Harvard University scientist Avi Loeb still thinks the comet 3I/ATLAS may not be just a comet – and he’s now questioning the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on its silence. Loeb, in his latest blog, shared CIA’s response to an inquiry by ufologist and researcher John Greenwald Jr. under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) about the comet and expressed disappointment over the response.
“The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request,” the response read adding that “the fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself currently and properly classified.”
Loeb said that this reply is “surprising” because NASA has explicitly stated that 3I/ATLAS has a natural origin. During a press conference in November 2025, NASA’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said that 3I/ATLAS is a comet and not an alien spacecraft as speculated by Loeb and others.
“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?” Loeb questioned.
He also mentioned several anomalies of the comet which he has flagged since 3I/ATLAS’s discovery on July 1, 2025.
“The anomalous features include the existence of a prominent anti-tail jet directed at the Sun both before and after perihelion, the geometric alignment to within 8 degrees between the rotation axis of 3I/ATLAS at large distances and the sunward direction, the alignment to within 5 degrees of the orbital plane of 3I/ATLAS with the ecliptic plane, as well as the prominence of nickel relative to iron in the gas that 3I/ATLAS sheds — reminiscent of industrially-produced nickel alloys,” Loeb wrote in his blog.
Comet 3I/ATLAS may be a mothership, says Loeb
Space agencies like NASA and other institutions will carry out the cometary observations for several more months until it becomes too faint to see around or beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Before its vanishes out of our view, Loeb wants continued monitoring and checking whether 3I/ATLAS releases small probes near Jupiter.
He thinks 3I/ATLAS may be a mothership powered by an advanced propulsion system. Although, Breakthrough Listen Initiative, which looked for radio signals from the comet in December 2025, didn’t find any evidence of its extraterrestrial origin.
Loeb had encouraged Breakthrough Listen to search possible radio signal emissions from 3I/ATLAS because it arrived from a direction corresponding to the ‘WOW! Signal’ – the short radio burst detected in 1977 which suggested extraterrestrial origin. But the Breakthrough researchers didn’t find any concrete proof because 3I/ATLAS may not have transmitted any signal. Besides, a five-hour search is extremely limited, Loeb says.
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