Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS could be a ‘mothership’ releasing small probes towards Earth: Harvard astrophysicist

Harvard astrophysicist Dr Avi Loeb earlier shared a provocative theory about the interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS. The cosmic visitor from another world will come closest to Earth on October 29.

Dr Loeb suggested, half in jest, that people might consider taking a vacation before that date, as no one could predict what might happen. Dr Loeb speculated that the object could even be a “mothership” releasing small probes towards Earth.

“If you want to take a vacation, take it before that date because who knows what will happen now,” Dr Avi Loeb said in an earlier interaction with Dr Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen.

As the head of the Galileo Project, which studies unidentified aerial phenomena, he mentioned that his team’s observatories would monitor for unusual activity after October.

However, he also noted that astronomers were calling it a comet despite the Hubble Telescope revealing some unusual features. Unlike normal comets, 3I/ATLAS appeared to have no visible tail.

“Zebra is identified by its stripes, right? How do you tell the difference between a horse and a zebra? It's the stripes. So, how do you tell a comet from a rock that doesn't have any eyes? You tell it by the cometary tail,” Dr Loeb said.

“There is no tail. More importantly, there is a glow in front of the object instead of behind it,” the scientist said while speaking about the interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS.

“Chills. Absolute chills. Hearing a Harvard astrophysicist calmly explain why this object has ‘headlights’ instead of a tail is the kind of moment you never forget,” commented a social media user.

During the same interaction, Dr Avi Loeb criticised the US government for its lack of transparency and accountability regarding unidentified aerial phenomena. Despite a defense budget nearing one trillion dollars for 2026, officials, including the Director of National Intelligence, had admitted they still could not explain certain mysterious objects in the sky.

Aliens recovered from crash sites

Dr Loeb claimed he had visited the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. They told him that their two-year research had found nothing extraterrestrial, except for some FBI reports. However, another expert, Eric Davis, claimed the government had found alien pilots.

“He said he worked for the government decades ago, and the government has in its possession more than a dozen spacecraft that were retrieved from crash sites with pilots. And, there are four types of aliens that were recovered,” Dr Loeb said while referring to Davis.