‘Neither deny or confirm…’: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS mystery deepens as CIA makes stunning revelation about cosmic visitor, contradicts NASA’s comet explanation
In response to a November 2025 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the supposed comet, the CIA said it could ‘neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records’ regarding 3I/ATLAS. Despite multiple claims from Harvard scientist Avi Loeb that comet 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft, the federal government had said that the object showed no signs of harboring alien life or that it was an artificially constructed spacecraft.
The response came after John Greenewald Jr., an American researcher and ufologist, requested any CIA “assessments, reports, or communications” referencing the interstellar object. “The CIA will ‘neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records’ pertaining to interstellar object 3I/ATLAS,” Greenewald wrote on X. “The fact of documents existing or not existing is classified.”
ALSO READ: Stranger Things ninth episode coming tomorrow? All about Conformity Gate theory and Netflix’s sci-fi series’ ending theory explained
What CIA said about interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
The CIA has classified information about 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object, raising more questions about the mystery visitor just when it was all about to die down. The FOIA request was submitted by UFO and government conspiracy researcher John Greenewald Jr, who noted in a post on X that he was filing an appeal to get a clearer answer from the CIA. Greenewald Jr added that he has filed the same request for information regarding 3I/ATLAS with NASA and other US agencies and is still waiting for them to reply.
FOIA requests are part of US law that lets anyone, including citizens, journalists, and researchers, ask government agencies for documents or records on a specific topic. The agency must give a response, but it can withhold revealing details if the information is classified for national security reasons or falls under certain exemptions.
‘Very interesting, apparently CIA [director John] Ratcliffe knows something,’ one person on social media alleged. The new revelations have come months after NASA completely dismissed the possibility of 3I/ATLAS being extraterrestrial in origin, with space agency administrator Nicky Fox saying they’ve found nothing ‘that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.’
ALSO READ: ‘Basically zero, garbage’: Renowned mathematician Joel David Hamkins declares AI Models useless for solving math. Here’s why
Greenewald is widely recognized as the founder of The Black Vault, an extensive online repository of U.S. government documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. He said he intends to challenge the CIA’s response, pointing out that intelligence agencies have previously declassified and released records related to comets. “I only have one example, that I recall, when I filed a FOIA about a comet to the intelligence community,” Greenewald later wrote. In 1996, he requested records from the Defense Intelligence Agency about Comet Hale-Bopp. More than two years later, the agency released a report—with a source redacted—acknowledging the comet while citing sensitive “sources and methods.”
“Given this,” he added, “it adds to why the CIA’s response about 3I/ATLAS is intriguing. It doesn’t prove anything, but it’s intriguing.”
The CIA’s position has also caught the attention of Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who has argued since the object’s discovery that 3I/ATLAS could be artificial rather than natural.
ALSO READ: Quote of the Day by Forrest Gump actor Tom Hanks: ‘Never give up because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day’
“That this information is treated as sensitive enough to be classified by the CIA is surprising,” Loeb wrote, “given that NASA officials stated decisively at a press conference on November 19, 2025…that 3I/ATLAS is definitely a comet of natural origin.” If that conclusion was clear within government and academia, he asked, why would even the existence of CIA records about a natural comet be considered classified?
Loeb suggested a more cautious explanation: that intelligence agencies may be quietly assessing whether the object poses any conceivable risk, however remote. “The simplest interpretation of the CIA response,” he wrote, “is that some government officials wished to verify that 3I/ATLAS is not a black swan event,” even if experts regard such a scenario as highly unlikely.
Post Comment