[I've already post some stuff about 3I/ATLAS on RMN but I thought this article would be a good summary of what's going on for those that haven't seen the previous posts . . . SC]

By Jeff Childers - July 22, 2025

Something very weird —cosmically weird— is going on. Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb just co-authored a scientific paper hypothetically suggesting that the newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS might not be a rock at all. It might be… alien technology. He drafted a formal paper, pre-published on his Substack, and titled “Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?” Secure your grey alien Halloween mask, fasten your tinfoil hat, and prepare for turbulence.

Before you roll your eyes: Avi Loeb isn’t some wild-eyed crank on late-night AM radio. He’s the former chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and lead scientist of the Galileo Project. He’s a credentialed establishment figure—who just called for humanity to seriously consider that this object may evidence intent.

To be fair, Avi also recently published a lay-targeting but science-heavy book speculating about alien origins of our very first interstellar visitor, Oumuamua. Here’s the link to Avi’s slightly more lay-friendly Substack summary of his new paper.

The terrifying punchline is that Avi thinks evidence suggests there is a tiny but greater-than-zero possibility that 3i/Atlas is a weapon meant to destroy the Earth. Seriously. Using science. And he cited Pascal’s Wager to justify going public with his concerns. It’s better to be wrong and discredited than wrong and dead.

Avi found at least seven bizarre features of the new intergalactic visitor that he finds improbable if it were just an accidental bit of space flotsam or jetsam. First, it came from the direction of the Galactic Core, which sounds unremarkable until you put on suspicious 3-D eyeglasses. Since it flew in from that particular star-dense section of space, we couldn’t see it until it was too late to mount an interception probe.

That’s … odd, but it doesn’t prove anything. But it gets a lot odder . . .

[SNIP]