CIA can neither ‘confirm nor deny’ existence of 3I/ATLAS record

Is this the new Area 51?

3I/ATLAS may have left Earth’s neighborhood, but it’s still very much on our radar. In a new Medium post, Harvard Scientist Avi Loeb pointed out that the CIA hinted at the existence of classified documents related to the interstellar comet, suggesting that it could potentially be a threat to humanity.

“It’s very interesting that they did not dismiss the existence of documents within the CIA on this matter,” the astrophysicist told the Post.

Loeb was referencing the CIA’s response to a query by UFO researcher/conspiracy theorist John Greenewald Jr.

In the letter, which Greenewald Jr. shared to X, the agency wrote that it can neither “confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records” related to 3I/ATLAS. 

The Post reached out to the CIA for comment.

Loeb wrote that the CIA’s seemingly hush-hush treatment of the phenomenon contrasted with the party line espoused by NASA officials, who declared at a November press conference that ATLAS was a comet.

“If this conclusion was clear all along to everyone within government and academia — as NASA officials presented the case, then why would the CIA treat the possible existence of records dealing with a natural comet as sensitive enough to be classified?” he inquired.

Loeb believed that they might want to remain ambiguous on the matter in the event that ATLAS was a Black Swan Event, defined as a high-impact event that is difficult to forecast under normal circumstances but appears to be inevitable in hindsight.

“If you have a low probability event and you multiply by a large impact on society, it must be taken seriously because you have to make sure that your interpretation is correct when the implications are large,” Loeb told the Post.

He analogized the situation to September 11 or the Trojan Horse — improbable-seeming phenomena with catastrophic consequences in retrospect.

However, they decided to keep their serious consideration of said Black Swan event hidden to avoid inciting panic. Loeb said they they’d prefer not to “cry wolf,” so that if/when a so-called real intergalactic wolf in sheep’s clothing arrived, they would still be credible.

Loeb told the Post that if “this interpretation is correct, it’s the first astronomical object that received such attention from the intelligence agencies, including the CIA.”

“And that makes it interesting because it could be a template for future interstellar objects,” he declared.

Loeb has firmly maintained that ATLAS could be artificial since its discovery in July.

Earlier this week, the scientist turned up his nose at Breakthrough Listen’s targeted scan of 3I/ATLAS with the 328-foot Green Bank Telescope — the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world.

The scanner had come up empty in its search for a transmission during ATLAS’s closest approach last month, but Loeb insisted that this didn’t rule out its potential alien provenance.

“They looked in the direction of 3I/ATLAS on December 18th,” the scientist told The Post. “That’s one day out of the 8,000 years that the 3I/Atlas spent on its way in, 8,000 years that it will spend on its way out.”

He analogized their conclusion to not receiving a call on a particular day and concluding that nobody would ever call them.

Loeb said he’s continuing to probe the latest ATLAS intel from the last couple months, claiming that there are at least 15 anomalies that scientists have yet to explain.

He insisted that more would be revealed during the comet’s approach to Jupiter in March, during which he hopes government officials will be on the lookout for whether ATLAS deploys satellites near the gas giant — a possibility he has floated before.

“Unless we check, we might never know if this swan is white or black,” Loeb concluded.