. J. and Artemieva, N, 2004).
Bubble stripping involving temperatures >4000K does not fit with tektites remaining sufficiently
viscous to be cohesive masses while approaching 50Gs of acceleration during a hypervelocity flight.
Liquid glass displaced as hypervelocity ejecta at temperatures >4000K quickly reduces to a fine mist
of minuscule droplets. We can also infer that the temperature of the Australasian tektites during
formation could not have been significantly higher than 2273K; otherwise, they would exhibit
potassium isotopic fractionation (Humayun, M. & Koeberl, C, 2004). The potassium isotopic
composition for Australasian tektites is indistinguishable from that of terrestrial rock at 0.5–1.0%,
and therefore the tektites can not be products of earth’s sedimentary rocks heated to >4000K.
For Australasian tektite formation to adhere to Stoke’s Law, the parent material should already be a
homogenous fined glass before the disruption. If a large molten glassy mass in space reached a
surface temperature of 2500C, it would cool to 2000C in just under 1 second; for 1-cm-radius
spheres, cooling would occur much faster. The higher a molten body’s initial temperature, the faster
all subsequent cooling occurs. If the large hot glassy mass begins breaking up in space, new surfaces
would form repeatedly and then cool within seconds. The process of cascading fragmentation with
ongoing rapid surface cooling would significantly limit vaporisation or chemical diffusion; any losses
would have mere seconds to occur and remain restricted to the thin layer just beneath the
vaporising surface (Chapman, D. R. & Scheiber, L. C. 1969). One crucial observation is that despite
the claimed depletion of volatile elements in Australasian tektites, they do not exhibit a diffusion-
like profile (Melosh H. J. and Artemieva, N, 2004). Fractional vaporisation experimentation on
Australasian tektite materials has been carried out both in a vacuum and an oxidising environment.
The principal tektite chemical trends are not attributable to vaporisation. Physical evidence on the
direction of increasing formation temperature within the HCa Australasian tektite group reveals that
the primary chemical trends run opposite to those expected for vapour fractionation. The absence of
significant evidence for fractional vaporisation in the surface layers is likely a result of abrasion and
etching due to geological wear and decomposition since production. Many chemical trends in the
HMg australite group conform closely to the classical trends of crystal fractionation in cooling
magma though not for sedimentary rock, and the chemistry does not correspond to earth igneous
rocks. If we can discount vapour fractionation, then tektite chemistry must mimic that of the source
material, further suggesting tektites are extraterrestrial in origin. Experimental findings suggest
Australasian tektite chemistry closely reflects that of their source body (Munir Humayun, M and
Christian Koeberl, C, 2004), just as a remarkably close chemical correspondence is found between
impact glasses and their crater rocks (Chapman, Dean R.; Scheiber, Leroy C. (1969).
1.3 Australasian Strewnfield Distribution
Tektites are a geologically and geographically rare type of silicate glass tightly clustered within five
distinct regions designated as strewnfields. Glasses within each strewnfield are closely interrelated
by age, morphology and chemical composition. Four of the tektite strewnfields are currently
associated with suspected source craters, Ivory Coast tektites with the Bosumtwi crater (1.07 Ma,
Ghana), moldavites with the Ries crater (15 Ma, Germany), georgiaites & bediasites with Chesapeake
Bay (35.5 Ma, USA) and Central American tektites with the Pantasma crater (0.78 Ma, Nicaragua)
(Glass and Simonson 2013, Rochette et al. 2019). These four strewn fields exhibit omnidirectional
orientation relative to their suspected source craters, considered to be indicative of highly oblique
impact angles. Tektites are considered novel distal ejecta produced during hypervelocity impacts of
asteroids and transported hundreds of kilometres. Typical splash form tektite morphology includes
spheres, oblate spheroids, teardrops, dumbbells, disks, and cylinders, all of a few centimetres in
diameter.
The Australasian strewnfield is the largest of the five known fields, stretching from Indochina to
Antarctica with a total area of >150 million km2 or ~20% of the earth’s surface (Glass et al., 1979).
Estimates for the total weight of Australasian tektites that fell during the showering event range
between 108 to 1012 tons (Chapman D.R. & Scheiber L.C. 1969). The Australasian strewn field is the
youngest, dating to ~788,000 Kyr (Jourdan et al., 2019).
