Strange Visitor Passing Through Solar System; Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests It Is Alien Tech

3I/ATLAS, first observed this past July, is only the third interstellar object ever detected.

Published: 10/1/2025, 4:01:34 PM EDT

Strange Visitor Passing Through Solar System; Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests It Is Alien Tech — This image provided by NASA/European Space Agency shows an image captured by Hubble of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. (NASA/European Space Agency via AP)

Are alien visitors about to pay Earth a visit?

Describing it as an "anomalously massive object" hurtling through our solar system, Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb wrote this past week that the object, named 3I/ATLAS, believed by many to simply be a comet, is looking more like a gigantic alien artifact that is approximately 33 billion tons and spans at least 3.1 miles across.

3I/ATLAS, first observed this past July, is only the third interstellar object ever detected, after Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. Right now, it is hurtling toward the sun and will not be visible from Earth again for another two months.

In the meantime, the European Space Agency's two Mars orbiters will be able to view 3I/ATLAS as it makes its journey, allowing for more data to be collected about this object many in the scientific world are calling a comet, despite Loeb's conclusions.

Alien Tech?

On his Medium blog post this past week, Loeb asked, "Is 3I/ATLAS an unusually massive comet with an unusual chemical composition on an unusually rare trajectory or alien technology?"

Noting that carbon and water ice on the surface of the mysterious object could be shed from material that collected on its frozen surface as it plowed through interplanetary and interstellar space, Loeb cautioned that deciding about the nature of the skin of the object is akin to judging a book by its cover.

What is discovered in the coming months will further determine whether the object is truly a comet with odd characteristics, or something more. Or as Loeb wrote, "a future detection of a major maneuver of 3I/ATLAS would suggest propulsion by a technologically manufactured engine."

NASA, meanwhile, is pushing back on Loeb's claims that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien artifact. Tom Statler, a NASA scientist, told BBC that 3I/ATLAS "looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know.”

Loeb is sticking to his findings and asking pressing questions about the object, saying that current scientific orthodoxy is interfering with scientists having the freedom to truly uncover the origins and make-up of anomalous objects like 3I/ATLAS.

But Loeb remains hopeful, writing that "The self-imposed ignorance inflicted by the refusal to be open minded is easy to correct. We must reward scientists who challenge orthodoxy and focus attention on anomalies."