I've listened to Avi Loeb on Mindscald and he was quite clear that he's taking the possibility seriously as any scientist should take any possibility seriously. He did strike me as a crackpot, but just as somebody who thought that this field has been stigmatized and ridiculed for a long time and somebody has to have the courage to remove the stigma and take this field back in the hands of real science.

I only listened to that one podcast and it was at the time of oumuanua I don't know if in the meantime he veered completely on the crackpot side.