1.4 Missing Crater
Australasian tektites are not convincingly associated with any impact structure. Assuming that these
glasses are distal ejecta from an impact event, the source crater should be enormous; size estimates
range from ~40km to >100km in diameter. The Chesapeake Bay impact structure associated with
georgiaites & bediasites has a diameter of 85km; the Australasian strewn field should require a
crater of at least comparable size.
The heaviest pieces of Australasian tektite glass are from sites across Indochina, known as Muong
Nong tektites, weighing up to 25 kilos. Individual pieces of Muong Nong tektite are notably
heterogeneous in composition, exhibit distinctive layering in their structure and contain suspected
source material relics (Koeberl, 1992; Chapman and Scheiber 1969; Schnetzler 1992). Its widely
accepted that the heavier pieces of Muong Nong tektite cannot be distal ejecta and should be
proximal to any hypothesised source crater. Muong Nong-type tektite analysed has the most
negligible Sn depletion and Sn isotope fractionation, consistent with these samples being more
proximal to the source and having experienced a shorter time at high temperatures (Creech et al.
2019). Muong Nong tektites are problematic as proximal ejecta because this layered glass exists at
locations separated by >2000km (Whymark, A., 2006). Even the most powerful comet impact should
not produce an impact structure 2000km in diameter.
Cosmogenic 10Be content of Australasian tektites increases from Indochina southwards through
Australasia (Tera et al. 1983; Blum et al. 1992; Trinka, M, 2020). Analysis of Ni content has led to the
prediction that a source crater should be in Eastern Thailand, as indicated by a two-lobed pattern
radiating from that region (Cohen, 1962). An oval ring of hills in Northeast Cambodia was previously
considered ground zero based on indicative airborne and satellite imaging (Hartung and Rivolo,
1979) (Ford, 1988). Cambodia’s lake Tonle Sap, 100km X 35km, has been suspected due to both
understood age and the possibility that its long axis should accord well with a highly oblique impact
angle, considered an essential factor for the extensive distribution of Australasian tektites (Hartung,
1990; Hartung & Koeberl,1994). Detection of a negative gravity anomaly led some to believe the
crater was in Vietnam (Schnetzler et al., 1988). In Vietnam, analysis of radial and concentric patterns
of tektites suggested a crater buried under alluvial deposits in the lower Mekong valley (Stauffer,
1978). Beneath the volcanic fields of the Bolaven Plateau in Southern Laos, a subterranean magnetic
anomaly ∼15km in diameter is currently under investigation as a possible source crater for the
tektites; an underground impact structure is yet to be confirmed (Sieh et al., 2020).
Ocean core samples collected from sites from Okinawa to Madagascar Australasian, a distance of
10,500km, have provided Australasian microtektites <1mm diameter (Wasson J. T., 2003) (Prasad et
al., 2007). Analysis of 465 examples of Transantarctic Mountain microtektites confirmed that they
were chemically related to the Australasian strewn field and contained lower sodium and potassium,
consistent with volatile loss at high temperatures. The microtektites recovered from Antarctica
provided evidence of reaching higher temperatures than other related tektites, inferring that they
underwent the most extended period in flight and marked the furthest end of the Australasian
strewnfield (Folco et al. 2009) (Ginnekenet al. 2018). Independent laser experimental calibrations
suggest formation temperatures between approximately 3000 °C and 5000 °C (Gerasimov et al.
2005). That the Australasian strewnfield radiates out from the direction of Indochina towards
Antarctica is further confirmed by the drastically decreasing abundance of micro-impact craters on
the surfaces of Australasian microtektites towards the south, showing that the chaotically
interacting swarm had been rapidly dissipating (Prasad et al., 2010).
1.5 Terrestrial Impact Ejecta Excluded
The popular consensus hypothesis for Australasian tektites proposes that they are composed of
surface rock with traces of an asteroid that impacted the earth at an angle between 30 to 45
degrees. Impact events involving angles greater than 45 degrees displace ejecta at steep trajectories
that reduce travel distance, and the melt contains remnants of basement rock. Modelling suggests
the largest strewnfields should occur after impacts at ~30°, hypersonic ejecta from impacts at angles
less than 30 degrees would encounter the densest regions of the atmosphere, meaning higher
resistance and shorter flight distances (Artemieva, 2008). Increasingly acute angles of impact
produce proportionately less molten ejecta. With a reduction of shock melting and constrained
vaporisation of the projectile, a significantly higher volume of relic impactor survives in the
hypervelocity ejecta (Artemieva et al., 2003). Meteoric siderophile elements and platinum group
elements are at trace levels of 0.01% in the Australasian tektite glass (Shirai et al., 2016),
inconsistent with the expected degree of mixing between an impactor and the surface rock.
