Published: 12-10-2025
Updated: 15-10-2025
On the 1st of Juli 2025 the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) station in Río Hurtado discovered a large object in space moving into the inner solar system. ATLAS is a robotic survey and early warning system for smaller objects that are on a potential collision course with Earth. It was already past the orbit of Jupiter when it was detected. It was not on a collision course with Earth, but every followup observation revealed us this object is truly strange and has the potential to be something we want to know everything about. The reaction of the established scientific community equates to the meme of a scene from The Naked Gun movie: “Move along. Nothing to see here.” The alternative “truth seeking” media is declaring it to be a “created by aliens.” In this Appendix I am going to take a good look at why I think there is something very odd with both these responses.
Our solar system is a complex system of bodies of various sizes that are all gravitationally bound. The juggernaut of them all is our sun; Sol. It accounts for 99.98% of the total mass present in this system. It’s absolutely mind-boggling how huge this object is. The rest of the mass is distributed over various objects, small and large, of which the planets hold most of the rest of the mass. A tiny fraction of a percentage is reserved for things like meteoroids, asteroids, comets, dwarf-planets, and moons. The inner solar system comprises of Mercury (closest to the sun), Venus, then Earth, and finally Mars. At over 5 times the distance to the sun compared to Earth there’s Jupiter as the 5th planet, then Saturn, followed by Uranus, and last Neptune. Of all these objects – apart from the sun – the planet Jupiter is the king. Its total mass is more than all other objects around the sun combined. In fact, if you double the mass of all objects around the sun, apart from that of Jupiter itself, it would still be heavier than that. Truly a massive planet.
Though tiny compared to our sun, its gravitational influence is so strong that it makes our sun wobble, and the centre of gravity for these two massive objects lies outside of the surface of the sun, meaning you could see them as a twin body orbiting each other. All fun facts, but let’s get to the meat of the matter. Look at any sizeable rocky body without a thick atmosphere in our solar system – be it a planet, moon, or astroid – and you’ll see they are scarred with impact craters. Though on human lifetime scales the solar system is very peaceful and quiet mostly, over large time scales things here happen, and violent collisions happen a lot. All objects are subject to these collisions, but the rocky ones without an atmosphere preserve the evidence of this best. The large impacts come mostly from the pieces of asteroids or comets that were perturbed in their orbit through gravitational interactions with other bodies, and which then eventually came into collision with something else. The prevailing science is that large impacts on Earth in Earth’s past are likely candidates for some extinction events.
The solar system is a dangerous place. If we’d have video of the solar system as seen from afar and we’d speed it up it would perhaps look like a bit of a pinball table. All the objects around the sun are leftovers that did not make it into the sun’s makeup and which were pushed out by the solar wind to form different objects. Many of the smaller objects in orbit around the sun are possibly remnants of collisions between these bodies. There’s an uncountable number of small objects in orbit around the sun. The larger you go, the more rare the object becomes. This is evident from the craters we find on rocky bodies; small impact craters are abundant and the larger the crater the fewer they are present. The asteroid that supposedly killed off the non-avian dinosaurs is believed to have been between 10 and 15 kilometres in size. Though small in comparison to much of the solar system’s main objects, this was no small impact. In a fraction of a second when its front hit the surface of Earth its other end was still in space. The Earth shook by this violent collision and its effects have had a lingering influence to this day.
As far as we know, the way our solar system formed and how it behaves is typical for every solar system. Everything here is gravitationally bound to the sun. Would an object ‘want’ to free itself from this gravitational well, it would need to accelerate to an incredible speed to do so. From the orbit of Earth you would need to travel over 40 kilometres per second to achieve this, otherwise you’d just fall back to the sun in your new elliptical orbit. But it does happen that objects get thrown out of the solar system. This can be achieved through interactions with other celestial objects, most notably by violent collisions, but also through gravitational slingshots. Though rare, even entire planets get thrown out of their solar system this way, and there are indeed a good few known ‘rogue’ planets deep in interstellar space that liberated themselves from their parent star. Some models of our own solar system predict our system started out with more planets than we currently count, and one possibility is ejection through a slingshot event. But it’s a rare event, and it’s far more likely that small objects get ejected out of any solar system rather than large ones; there’s so many more of them, and it takes so much less energy to give them the speed needed to brake the gravitational hold of their parent star.
