![\"3I\/ATLAS\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3i-atlas.png\")
<\/p>\nThe mystery surrounding 3I\/ATLAS has been reignited after the CIA failed to confirm or deny holding any records about the interstellar visitor currently traversing our solar system.<\/p>\n
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in November 2025, the intelligence agency issued what is termed a “Glomar response”.<\/p>\n
This effectively says it would not reveal whether it possesses information, as doing so might expose classified material.<\/p>\n
Nasa has consistently maintained since detecting the object in July 2025 that 3I\/ATLAS is simply a natural comet – an icy body trailing gas and dust.<\/p>\n
UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr, who filed the original request, has announced plans to appeal the CIA’s non-answer.<\/p>\n
He has also submitted identical requests to Nasa and other federal agencies – with no response as of yet.<\/p>\n
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb continues to dispute the official narrative, pointing to a dozen peculiar characteristics exhibited by 3I\/ATLAS that remain unexplained by conventional science.<\/p>\n
Among these anomalies is a distinctive “anti-tail” – a bright trail extending in the opposite direction to what comets typically display.<\/p>\n
Nasa has consistently maintained that 3I\/ATLAS is simply a natural comet<\/p>\n
| NASA<\/p>\n
The object has also demonstrated trajectory alterations that appear to contradict gravitational laws, Prof Loeb says.<\/p>\n
Observations suggest 3I\/ATLAS has an outer layer of nickel – a metal commonly used in spacecraft construction for heat deflection purposes.<\/p>\n
“That this information is treated as sensitive enough to be classified by the CIA is surprising, given that NASA officials stated decisively at a press conference on November 19, 2025, that 3I\/ATLAS is definitely a comet of natural origin,” Prof Loeb said.<\/p>\n
Nasa administrator Nicky Fox declared at the November briefing that investigators had discovered nothing “that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet”.<\/p>\n
![\"Avi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/avi-loeb.jpg\")
Harvard physicist Avi Loeb continues to dispute the official narrative<\/p>\n
| GETTY![\"3I\/ATLAS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3i-atlas-photo-captured-by-perseverance.png\")
Observations suggest 3I\/ATLAS possesses a nickel outer layer<\/p>\n
| NASA<\/p>\n
Yet for some, the agency’s announcement deepened suspicions rather than quelling them.<\/p>\n
The space agency faced widespread ridicule for releasing heavily pixelated imagery of 3I\/ATLAS captured by Mars orbiters positioned fewer than 20 million miles from the object in early October 2025.<\/p>\n
Amateur stargazers using standard telescopes had managed to photograph the supposed comet with far greater clarity as it approached Earth in December.<\/p>\n
These hobbyist images were taken from distances exceeding 200 million miles, prompting accusations that Nasa was deliberately concealing clearer footage.<\/p>\n
With the interstellar object set to pass Jupiter on March 16, Prof Loeb suggests the intelligence community’s evasiveness indicates covert government assessment of whether 3I\/ATLAS might represent a danger.<\/p>\n
![\"Nasa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nasa-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
The agency’s announcement arguably deepened suspicions rather than quelling them<\/p>\n
| GETTY<\/p>\n
“Nasa officials were encouraged to deliver the likely scientific interpretation, while at the same time, the serious consideration of a black swan event by the CIA was hidden from public view to prevent panic from taking hold for no good reason,” Prof Loeb speculated in a statement published Monday.<\/p>\n
Should the remote possibility that the object constitutes artificial extraterrestrial technology prove accurate, the Harvard physicist argues this would represent a transformative moment for humanity.<\/p>\n
The CIA’s ambiguous stance feeds into longstanding claims by UFO enthusiasts that Washington has concealed knowledge of extraterrestrial life for more than eight decades.<\/p>\n
Both the US military and federal authorities maintain that no physical evidence of alien life or unidentified craft has ever been obtained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mystery surrounding 3I\/ATLAS has been reignited after the CIA failed to confirm or deny holding any records…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-221212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}