The space object, called 3I/ATLAS, was first detected by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, on July 1. 

Since then, Israeli-American Harvard professor Avi Loeb has claimed on his Medium blog that the interstellar object could be an alien spacecraft, despite the fact that NASA has identified it as a comet. 

Professor Loeb has stated that the 3I/ATLAS has “displayed a number of anomalous characteristics,” which he has outlined in a blog post titled “Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?”

A more recent blog post, published on August 13, poses the question: “Is 3I/ATLAS Our Turing Test by a Superior Alien Intelligence?”

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It reads: “It occurred to me that an interstellar object with anomalous properties, like 3I/ATLAS, could be the Turing Test of humanity’s natural intelligence by some superior alien intelligence.

“It is well known to any interstellar traveller that there are plenty of icy rocks in planetary systems. These constitute the leftover building blocks from the construction process of the planets.

“For that reason, an alien might assume that any intelligent observer on Earth must be familiar with space rocks as they impact the Earth on a regular basis. Not so fast.”

On August 7, NASA reported that 3I/ATLAS, which is travelling at 130,000 miles per hour, is the fastest “solar system visitor” ever recorded. 

Chadderton-born physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox has taken to social media to debunk theories circulating online that 3I/ATLAS could be alien technology. 

Posting on X on July 31, he said: “There are many things this ‘could’ be, one of which is a giant space turd s***, intentionally or otherwise, towards the solar system from what passes for the a*** of a sentient molecular cloud. My money, however, is on a lump of ice and rock.”

Another post on the same day read: “For the last time today, the thing that’s whizzing through our solar system at the moment is a comet from another solar system – the third we have detected in the last eight years.

“We are detecting them now because we have better telescopes. It’s really cool, because it will allow us to study ancient material from systems beyond our own.”

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Two weeks later, he doubled down on his argument, taking to X again to state that evidence “overwhelmingly” points to 3I/ATLAS being a comet. 

Professor Cox described claims about 3I/ATLAS being an alien ship as “similar nonsense” to previous fears that the Large Hadron Collider would create a black hole that would destroy the planet. 

He added: “There is value in thinking about highly unlikely possibilities of course – and it can be fun to publish a paper or two on them – but some people who are not scientifically / statistically literate really worry about these things when they read about them out of context in the press or on social media.”