Oumuamua: Not the first discovered Interstellar Interloper in our Solar System:

[beecee]

https://www.livescience.com/first-interstellar-object-detected

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal

By Brandon Specktor published about 9 hours ago

Classified data prevented scientists from verifying their discovery for 3 years.

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo(opens in new tab) released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC).

The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45 meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h) — a speed that far exceeds the average velocity of meteors that orbit within the solar system, according to a 2019 study of the object published in the preprint database arXiv.

more at link.................

the paper:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.07224.pdf

Discovery of a Meteor of Interstellar Origin:

ABSTRACT:

The first interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size ∼ 100 m. One would expect a much higher abundance of smaller interstellar objects, with some of them colliding with Earth frequently enough to be noticeable. Based on the CNEOS catalog of bolide events, we identify the ∼ 0.45m meteor detected at 2014-01-08 17:05:34 UTC as originating from an unbound hyperbolic orbit with 99.999% confidence. We infer that the meteor had an asymptotic speed of v∞ ∼ 42.1±5.5 km s−1 outside of the solar system. Its origin is approximately towards R.A. 49.4±4.1 ◦ and declination 11.2 ± 1.8 ◦ , implying that its initial velocity vector was 58 ± 6 km s−1 away from the velocity of the Local Standard of Rest (LSR). Its high LSR speed implies a possible origin from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy. The local number density of its population is 106 +0.75 −1.5 AU−3 or 9 × 1021+0.75 −1.5 pc−3 (necessitating 0.2 - 20 Earth masses of material to be ejected per local star). This discovery enables a new method for studying the composition of interstellar objects, based on spectroscopy of their gaseous debris as they burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

 

[TheVat]

From a CNN report:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/13/world/interstellar-meteor-discovery-scn/index.html

"Dr. Joel Mozer, the Chief Scientist of Space Operations Command, the United States Space Force service component of U.S. Space Command, reviewed analysis of additional data available to the Department of Defense related to this finding. Dr. Mozer confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory," wrote Shaw in the letter.

 

Siraj had moved onto other research and almost forgotten about his discovery, so the document came as a shock.

 

"I thought that we would never learn the true nature of this meteor, that it was just blocked somewhere in the government after our many tries, and so actually seeing that letter from the Department of Defense with my eyes was a really incredible moment," Siraj said.

A second chance

Since receiving the confirmation, Siraj said his team is working to resubmit their findings for publication in a scientific journal.

Siraj would also like to put a team together to try and retrieve part of the meteor that landed in the Pacific Ocean but admitted it would be an unlikely possibility due to the sheer size of the project...