If you’ve been following the science news lately, you’ve probably seen the headlines about interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known object from outside our solar system to swing through our celestial neighborhood. And because humans love a good mystery (and an even better conspiracy), the word “interstellar” has ignited the usual speculation about alien spacecraft, cosmic probes and the galactic equivalent of someone joyriding past your house at 2:00 AM with their high beams on. Sadly, in our modern sensationalized news cycle, any “unusual nature” quickly gets translated into “definite proof of aliens”.
3I/ATLAS deserves attention, but let’s take a deep breath before we start stocking up on welcome banners. Let’s be clear: 3I/ATLAS is weird, but it’s not that weird.
The Comet and the “Alien Spaceship” Theory
3I/ATLAS is a comet that originated from outside our solar system, making its journey an extraordinary one. It was first observed on July 1, 2025 (when it was known as C/2025 N1). Its “unusual nature” that sparked alien speculation comes down to two main objects of study that preceded it:
- ‘Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1): The very first interstellar object detected. It exhibited a non-gravitational acceleration. It sped up as it flew away from the Sun more than gravity alone could explain. For a typical comet, this acceleration comes from jets of gas venting as ice turns to vapor. However, ‘Oumuamua didn’t have a visible cometary tail, leading some prominent scientists to speculate that the “push” might have come from an artificial light sail, essentially turning it into a vehicle for interstellar traveling aliens (VISTA – I’m coining this term).
- 2I/Borisov: The second interstellar object, which was unambiguously a comet, complete with a fuzzy tail.
3I/ATLAS came along, exhibiting its own oddities, including fragmentation and inconsistent brightness, which, in the wake of ‘Oumuamua’s hype, fueled speculation that it too might be an alien interstellar vehicle (AIV – this deserves to be coined too), or at least a fragment of one.
What Is 3I/ATLAS, Really?
3I/ATLAS appears to be a loosely bound, icy object, something between a comet and a dirty snowball that’s seen better days. Its orbit is hyperbolic, meaning it’s just passing through. It’s also shedding mass in a way that makes some of its behavior look unusual: asymmetric outgassing, uneven rotation and possibly fragmentation.
Those traits, combined with its interstellar origin, have prompted a few folks to declare: “Aha! Aliens!”
But here’s the thing: if you take a freezer full of ice, throw it across space at tens of thousands of miles per hour, heat it up near a star, spin it like a carnival ride and wait 4.5 billion years, it’s pretty much guaranteed to behave strangely.
This is not the USS Enterprise. This is a cosmic snow cone on a reckless path.
3I/ATLAS deserves scientific study, yes, but not the ultra-sensationalized alien narrative we’ve seen. It’s a natural interstellar object. Fascinating, but decidedly not a VISTA.
UFOs vs. Aliens: The Two Questions We Confuse
About a decade ago a friend asked me, “Do you believe in UFOs?”
Now, I knew exactly what he meant, but his wording required a rescue mission. There are two very different, but incredibly interesting inquiries that we need to extract from that single sentence.
- “Have you ever seen a UFO?”
Yes.
Many times.
So have you.
We often forget what the acronym truly means: Unidentified Flying Object. It is not an Unidentified Alien Object (UAO – coining that, too). By definition, a UFO doesn’t have to be extraterrestrial. I’ve seen plenty of things native to our own planet that got me to wonder. Planes at odd angles, weather balloons, a drone at dusk, a bird, Venus being annoying or that one neighbor who insists on testing fireworks in February, all of which, at a distance, made me stop and ask, “What the…?” Just because it’s a UFO doesn’t mean it’s an AIV, a UAO or a VISTA. Unidentified by me doesn’t mean it wasn’t built in a factory just down the road or hatched in the wetlands my home borders. It might simply mean that I need new glasses.
- “Do you believe in aliens?”
This is the deeper, more profound question and for me, it’s far more interesting. It’s also a question that depends more on personal world view than on telescopes and star charts.
Let me answer this as plot-your-own-adventure story, so I can hit people on both sides of aisle. No one likes an incomplete answer, especially if it does not match their personal world view. If you lean religious, follow the path on the left. If your guiding star is science, read the column on the right.
