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There has been a lot of talk among people who study and follow such things about whether or not interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. Most of that talk has been spurred on by astrophysicist Avi Loeb, the former chairman of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy and current head of Harvard’s Galileo Project, which searches for evidence of alien life.
This past July, Loeb suggested 3I/Atlas could be traveling to the opposite side of the Sun to intentionally “avoid detailed observations from Earth-based telescopes.” He and his fellow researchers added in a research paper, “The low retrograde tilt of 3I/ATLAS’s orbital plane to the ecliptic offers various benefits to an Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (ETI), since it allows the object access to our planet with relative impunity.”
Last week, Avi Loeb wrote in a post on his blog, “As of now, I assign a 30–40% likelihood that 3I/ATLAS does not have a fully natural origin, based on its seven anomalies that I listed here. This low-probability scenario includes the possibility of a black swan event akin to a Trojan Horse, where a technological object masquerades as a natural comet.”
The SETI Institute tries to debunk Avi Loeb’s alien spacecraft theory
Loeb’s latest comments come after another research paper published by Eahsanul Haque, SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute scientist and senior lecturer at the Geoscience Department of Universiti Teknologi Petronas, wrote, “The galactic disk, which is where most stars are, is nearly in line with the solar system’s ecliptic plane. It is plausible that ISOs (interstellar objects) that are thrown out of other systems may naturally follow paths that are similar to these.
“The hyperbolic trajectory, which has an eccentricity of around 6.1, and the high speed of about 58 kilometers per second 134are both consistent with gravitational ejection from a distant star system, according to the measurements 135made in 1I/’Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Also, it is important to note that the low likelihood of close encounters with Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, which is about 0.005%, is not only for man-made objects. Natural comets can also have similar dynamics because of changes in gravity.”
Oumuamua is another interstellar object that Professor Loeb has speculated may be an alien spaceship. That idea was also looked upon negatively by the SETI Institute.
NASA also doubts Avi Loeb’s alien spacecraft theories
Meanwhile, Tom Statler, NASA lead scientist for solar system small bodies, has also weighed in on Avi Loeb’s suggestion that comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft.
“It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know,” he said, adding, “It has some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets, but it behaves like a comet. And so the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet.”
But, what if it isn’t? What if Avi Loeb is right?
“The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken, though these might prove futile,” Loeb wrote in a blog post.