As such, it is to be expected that should we encounter any foreign object that’s traveling through interstellar space to traverse our solar system that they’d be small. It’s also believed that it should be an extremely rare event to see any such interstellar interloper. Space is huge. The distances between solar systems is unimaginably vast. Yet – as evident from its name – 3I/ATLAS is the third large interstellar object that we have seen travel through our solar system within less than 10 years. Just this statistic is curious. It should be rare to have any interstellar object travel through our solar system. Of the few that do it should be rare for us to see them, cause couldn’t we easily miss one? But neither these assumptions seem to work for what we see as this is the third of one such object to do so in less than a decade. And the assumptions aren’t based on educated guesses. What’s going on here? And the oddities don’t stop here. In fact, this is just the tip of a stack of true oddities when it comes to our third interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS. This thing is proper weird.
3I/ATLAS is dubbed an interstellar comet. That it’s interstellar is not up for debate, but what about it makes it a comet? How do comets typically appear and behave? We’ve seen plenty stellar (pun not intended) comets. What makes an object a comet as opposed to anything else? There’s a few properties an object needs to have in order for it to be considered a comet. First there is its makeup. Comets are typically mostly comprised out of ices. Not just water ice. In astronomy ices are chemicals that have a low molar mass that freeze solid in the cold of space, but easily sublimate when exposed to solar heat. Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, and of course regular water. They may contain rocky material, but often to a lesser degree. So that’s what they’re made of. How they behave in our solar system is that they typically have very hyperbolic orbits. They may have sat in a (more) stable orbit in the outskirts of our solar system for billions of years, but were kicked into a lower orbit through gravitational interactions. When that happens, they fall towards the inner solar system, pass close to the sun and get flung to the far end again.
They repeat this orbit over dozens, hundreds or even thousands of years, until they’re completely evaporated by the close flybys to the sun, or collide with another object. The longevity of a comet is determined by factors like its size, its exact makeup, its density, how close it passes the sun, how fast it passes the sun, and perhaps other such factors. We can sometimes see a comet from earth with the naked eye. They appear as stars with one or two lines or bands emanating from its body. These lines/bands are either of two things, and both are caused by the material the comet loses through it being radiated by the solar wind. As the solar wind bombards the icy body with high energy particles, the ices sublimate and transition from solid to gas. This process is called outgassing. Through this outgassing the comet loses material. This can be up to a rate of several tons per second! Through outgassing solid pieces may break and fly off. These form the comets’ tail. The tail draws a line directly behind the trajectory of the comet. The comets’ coma is the second line/band it can form. It is formed by the particles that are blown off the comet by the solar wind.
The tail and coma on approach can be difficult to separate but on its way out of the inner solar system the coma points away from the tail, as the solar wind will push the lighter particles ahead of the comet, but the tail still lags behind the path the comet is taking. Because a comet typically tumbles and often has more than one turning axes, the side exposed directly to the sun changes as it “rolls” through space. This causes the comet to form an envelope of gasses around its solid nucleus. Because this halo is very bright in the sun’s light it is often difficult to discern the actual size of the comets’ nucleus. It may take several observations before astronomers have a solid estimate of the size of the object. Most comets don’t survive more than a couple of passes close to the sun, before breaking up or evaporating entirely. The behaviour of comets has been observed and documented for a long time, and in recent decades we’ve increased our observation capacity tremendously, not just in the public sector, but also by private amateur astronomers.