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✝️ Theological Argument ✝️ |
⚛️ Astronomical Argument ⚛️ |
| It is tempting to believe that God fashioned us in His own image, but I invite you to linger on the deeper implications of that idea. Imagine, for a moment, stepping into the role of a creator. Think back to your childhood, when you might have filled a jar with soil and introduced a handful of ants, either because it was a class assignment or because you read about it and wanted to try it yourself, curious to watch the ants carve out a world of their own. They built, explored, adapted. And of course, it rarely stopped at one jar. You’d prepare a second, perhaps a third, each with slightly different conditions, eager to observe how each colony changed and “evolved”.
With that in mind, it seems presumptuous to assume that God created only us and then felt perfectly satisfied with the outcome. Look at humanity, at our brilliance and our flaws. Are we satisfied with the result? If we are indeed made in His image, sharing even a faint reflection of His inquisitiveness, then wouldn’t it be only natural for Him to create other worlds, other experiments, other attempts at life? To imagine otherwise is to deny the very curiosity and creative impulse we attribute to our creator. It’s impossible to think He made only one world with life and then said, “Yep, that’ll do.” Have you seen us lately? I doubt He stopped after one attempt. We’re not the image of perfection! |
We live in an impossibly complex universe. Let’s be honest: most of us can barely keep our own households from turning into a hot, sticky mess on any given Tuesday. Now stretch that chaos across the 9.3×10¹⁰ light-year span of the observable universe. Our own galaxy, just one modest swirl among many, contains somewhere between 100 and 200 billion stars. An earlier Hubble Space Telescope survey estimated at least 2 trillion galaxies in view. The James Webb Space Telescope has since suggested that the real number may be closer to 6 to 20 trillion.
Split the difference, and we’re talking on the order of 2 septillion stars — that’s 2×10²⁴. To put that in perspective: the odds of winning a Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot is roughly 1 in 300 million. Winning both on the same night? About 1 in 90 quadrillion (9×10¹⁶). And yet, even those odds look cozy next to the fact that there are more than 22 million times that many stars scattered across the observable universe. That’s multiplied by 22 million! So, honestly, given this staggering scale, how unbelievably self-centered would we have to be to think we’re the only life in the cosmic megamall? The universe has to have produced other life, be it like us or completely different! |
You Read Both Sides, Didn’t You?
Admit it. Like every kid who ever held a “plot-your-own-adventure” book, you flipped between pages just to get to the ending you wanted.
That’s okay. Both paths lead to the same conclusion: we’re probably not alone, not by a long shot.
Somewhere out there, whether nearby or impossibly distant, life must exist. Maybe microbes, maybe megafauna, maybe monkeys pounding on a black monolith, possibly even intelligent beings capable of building their own VISTAs.
Why 3I/ATLAS Isn’t the Secret Sauce
But, sadly, 3I/ATLAS still isn’t it.
While the curiosity surrounding the early interstellar objects is understandable, further observations have brought 3I/ATLAS back down to Earth (metaphorically speaking). Scientists concluded that the object’s behavior, including its fragmentation and disintegration as it neared the Sun, is entirely consistent with a natural, fragile comet.
The non-gravitational acceleration seen in ‘Oumuamua is still being debated, but there is scientific consensus that the acceleration was caused by radiation pressure on a very thin, porous object aided by sublimation of trapped hydrogen. For 3I/ATLAS, the evidence points overwhelmingly to ice sublimation and natural forces at play. It was a visitor from a distant world, a natural icy body born in another star system, loosely held together and behaving unpredictably because physics is sometimes dramatic, but it certainly was not a VISTA.
3I/ATLAS’ strange motion, asymmetric outgassing and odd brightness patterns come from volatile ices sublimating unevenly, not from alien engines, malfunctioning warp cores or cloaking devices in need of a firmware update.
It’s tempting to jump to the alien conclusion, but for now, we’ll have to keep waiting for definitive proof. If aliens were visiting, I doubt they’d show up in a fragile comet that disintegrates when you look at it funny. In the meantime, the fact that these natural interstellar travelers exist is exciting enough on its own.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
We live in a universe overflowing with possibilities. 3I/ATLAS isn’t a visitor from an alien civilization, but its existence reminds us that objects do cross between star systems, just as life might someday cross between worlds.
It’s a big universe. We’re just a tiny jar of ants. And someone, somewhere, probably has a second jar.
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