The velocity of impacts is a crucial factor in ejecta modelling. Any high-velocity impact of 36 km/s,
such as in cometary impacts, would involve ejection of basement material reduced to particles of up
to tektite sizes and with velocities of 3km/s to 5 km/s (Artemieva & Morgan 2009). The optimal
impact speed and angle for maximising tektite production from the surface rock have been
calculated experimentally at 20km/s and 30 degrees. During hypervelocity asteroid impact events
involving the proposed optimal speeds and angles, ejecta will travel 200km to 400km from the
impact site (Stöffler et al. 2002).
Australasian tektites include a geologically unique morphology, the australite flanged buttons.
Button tektites separate into subtypes based on chemical composition variation (Chapman, D. R. &
Scheiber, L. C. 1969). The process that leads to flange flattening in australite button formation has
been experimentally reproduced and requires atmospheric entry/re-entry speed at velocities of
~10km/s (Chapman and Larson, 1962). The loss of energy during the process of shock vaporisation
and melt ejection leaves up to ¾ of the kinetic energy required for launch unaccounted for at
present. The ~10km/s australite re-entry speed infers a minimum suborbital flight duration of ~3.25
hours and, therefore, a landing point of ~32,000 km from the source due to the earth’s rotation
(Thomas H. S. Harris). These calculations are inconsistent with the geographical distribution of
Australasian tektites and appear to rule out launch sites in Indochina or even the same hemisphere.
Previously highlighted evidence shows microtektites made significantly longer flights than splash
forms or buttons, the earth’s rotation is an even more significant factor in their longitudinal
distribution.
Impacts of cosmic bodies most often involve speeds of 11 to 40km/s (de Pater and Lissauer 2001). A
simulation for tektite production during an impact event associated with a 1km diameter crater
found that immediately after impact ejection, the velocities of displaced molten material could
potentially reach the earth’s escape velocity of 11.2 km/s. Due to Impact atmospheric resistance,
ejecta travelling at escape velocity slows rapidly, and after just 10 seconds of flight, at around 4 to
5km, the ejecta plume has collapsed with all melt glass deposited (Artemieva, 2008). During any
hypervelocity impact, 90% of the ejecta falls within five crater radii of the rim (Montanari and
Koeberl, 2000). Therefore, if Australasian tektites are distal ejecta, there should be an enormous
amount of proximal melt indicating the presence of the source crater. A simulation for an impact of
a meteorite 1 km in size (Ries meteorite: 0.6– 1 km) showed that components up to 1 cm in size
would travel up to 400 km; components <10 cm would reach 200 km (Shuvalov 2003).
Ejecta falling over 400km from an impact crater is understood to have travelled outside the
atmosphere (Kring and Durda, 2002). Experimental studies indicate that ballistic processes resulting
from highly obtuse angle asteroid strikes will deposit ejecta proximally to the crater, certainly not
creating a 12,000km strewn field or launching molten glass >100km upwards to the edge of space. A
suitable mechanism for ejecta distribution beyond 400km from an impact site still needs to be
established. Vaporised rock in a plume might reach the upper atmosphere, but after 35 seconds, all
ejected basement material, partly melted surface rock, and projectile relics, including melt glass,
remain below an altitude of 70 km with a maximum velocity of 2.5 km/s. The maximum distance any
displaced basement rocks or melt glasses moving along ballistic trajectories at these limited
velocities is <1000 km (J. V. Morgan1 and N. Artemieva 2008). Many australites are far too heavy to
be carried several 1000s of kilometres within a plume of vaporised material; one tektite recovered
from Notting in South West Australia weighs 437 grams (Cleverly, W. H., 1991). No initial velocity is
sufficient to allow a tektite body of >1cm to travel upward through the undisturbed atmosphere into
space. As the air mass ahead of the tektite becomes equal to its own, the flight ends, regardless of
the initial speed (O’Keefe J. A. & Lowman, P. D., 1965). Research carried out at the George C.
Marshall Space Flight centre concluded that a glass sphere of 1.3 cm radius in ascending flight with a
speed of 8 km/sec at sea level altitude encounters an initial deceleration of 96,000 Gs. It is also clear
that the stability of tektites during secondary melting is due to travelling from lower to higher
pressure. If the tektites moved from higher to lower pressure regions, they would lose stability and
start tumbling, ruling out a cluster of tektites departing from the earth’s surface (Adams, E. W. and
Huffaker, R. M., 1962).
