A Mars Probe Snapped a Photo of 3I/ATLAS — Very Likely a Comet, Not a Spaceship

Loeb is a smart guy and a good scientist and is one of the most dedicated people out there trying to find interstellar objects with his Galileo Project, so he should not be wholly defined by his more…eccentric notions with these interstellar objects. Even in his “hostile” paper he still says the likeliest explanation for 3I/ATLAS is it just a comet, but that did not stop UFO world from taking his bullshit and running with it.

I try to stay away from the online UFO discourse mainly because I’ve brought enough of that devil into my life and don’t want to be a part of the real depths of the madness, but this bubbled up to much more normie spaces than most UFO craziness does. I had people who didn’t even know I wrote about UFOs asking me what I, a non-scientist who has not studied 3I/ATLAS, thinks of Loeb’s claims. Other than the fact that I’m just some guy on the internet and can’t claim to know what the hell it is, I have a few thoughts.

I think Loeb’s “hostile” assertion undercut the vast scientific credibility he has built for himself. I think it’s entirely unproductive to his stated mission to study this new frontier of objects that originate outside our little cul-de-sac in the Milky Way. I think he’s kind of gone a little nutty like many others who have fallen down this rabbit hole, which I can relate to because I feel it sometimes myself trying to parse through this madness. I think if Loeb had truly compelling data that 3I/ATLAS was artificial and not a comet, he wouldn’t have to hype it up with claims over its alleged intent.

While Loeb’s vast scientific endeavors have earned him a bit of a pass to venture far out into theory like this, other less scientifically accomplished people have less of an excuse for choosing to listen to Loeb’s theorizing instead of what he said the 3I/ATLAS data likely revealed. Loeb deserves his fair share of blame for again inflaming true scientific discovery with overhyped allegations, but the fact that so many refused to listen to what his scientific findings suggested and instead chose his hyperbole proves how despite all its progress as a subject to be taken seriously since the New York Times changed the world in 2017, there are many who demonstrate why it’s a good idea to keep UFOs at arm’s length. Some of them are even Harvard trained scientists.

Really what this 3I/ATLAS saga has demonstrated is that there are people who pay attention to space and UFOs because they do genuinely want to learn more about things that we know little about, and there are those who want to bring the X-Files and Independence Day back into their lives. The former are who are helping to make this a subject taken seriously by serious people like multiple Senate Majority Leaders, while the latter are the marks who intelligence agencies around the world rely on to spread their disinformation that makes so much of this subject one big lie.

As I have written many times before, what little we can say we know about UFOs suggests they are far stranger than the simple notion of a species like us coming from outside the solar system to destroy us or make friends with us or study us or do something else we have seen on TV or in the movies. Not everything in the unknown has to be jammed into this 1950s-esque narrative, and if you cannot find the awe and wonder in seeing something we’ve never or rarely seen because it’s not an alien spaceship, then I seriously question your commitment to the concept of discovery.

Now I must acknowledge the remote possibility that Loeb’s hyperbole is correct and this headline could come to look quite silly as I get memed into the next solar system over the coming months as 3I/ATLAS passes across the earth, and then the sun in December as it begins to make its way out of our solar system…hopefully. Loeb is still not dropping the possibility that this could be “alien technology,” even as he still roots himself in 3I/ATLAS being an unknown to a degree. And as much umbrage as I take with his “hostile” suggestion, he is bringing data to back up his claims. In a Medium post two weeks ago, he wrote that “Given this tight upper limit on non-gravitational acceleration, a future detection of a major maneuver of 3I/ATLAS would suggest propulsion by a technologically manufactured engine.”

His latest post highlights the “inclination angle” of 3I/ATLAS that is “anomalously small,” and then ends the article writing “One of the biggest revelations that I anticipate from an encounter with a higher level of alien intelligence, is the realization that alien science is different from ours.” Loeb clearly believes his Galileo Project is a search for extraterrestrial probes, craft and intelligence, and when it’s at its best, it is doing Harvard-level science on the cutting edge of unknowns from outside the solar system, and at its worst it’s Loeb getting way out over his skis at least once, probably twice unless I do get memed into the next solar system.

This whole 3I/ATLAS discovery is a milestone in our understanding of the universe. You don’t have to invent a Hollywood blockbuster around it to make it truly awe inspiring. A freaking robot orbiting Mars photographed a likely comet traveling towards us from a different solar system. That’s so cool! We are clearly still evolving as a species, even if our politics isn’t.