JWST discovered a population of compact, extremely red active galactic nuclei at high redshift — “Little Red Dots” — with properties that don't fit standard models. Their broad hydrogen emission lines imply massive black holes, but their optical faintness implies heavy obscuration or exotic physics. They triggered a wave of proposals for new accretion mechanisms, unusual dust geometries, and black holes more massive than the early universe should allow.
Madau and Maiolino (2026) propose a simpler explanation: they are the same objects as the compact blue AGN JWST also sees — “Little Blue Dots” — viewed from a different angle. A geometrically thick super-Eddington accretion flow produces anisotropic radiation: bright blue when seen face-on, faint and red when seen at high inclination. The self-shadowing effect suppresses the optical continuum at oblique angles while leaving the broad emission lines visible, because the broad-line region sits above the shadowed equatorial plane. With modest dust attenuation (AV = 2.8) and a standard 15% covering factor, the model reproduces the extreme equivalent widths, colors, and emission-line properties without invoking anything new.
The red dots and the blue dots are the same dots. The difference is the observer's line of sight. Every property attributed to exotic physics — the extreme line strengths, the suppressed continuum, the apparent mass crisis — follows from geometry. The objects are not unusual. The viewing angles are.
The general principle: when a new observation appears to require new physics, check whether a change in perspective reproduces the anomaly. Viewing angle is a particularly dangerous hidden variable because it correlates with observed properties while being unobservable itself. The most parsimonious explanation for “two populations with incompatible properties” is often one population seen from different directions.