Theoretically, glassy material could ascend into space through a vacuum-filled hole, one punched in
the atmosphere by an object several kilometres in diameter, evidenced by a crater akin to
Chixuluub. Impacts on the scale of the Chixuluub event should enable transport of microtektites in
an expanding gas column, but this would still not explain larger tektites travelling many 1000s of
kilometres. Impact events powerful enough to launch larger pieces of melted glass into space would
also produce an enormous amount of dust, which would be found in geological layers globally. Dust
resulting from such a significant cratering event should be in the same ocean cores as the
microtektites and iridium (Artemieva, N. and Morgan, J., 2009). There are no signs of a global or
regional dust layer associated with the Australasian tektite strewnfield.
Alternative models for the suggested transfer of molten glass involve liquid jets. Liquid jets suffer
from the problem that the material would reduce to a fine mist due to interaction with atmospheric
pressures after a few hundred kilometres (Artemieva 2001). Speculation that tektites might be
condensates from a vapour produced during impact events is contradicted both by the expectation
that any particles will not be above the nanometer scale (Rietmeijer, 2006; Gornostaeva, 2019) and
undoubtedly, such condensates could not include rigid coesites and Fe-Ni particles as are found in
australites (Muttik, 2008; O’Keefe, 1994).
The distribution pattern for Australasian tektites indicates a parent trajectory considerably more
eccentric than the Cyrillid meteor shower’s orbit. Individual pieces falling from such a shower near
the perigee point of the orbit would have extensive distribution along the orbit due to slight
variations in height or drag coefficient. In addition, the distribution of the tektites, concerning their
longitude, would be widened by the earth turning during the showering event (O’Keefe, 1960).
1.6 Australite Aerodynamic Shaping
The flanged tektite buttons are almost entirely limited to southern Australia, with a smaller
percentage found across the Philippines and Indonesia. During entry of an australite into the
atmosphere, a thin, hot layer of flowing glass with 30 times the surface/ volume ratio of a typical
tektite primary form is present. Before coiling into a flange, this layer of flowing glass experiences
temperatures of over 2500C for 1 to 2 seconds (Chapman, Dean R.; Scheiber, Leroy C. (1969). As a
result of ablation experiments equivalent to heating rates experienced during hypersonic flight and
trajectory analysis, we have strong indications that average-weight button-type australites entered
the atmosphere as solid glassy spheres, travelling along shallow angles relative to the earth’s horizon
(~20 degrees). The observed 70% mass loss due to ablation in flight requires entry speeds of >6.5
km/sec but less than 11.2km/s. Furthermore, experimental results agree with observations of
natural tektites that only a thin layer of solidified melt beneath the final front surface of button-type
australites shows a systematic striae deformation. Therefore, the final button shape is unequivocally
the result of aerodynamic heating acting on rigid glass, not aerodynamic pressure acting on soft
glass. Tektites are Leimarits of extraterrestrial glassy bodies that entered the earth’s atmosphere in
skipping flight (Adams, E. W. and R. M. Huffaker, R. M., 1962). Detailed experimental efforts to
replicate tektite morphology confirmed the required velocities, composition and entry angles with a
high degree of certainty regarding origination from a satellite (Chapman, D. R., & Larson, H. K.
(1963).
Most Australites appear to have started atmospheric re-entry as spheres, which were always
thermally modified in subsequent gravitationally accelerated flight. Flanges formed (and were
sometimes preserved) in Australites of a very narrow initial size range. The noble gas contents
(Matsuda et al. 1993) and the low ferric to ferrous iron ratios (Fudali et al. 1987; Jakes et al. 1992)
indicate tektite solidification in the upper Earth atmosphere with low oxygen fugacity. Some
australites enclose bubbles of vacuum or rare gases; this and the low-pressure gas found frozen into
the body of tektites together indicate formation either outside the atmosphere or at the very edge
of space, around 150km above the earth’s surface. Aerodynamic experiments with tektite glass
indicate that australites arrived in the atmosphere as rigid glass objects (Chapman, 1964). Heavy
noble gas concentrations in splash-form tektites are considerably lower than in impact glasses. The
difference between the gas concentrations of impact glasses and tektites can not be explained by
high formation temperatures, as might be expected when considering the low concentrations of
water and most volatile elements in tektites. The observed noble gas concentrations indicate that
tektites solidified in an atmosphere with an ambient pressure of much less than 1 atm at a minimum
of ~40km above surface level (Matsuda et al.1993) (Matsuda et al. 1995).
