SPHERE OF THE UNKNOWN: Vegas Venue Now Hunting UFOs

At the same time new technology began helping thousands of fans inside the Sphere re-experience Dorothy dreaming of another world, new technology on top of the Sphere began tracking objects that might actually be from one.

The Galileo Observatory — designed by Avi Loeb, the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics — is built to detect and track aerial phenomena in the night sky that shouldn’t be moving.

In other words, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) — the artists formerly known as UFOs.

Galileo employs ultra–high-resolution optical and infrared cameras to identify candidate objects. Then– using A.I. to eliminate human bias and delay — it triangulates data with two other Galileo units to determine velocity, acceleration, and distance from Earth. (Two identical observatories were installed 10 kilometers away, in undisclosed Las Vegas locations that form a giant triangle.)

According to Loeb, Sphere Entertainment CEO James Dolan visited his Boston home in September 2024 to formally greenlight the installation at the highest point above the LED display of the Exosphere.

The project came online at the same exact time “The Wizard of Oz” began screening in late August.

“We hope to analyze exquisite data on a few million objects per year in search of UAPs over Las Vegas,” Loeb wrote on his Medium page.

Loeb is currently the most prominent scientist who believes in the extraterrestrial nature of at least some UAPs — or at least he’s the most prominent one willing to admit it.

Acknowledging decades of ridicule from colleagues who dismiss his work as pseudoscience, Loeb concluded his announcement with a half-joking clapback:

“Here’s hoping that the Galileo Project Observatory on Sphere will spot an extraterrestrial guest of higher intelligence than displayed in terrestrial academia.”