THE DAILY BEAST - But actually pinpointing these objects, not to mention closely inspecting them, is extremely difficult. It’s so difficult that a close encounter with a passing alien craft is the least likely way we’ll make first contact with extraterrestrials, according to Edward Schwieterman, an astrobiologist at the University of California, Riverside.
“In my view, we are much more likely to detect life that originates outside of our solar system through remote observation than by physical encounters,” Schwieterman told The Daily Beast.
We got lucky with ‘Oumuamua. It’s really big, really shiny, and it passed around 21 million miles from Earth.