Astronomer likes to speculate

Abraham Loeb was the key guy suggesting that the recent asteroid Oumuamua was possibly an alien probe, and he like to think science fiction-y thoughts generally, it seems from this Scientific American piece he wrote:

Meeting a piece of advanced technological equipment developed by an extraterrestrial intelligence might resemble an imaginary encounter of ancient cave people with a modern cell phone. At first, they would interpret it as a shiny rock, not recognizing it as a communication device. The same thing might have happened in reaction to the first detection of an interstellar visitor to the solar system, ‘Oumuamua, which showed six peculiar properties but was nevertheless interpreted as a rock by mainstream astronomers.

Because it would likely be relatively small, most advanced equipment could only be recognized in the darkness of space when it comes close enough to our nearest lamppost, the sun. We can search for technological “keys” under this lamppost, but most of them will stay unnoticed if they pass far away. More fundamentally, one may wonder whether we are able to recognize technologies that were not already developed by us. After all, these technologies might feature subtle purposes—like the cell phone communication signals that a cave person would miss.

He then talks a bit about directed panspermia - the idea that Earth was seeded for life deliberately by alien probes.

Have I ever said this out loud before? - I have long imagined a science fiction comedy starting with a scene in which a UFO lands on a barren Earth for an alien toilet break, and that's how life gets started here.