Scientists who found an impossible spinning object in space that sent repeating radio signals to Earth every 18 minutes were initially concerned they might have picked up a message from aliens.
On October 19, 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii spotted a strange object travelling through our solar system, which they later described as "a red and extremely elongated asteroid." It was the first interstellar object to be detected within our solar system; the scientists named it Oum.