The Sun, a UK tabloid, published on 17 August an article titled: A MYSTERY++ object tearing towards Earth at break-neck speed has raised fears that ALIENS are on their way here with these two pictures

That sounds scary, right? What is happening?. Here are the facts.

The “Mystery object” was discovered on 1 July 2025 by ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). ATLAS is a cooperation of earth-based observatories that continuously watch the sky, looking for moving astronomical objects. ATLAS started in 2015 and currently five observatories are taking part. They specialise in looking for smaller asteroids that may impact Earth and can only be detected when they are close. a last alert. Until now they have found 1241 Near-Earth asteroids, of which 110 were potentially hazardous. But also other objects were found, 106 comets and 4847 supernovae (which don’t move but change brightness)

The object found on 1 July is a comet, but it is causing huge excitement in the scientific community because of its extremely high speed. That means it comes from outside our solar system, will be slightly deflected by the Sun, and will escape again. Here is its (hyperbolic) orbit. The (animated) image comes from Wikipedia: 3I/ATLAS

The Wikipedia article contains a massive amount of information about 3I/ATLAS, a proof of the excitement caused by its discovery. Two more pictures from Wikipedia, the original discovery photo (animated gif) and a detailed photo taken by the Hubble telescope on 21 July.

The fuzziness of 3I/ATLAS in the Hubble picture is characteristic of a comet. The icy nucleus is hidden in a coma, water and dust evaporated by the solar radiation. That’s why the present estimate of its size is very inaccurate ( between 0.32 and 5.6 km). The comet will reach its perihelion (closest distance to the Sun) on 29 October and will never come closer to Earth than 209 million km (on 19 December).

Until now, three interstellar visitors have been detected: 1I/’/Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and now 3I/ATLAS. In my blog post of February 2018, Oumuamua, I discussed in detail the first interstellar visitor. Now we have another one.

So, why the consternation in the popular press and the social media, like here or here or here. Google for 3I/ATLAS alien and you will find more links.

In my Oumuamua post, I wrote: “Of course, there are people who are wondering if it could be a spaceship”. Basically, it was one man who suggested this, Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University. He was widely criticised by the scientific community. He even wrote a popular science book about it: Extraterrestrial. The consensus is now that Oumuamua is just a physical object.

Avi Laub must have an obsession with alien life. Within weeks of 31/ATLAS’ discovery, he published an article, Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology? Here is a quote (bold by me):.

As largely a pedagogical exercise, in this paper we present additional analysis into the astrodynamics of 3I/ATLAS, and hypothesize that this object could be technological, and possibly hostile as would be expected from the ‘Dark Forest’ resolution to the ‘Fermi Paradox’

He also has a blog and wrote two posts about 3I/ATLAS, on 17 July and 5 August . And two weeks ago, he was interviewed by FOX 10 Talks. Click on the screenshot to watch the video. The interviewers are in awe that, for the first time, they have a Harvard professor in their program.

When Loeb is right about 3I/ATLAS, that it might be an alien, hostile spacecraft, what about November? Here is a possible scenario.

The spacecraft, disguised as a comet (!), reaches perihelium on 29 October. If you look at the animated GIF above, you will see that Earth is then on the other side of the Sun, so 3i/ATLAS will not be visible to us. During that period, the spacecraft will change its course and when it is visible again, it will come to attack and destroy us!

Just when I was ready to publish this post, I came across this website: Elon Musk: “It’s Confirmed, The 3I ATLAS is an Alien Space Craft!”. I am sure the mention of Musk is fake, only meant to attract more viewers. But the YouTube video on the website is fascinating, a mixture of science and sc-ifi. Click on the screenshot to watch the video.

Don’t worry. It’s a comet, not a disguised alien spacecraft.

Here is a promise. If humanity is still alive after November, I will write a post about the Fermi Paradox and the Dark Forest. And about my solution, the Rare Earth hypothesis.