So 3I/ATLAS must show these signs to be labelled a ‘comet’, correct? Let’s follow our observations in chronological order. After the object was spotted, followup observation revealed that there were a coma and a tail, but the tail was ahead of the object – an anti-tail. It was reaching out into the direction of the sun, instead of away from it. This is behaviour scientists have not been able to explain. It got stranger; the coma was comprised mostly out of carbon dioxide. This is very strange. The comets we’ve seen always have a varied complex chemical makeup. How is it possible that a natural object that supposedly formed in another solar system is pushing gas into the direction of the sun, against the stream, comprised out of mostly one single type of ice? This is strange. No matter what kind of natural object this is; we’d expect it to vent a mixture of different chemicals.
It’s releasing this carbon dioxide at a steady pace of 70 Kilograms every second. This release of material should give 3I/ATLAS a magnificently bright tail. We don’t see that. In fact, scientists had to look for a tail, and they found it has one, but it is faint and much narrower than it should be; about 12 times as long as it is wide. Strange indeed. But this doesn’t make it a spacecraft. It was assumed 3I/ATLAS wasn’t too big, maybe a few kilometres across, but followup observations revealed it was potentially much bigger, and estimates put the number close to 50 kilometres. This makes it a giant in whatever class it should sit, comet or not. But subsequent observations came back with more data that arguably went over the threshold to be assured this is a natural object. Apparently 3I/ATLAS is surrounded by a halo of the element nickel. Just nickel. The only place we see nickel without iron is when it’s refined. Whenever we find nickel in nature – be it on earth or out there in space – we find together with iron. The process in a nuclear furnace of a collapsing star creates them both in predictable quantities.
To find the object hosts a nickel halo without iron is a possible techno-signature. And it goes deeper. Further analysis of the data showed the core reflected way more light than any natural object should. The only way for the nucleus to be this bright at this distance to the sun is if it either was producing its own light or if it was made partly out of polished mirror-like plates. Reanalysis of the data confirmed that the bright spots matched with its rotation movements. The plot thickens. As this was all being reviewed, a very violent event happened on our sun’s surface. A coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted, and its blast hit 3I/ATLAS. A regular comet would’ve been affected. Not 3I/ATLAS. It paced on without change. It didn’t break into peaces, its tale and halo were still intact. Now, I’m going to mention the animation below this paragraph, and make some observations. Please watch the animation of the path 3I/ATLAS is expected to take through our solar system. First observation; it’s coming in almost exactly edge on into the ecliptic (meaning the orbital plane of most solar objects). Second observation; it will visit 3 planets close by, especially close to Mars. Third observation; it will be hidden by the sun’s glare for most of its time near Earth, meaning we can’t see most of it during its closest approach. Check it out:
But lucky for the scientists, it will pass right by Mars, and Mars is home to a great number of probes and instruments currently exploring said planet. Granted, they aren’t meant to observe an object passing Mars, but at least it is something. And indeed requests to use the instruments in orbit and on the surface of Mars to gather data on 3I/ATLAS were made. But shortly after the first images were published and before the object got close enough there was a shutdown of all science missions involving the interstellar visitor. It is rumoured that this shutdown followed release of the images because they were released by bypassing an internal embargo on 3I/ATLAS observations. The images weren’t vetted and investigated and seemed to be the raw data. But the official reason given for the shutdown of all October missions was “a data integrity review”. This normally happens when there is a scheduling error, but that shouldn’t happen on this scale and it’s almost inconceivable such an error would encompass so many projects. This looked like the reaction the agency would have to a data breach, covered up by technical terminology and bureaucracy.
But such a review should not take that long to resolve, so the next thing that happened was a shutdown of NASA. That’s right. Apparently, the U.S. senate failed to pass the appropriations bill that would have funded several U.S. agencies and offices all the way through late November. A total coincidence, of course. This affected NASA too, which indeed shut down most of its operations. And while this happened on the 1st of October, 3I/ATLAS slipped by Mars on its closest approach to the planet on the 3rd of October. Bummer! We missed it. Well, it’s going to pass Jupiter, which has an active mission in the JUNO spacecraft, but we’ll see how that gets deflected. If 3I/ATLAS makes it to Jupiter at all, cause if it isn’t a natural object, who’s to say it won’t make a breaking manoeuvre behind the our star and starts laps around the sun in a tight orbit. We will never spot it again if it would, cause the Sun’s glare is just too much for us to spot it then. Hey, maybe it goes for Earth, right? I’m semi-joking here, and I do this to address the loads of bollocks that has been piped through the counter-narrative channels about 3I/ATLAS.
