Is 3I/ATLAS An Alien Craft? CIA Won't Confirm Or Deny Records Exist

Is 3I/ATLAS an alien craft or just an extraordinary cosmic visitor? That question has resurfaced after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) refused to confirm or deny whether it holds classified records on the interstellar object.

First detected by the ATLAS observatory in Chile in July 2025, 3I/ATLAS streaked through the solar system and ignited global fascination. Scientists largely moved on. Online theorists did not.

Now, the CIA's carefully worded response has reopened the debate, cutting sharply against NASA's insistence that the object is entirely natural. As intelligence caution collides with scientific confidence, the episode exposes a growing tension between transparency, security and humanity's enduring obsession with life beyond Earth.

While NASA has consistently maintained that 3I/ATLAS is a natural phenomenon — estimated to be between 8 and 14 billion years old and likely originating from the Milky Way's ancient 'thick disk' — the CIA's latest stance is far less definitive, leaving 'truthers' wondering what exactly is being kept under wraps.

Why The CIA Won't Confirm Or Deny The Reality Of 3I/ATLAS

The latest twist comes via John Greenewald Jr, a prominent UFO researcher known for his extensive freedom of information requests. Greenewald sought access to any records the CIA might hold on the interstellar visitor, hoping to find evidence of government monitoring. Instead, on 31 December 2025, he received a classic 'Glomar response'.

The agency stated that it could 'neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records' concerning 3I/ATLAS. Furthermore, they noted that 'the fact of the existence or non-existence of such records is itself currently and properly classified.'

This bureaucratic stonewalling is typically reserved for matters of high-level national security, and its application here has raised eyebrows, given that the comet made its closest approach to Earth on 19 December 2025 at a distance of approximately 170 million miles.

Avi Loeb, the Harvard scientist who famously suggested that the interstellar object 'Oumuamua could be artificial, found the CIA's vagueness 'surprising'. In a Mediumpost, Loeb pointed out the apparent disconnect between the scientific community and the intelligence community.

He specifically highlighted anomalies such as 'straight, tightly collimated jets' reaching a million kilometres in length that appeared to defy standard cometary physics. If NASA is certain the object is just a rock, why would the CIA consider the mere existence of files on it to be a matter of national security?

Navigating The Fallout: Is 3I/ATLAS A Natural Wonder Or Alien Tech?

The CIA's 'Glomar response' has a long history. It gets its name from the Glomar Explorer, a ship built for a secret mission in the 1970s to find a sunken Soviet submarine. This way, the agency can avoid saying they are interested in 3I/ATLAS without denying the crazier theories.

Loeb suggests this might be a calculated move to prevent public panic. Even if the chances of an 'alien threat' are vanishingly small, the government's job is to prepare for 'black swan events'. Confirming that they are actively investigating 3I/ATLAS as a potential security risk could cause 'societal unrest or instability of financial markets,' Loeb noted. He had previously posited that the object could be a 'Trojan Horse' — a technological probe masquerading as an icy rock.

Loeb set a Christmas deadline for a 'revelation,' but for many, that deadline has come and gone without any evidence. But the physicist is still determined, and now he is looking forward to March 2026, when the object will pass Jupiter.

He says that scientists should be as interested in things as the intelligence community seems to be. The 3I/ATLAS saga is still going on, even though most of the world has moved on from the 2025 hype. This shows that there is a growing tension between official stories and the search for life beyond Earth.

Whether 3I/ATLAS proves to be nothing more than an exotic space rock or something more provocative, the episode reveals how easily scientific discovery, intelligence, caution and public imagination can collide. The CIA's silence ensures one thing: the debate will not end quietly.