The ablation at the stagnation point, where the local velocity of the fluid is zero, 43% of which is due
to evaporation, starts in the free-molecular region of the air at 90 km altitude and ends in the
hypersonic continuum flow region at flight Mach speed numbers > 4. The surface temperature
closely follows the aerodynamic heat transfer pulse change, aero(t), to a non-evaporating surface
(Adams, E. W. and R. M. Huffaker, R. M., 1962).
The incoming spheres (68 – 80% silica) likely originate from a highly transparent glassy source body,
releasing liquid drops during extreme heating. Glassy spheres would begin as liquid droplets
released from a glassy parent body heated to a sufficient temperature, ~2400K. Stretching and
contracting apparent in some bubble cavities within australites indicate that their glassy parent
bodies entered the earth’s atmosphere in skipping flight. The glassy parent hypothesis can explain
characteristic features of different chemically and geographically grouped tektites. The fusion of
siliceous rock into glass by aerodynamic effects is impossible, and neither glassy meteors descending
directly nor stony meteors will release meteorites of well-defined shape like tektites (Adams, E. W.
and R. M. Huffaker, R. M., 1962).
1.7 Aerial Bursts Indicated by Muong Nong Layered Tektites
As previously noted, the heaviest pieces of Australasian tektite glass are the Muong Nong tektites
exhibiting weights up to 25 kilos, therefore inferred to be situated proximally to the hypothetical
impact crater. The total area of the Muong Nong tektite distribution is ~7 X 105 km2, stretching from
Cambodia to Hainan Island, China. Unlike Australasian button and splash-form tektites, Muong Nong
samples show heterogeneous chemical makeup and apparent relics from melted rock. Norm
Lehrman, an exploration geologist and tektite researcher, has championed an asteroid airburst origin
for Muong Nong tektites. Lehrman suggests that the layered tektite sheets formed after large pieces
of a fragmenting asteroid exploded low in the atmosphere, vacuuming up surface material into a
swirling plasma storm of molten debris, temporarily hotter than the surface of the sun. A melt sheet
would have resulted at surface levels from the aerial bursts above. The interface between molten
layers with lower viscosity than those on either side might lead to a planar break and a brief
runaway by upper layers, producing recumbent folds as observed in lava and obsidian flow. The
twisting and folding of layered glass observed in Muong Nong tektite are reminiscent of the same
phenomena observed in glasses from the Atacama Desert. Atacama Desert melt glass resulted from
aerial bursts caused by comet fragments exploding at low altitudes (Shultzt P. H. et al., 2022).
Higher levels of 10BE, the orientation of magnetic remanence field, and the lack of splash-form
tektites at sites where layered tektite lay all further indicate surface melting rather than impact
displacement (Wasson J. T., 2003). There is a preference for loess as the source material for Muong
Nong tektite, as indicated by isotopic values (Wasson, J. T. & Mezger, K, 2007).
Aerial bursts require two key factors, disruption of the parent body and a high angle of entry,
approaching 90 degrees. These requirements are met for the Australasian tektite strewnfield, as
confirmed through the previously highlighted studies of australite button formation processes. In
addition, Lehrman has identified one example of welding between molten glass and already cooled
Muong Nong tektite that indicates interaction between material produced in two different aerial
burst events separated by several hours.