I’ve heard it all. It’s an alien mothership of the Nibiru that are coming to save us from the evil cabal, or it’s the reinforcements of a species that wants to overthrow humanity and enslave us, or it’s a weapon that is supposed to destroy Earth. It’s a lot of things. What do we know? Little. Speculation is speculation. To insist this is a comet though only underscores any suspicion that it isn’t. Calling this a metal-rich comet is like calling a new Savana animal a short-necked giraffe. Why insist it’s a giraffe when very few of its attributes warrant this label? But I can speculate too. Let me first make a summary of the strangeness of 3I/ATLAS. It flies in through the ecliptic. It could’ve come from any direction, but it flies in through the orbital plane. It’s a massive object, which makes it incredibly rare as an interstellar interloper. It visits 3 planets as it passes close by Mars, Venus and Jupiter. It will be hidden from our view for most of its time in the inner solar system, cause it will be exactly behind the sun from our perspective on its closest approach. It has a coma that is comprised mostly out of one type of ice (carbon dioxide). Its tail is much narrower than we expected for an object this size, and there is an anti-tail facing into the direction of the sun. It sports a halo of nickel. It either has smooth mirror-like plating on its surface or it’s producing its own light. It was hit by a CME but came out unscathed.
Each individual thing could be considered strange, but don’t make it a spacecraft. But everything together about this hints at a possible technological origin. The reaction of NASA with an embargo, bullshit temporary shutdown, followed by a larger shutdown due to more bullshit feels like a cover up. But then what is true? Are we about to be saved or enslaved, or wiped out? I cannot say with certainty that we are, or not. But there are more options. It could very well be the probe or ship of a species that has a higher technological level than the technology in the public domain of humanity, but inferior to the ancient races of Earth. The CME could’ve been triggered by them to sterilise 3I/ATLAS, and the subsequent reaction to prevent any good observations were just damage control. They can’t have the public think there are aliens and demand we make contact. The whole “alien” topic needs to remain associated with nutjobs and conspiracy idiots.
The activity of the ancients on Earth should never become a regular normalised topic to discuss over coffee. Acknowledgement of the existence of technological superior beings will give credence to many stories that were deemed the work of fiction of psychologically troubled attention seekers. It should stay hidden. Whenever the “clear” images of 3I/ATLAS appear, expect them to be heavily vetted, perhaps even doctored. No true clear images of this thing will make it into the public domain. But there is another possibility. This is the third interstellar object, and the second to be discussed because of its unusual properties. The first such object – Oumuamua – similarly had a whole discussion going on about it, fueled by the astronomer Avi Loeb. This is the same astronomer that is fueling the discussion around 3I/ATLAS and this might be all part of the plan. The plan could very well be to desensitise the public to stories about possible alien spacecrafts, so that when an actual spacecraft that is planned to visit us enters our solar system, nobody will take it seriously. This will allow for some big ship to make it to Earth without anyone believing the stories of those claiming to have seen it fly over.
The inflation of possible alien news but which turned out to be nothing will make people numb to hear the truth, because it sounds like more nonsense. This system loves to use inflation to its advantage. It’s the same thing as when there were thousands of drones flying at night over the US about a year ago. People stopped looking up after hearing about it on the news for weeks on end, and whatever needed to slip through our skies did so unnoticed. And just like then are the counter-narrators now also egged on to tell a fantastic story, to make it so anyone claiming anything else but the official narrative to be perceived as nothing but a total buffoon. And don’t worry. The irony is still not lost on me. I know exactly how I sound to those who don’t know they’re living the illusion.
~reckneya
