Avi Loeb to Lead White House UFO Advisory Council.

A polarizing Harvard University astronomer known for high-profile theories about alien visits has been tapped by the White House to lead a team of outside scientists studying the national security risks posed by UFOs.

Avi Loeb, a cosmologist who studied black holes and served as head of Harvard’s astronomy department until 2020, was recently appointed to lead a new scientific advisory council tasked with investigating the origins of mysterious orbs and other objects reported by military personnel in recent years.

Loeb’s team will report to a new White House panel focused on UFOs, now often referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. He began his quest in 2017, when scientists were puzzling over a cigar-shaped interstellar object nicknamed Oumuamua as it passed near Earth. While others proposed that it was a comet or a chunk of ice, Loeb said it could be a thin "light sail" detached from an alien spacecraft.

Last year, Loeb raised the possibility that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS could have alien origins. We should put all possibilities on the table — that it’s a rock, a comet or something else — until we get the evidence, the data that will tell us what it is, he said.

Steve Desch, an Arizona State University astrophysicist who has challenged some of Loeb’s theories, said Loeb uses flawed methods to reach wild conclusions about alien life, while avoiding a more established branch of science searching for life beyond Earth. Other astronomers accuse him of making exotic claims with little evidence.

His theories have won praise in UFO circles but have often put him in conflict with academic peers. Some object to his habit of bypassing the peer review process and taking claims directly to the public.

Loeb told CBS Boston on Wednesday that he is excited about the new opportunity and what a break through discovery could mean for the world. "If they were sure, confident that these objects are human-made, they would file these cases as classified reports within the Pentagon, within the intelligence agencies," he said.