Splash-form tektites form from revolving fluid bodies moving through the air whilst cooling (Elkins-
Tanton, L. T., et al., 2003). The splash-form tektites could potentially result from aerial bursts in the
upper atmosphere or small catering events. With a tektite swarm breaching the atmosphere, larger
fragments would produce significant explosive events leading to geographically widespread
distribution of tektite glass, as observed for the Australasian strewnfield. Some HCa philippinites
examined exhibited irregularly shaped bubble cavities, and the layered structure constitutes
unambiguous evidence that the viscosity at formation was high and the temperature relatively low--
too low either to round small cavities or to develop internal swirls. By contrast, the vesicles in
australites are essentially 100% spherical, and the internal flow structures are often highly swirled
due to a higher formation temperature (Chapman, Dean R.; Scheiber, Leroy C. (1969). The formation
of splash-form tektites was by a process unlike that for flanged buttons and involving lower
temperatures. The splash-form tektite morphology of teardrops, disks, dumbbells and ablated
spheres is consistent with the shaping of molten glass moving through the air after aerial bursts and,
in the case of disks, inconsistent with impact ejecta. Aerial bursts caused by more significant pieces
of the source body entering the atmosphere also fit with the discovery of many sub-groups of
Australasian tektites, including HMg, HCa, HNa/K, LCaHA1, and tICu, which exhibit relatively
restricted chemical variation and common chemical congruencies (Chapman, Dean R.; Scheiber,
Leroy C. (1969). Such a finding meshes well with a large parent body fragmenting in space, followed
by fragments exploding in the atmosphere over diverse regions of Australasia. We would not expect
an impact or the explosion of a singular, homogenous body entering the atmosphere to produce the
observed clustering of chemical sub-groups. The apparent gaps of hundreds or even thousands of
kilometres between Australasian tektite discovery sites on the ground further support aerial bursts.
The presence of Muong Nong layered tektites weighing over twenty kilos at locations separated by
>2000km (Whymark, A., 2006) is reconciled in the aerial burst model of formation and entirely
inconsistent with impact ejecta.
1.8 A Possible Technosignature
If the parent body that gave rise to tektite debris had initially arrived from interplanetary or
interstellar space, enormous odds would be against it becoming captured in geocentric orbit. Only if
the tektite’s parent body melted and fragmented while in a geocentric orbit can the observed
distribution pattern of the Australasian strewnfield be explained (O’Keefe J. A. & Lowman, P. D.,
1965). To our knowledge, no serious consideration has previously focussed on the interstellar arrival
hypothesis due to the mathematical chances against the various requirements. The low levels of
cosmogenic isotopes in Australasian tektites do not preclude arrival from a distant solar system,
provided that only the outer layer had faced exposure to cosmic rays prior to the heating and
dissolution of the object. We share the deductions of O’Keefe and Lowman regarding the likelihood
that an interplanetary body, let alone an exotic interstellar object, would happen to vector in on a
terrestrial geocentric orbit. It would seem to strain credulity that a natural object from beyond the
solar system, composed of fined glass, would chance upon the precise speed and angle necessary to
become a moon of the earth. We find ourselves forced to consider the possibility that the parent
body for the Australasian tektites was an artificial construct exhibiting deliberate intent.
For several decades Dr James Benford and his collaborators have called for serious efforts to search
our solar system for alien probes (Jackson & Benford). It is feasible that advanced extraterrestrial
civilisations across the Milky Way could have detected the earth’s biosphere in remote prehistory;
the great oxidation event of 2.4 billion years ago marked the beginning of an ongoing detectable
biosignature. In addition, many civilisations across our galaxy could have sent probes to explore our
solar system during the last 2.4 billion years, and some of these might function as lurkers or sentinels
watching the ongoing development of life on Earth (Benford 2021). A durable ET probe might
position itself to monitor our biosphere from a co-orbital body, the lunar surface, terrestrial orbit or
a location on the earth’s surface. An alien probe imbued with artificial intelligence and some level of
Von Neumann self-repair functions might continue to operate for an extended period, perhaps
indefinitely (Jacob Haqq-Misra, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, 2011). Types of extraterrestrial probes might
range from swarms of nanobots to vast silica-network artificial moons housing super-intelligent
post-biological synthetic lifeforms (Schneider, 2016).
One potential outcome for alien probes is their eventual decay and destruction; anomalous debris
fields on the surface of solar system bodies are a scientifically sound target for potential
technosignature investigations. Persisting anomalies associated with the Australasian tektite
strewnfield resolve themselves by applying the alien probe hypothesis.
Conclusions
Our investigative finding is that the Australasian tektite strewnfield indicates the fragmentation and
distribution of materials from a fined silica-metal glassy satellite. Flanged button tektites began life
as solid spheres formed from superheated liquid glass frozen in the vacuum of space prior to
atmospheric entry along orbital paths. Aerodynamically shaped flanged button tektites are a
definitive signature of entry from space along angles concordant with decaying orbital paths at
speeds close to escape velocity, inconsistent with terrestrial ejecta. The lack of an impact crater
associated with Australasian tektites is due to the glass forming high above the planet’s surface, in
space and during a subsequent chain of aerial burst events. Australasian tektites’ chemical
composition and isotopic ratios are inconsistent with production from any previously known class of
solar system objects. As with asteroid impact glasses and volcanic obsidians, tektites chemistry must
closely reflect the composition of their parent body. The intriguing chemical composition and
unexpected isotopic ratios established for Australasian tektites indicate that the parent is not from
any known class of asteroids or comets, inferring an interstellar origin. The interstellar origins of the
satellite are further indicated by the evidence of pre-existing fining and homogeneity to the glass,
unlike any known solar system bodies. The processes that would produce an interstellar object
composed of many trillions of tons of homogenous, fined, silica-rich glass remain to be established.
