The newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS could be a piece of “possibly hostile” extraterrestrial technology in disguise, according to controversial research from a small group of scientists, including a renowned alien-hunting astronomer.
Their paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, echoes similar claims previously made about ‘Oumuamua, the first-ever cosmic interloper that was discovered in 2017.
But experts have told Live Science that the new claims are “nonsense” and “insulting,” and insist that the available evidence points toward the object being completely natural.
3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1 barreling toward the sun at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h), and was confirmed to be an interstellar object less than 24 hours later. Initial observations strongly suggest it is a large comet surrounded by a cloud of ice, gas and dust called a coma, stretching up to 15 miles (24 kilometers) across. A computer model simulating where it originated from hinted that it could be up to 3 billion years older than our solar system, potentially making it the oldest comet ever seen.
But in a new paper, uploaded July 16 to the preprint server arXiv, a trio of researchers have questioned whether the comet is actually some form of covert alien tech sent here by an advanced, potentially aggressive extraterrestrial civilization.
The researchers described the new paper as a “pedagogical exercise,” or thought experiment, and offer no clear evidence of alien involvement. Instead, they point at the comet’s “anomalous characteristics” and provide alternative theories to explain them.
Related: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS transforms into a giant ‘cosmic rainbow’ in trippy new telescope image
The study’s most notable author is Avi Loeb, an astronomer at Harvard University who is renowned for linking extraterrestrial objects to intelligent aliens. He is the head of the Galileo Project, which is attempting to detect evidence of technosignatures and UFOs. In 2023, he led a controversial expedition that claimed to have collected pieces of possible alien tech left behind by an unconfirmed interstellar meteorite in the Pacific…
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