The most parsimonious resolution to the question of what kind of celestial body produced the
Australasian tektites involves hypothesising the presence of an artificial satellite, an alien
technosignature.
The Great Meteor Procession of 1913, linked to the cyrillid meteorite shower, probably resulted
from a short-lived gravitationally captured natural satellite fragmenting in terrestrial orbit.
Witnesses to the Great Meteor Procession claimed to see a train of some 40 to 60 fiery objects
moving across the sky, sightings being reported from Canada, the northeastern United States,
Bermuda, and from many ships at sea, including eight off Brazil, giving a total recorded ground track
of over 11,000 km. Comparison with the re-entry phenomena of the artificial satellite 1957 Beta
suggested that the cyrillid shower likely consisted of a single large asteroid weighing around 400
kilograms and several dozen smaller objects of around 40 grams each, the latter having ablated from
the parent body. We can see that a debris train similar to that of 1913’s event could lead to a debris
field thousands of kilometres long, equal in length to the Australasian tektite strewnfield.
A thorough review of the literature indicated that the hypothesis of the Australasian tektite strewn
field is the product of a destructive event involving an interstellar object that was likely artificial. The
interstellar object satellite hypothesis fits with the observational and experimental evidence,
resolving the long-persisting anomalies associated with the tektites. We found that the existing
consensus hypothesis of low-angle asteroid impact failed to explain the distribution of tektites along
the extensive Australasian strewn field. The terrestrial impact ejecta hypothesis for tektite formation
requires physics arguments that are wildly exotic, unproven and in part conflict with the material
evidence. We did not find any plausible mechanism for glass tektites of >1cm to be successfully
transported from the earth’s surface to the edge of space prior to re-entering along orbital paths.
The implications of this finding, if it holds up to independent scrutiny, are nothing short of profound,
providing humanity with the first strong evidence of interstellar object debris readily available to us
on the earth’s surface. Furthermore, debris from any interstellar objects would likely exhibit a highly
irregular or anomalous composition, unlike solar system asteroids and comets, which is precisely the
observation for tektites.
We hope to see our study replicated and the underlying source data scrutinised for errors as we rely
entirely on the expertise of many subject experts. We cannot entirely exclude the possibility that
highly silica glassy asteroids exist in our solar system and that one such object broke up in orbit to
produce the australite strewn field. Astronomers are yet to detect homogenous fined glass
asteroids, the current cosmological understandings do not favour their existence, but this does not
entirely rule out the possibility of their existence. We must consider that a highly exotic natural
object, perhaps remnants of an exploded quartz-rich planet, might be the parent body of
Australasian tektites. Detection of extraterrestrial intelligence would be the single most profound
discovery in the history of scientific progression. The implications of a positive result in the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) are profound, potentially offering a quantum leap in scientific
and technological knowledge and the transformation of human society. The words of Carl Sagan
come to mind here, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and we find ourselves
with extraordinary evidence necessitating that we make an extraordinary claim.
As a result of our investigation, we suggest that all four or five tektite strewnfields should be
reconsidered as potentially remnants from interstellar objects deposited following aerial burst
events. With the recent confirmation of three interstellar objects, Oumuamua (Micheli M., et al.
2017), comet 2I/Borisov (Guzik et al. 2020) and a Papuan bolide (Amir S. and Loeb A., 2022), it seems
likely that hundreds of interstellar objects have passed through our solar system or impacted with
our planet. The tektite few known strewnfields are rare geological signatures associated with
anomalous astronomical events and should be considered the primary targets for interstellar object
research.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the
truth.” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Acknowledgements
This study received no funding. However, we would like to thank Dr James Benford for his
correspondence and for supplying his most recent writings on the search for extraterrestrial probes.
In addition, a debt of gratitude is owed to Dr Bruce Cornet for his critical review of this manuscript
and suggestions for changes.
References
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