3I ATLAS Arrival of an Interstellar Visitor

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Reports of an identified flying object, unidentified very O phenomena
hodayquick weapons being tested.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
By our own or foreign governments.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
The Americans people are becoming most interested and in many
instances very alarmed by the UFO stories.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
So why do you supposed that all of this has
been kept from the.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
World exploring our past, our future, and the mysteries of
our universe?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Where do they come?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Brock, Why can't explain it?

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Everybody in uthology is screaming for disclosure.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
The future is now.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
This is Micah.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hanks from the high mountains of Appalachia in a bunker
below ground. Welcome one of all. It is the Micah
Hanks Program. Glad as always to be going in pursuit
of the anomalous in our existence, as we do every
week listen on demand via podcasting apps everywhere. I tell
you this week we have to take a deeper look
at interstellar object three I Atlas, because this has been

(00:58):
all the rage online in recent days. Everybody is talking
about the mysterious interstellar object that right now as we speak,
is speeding toward Earth. Now, that is true. There is
a really weird and in fact also a really big
object out there in space right now that is currently
making its way toward Earth. That is true. But anytime

(01:21):
you have a big story like this one with a
lot of unanswered questions, and not to mention this particular
object three I Atlas being recognized as only the third
confirmed interstellar object that's ever been tracked in our solar system. Yeah,
there are a lot of unknowns, and so naturally that
gives way to a lot of speculation, and frankly, a

(01:42):
lot of people are getting really concerned about what this
thing could be, the anomalous characteristics that it appears to display.
And let me be clear, there certainly are some a
few in fact that have even caused me to wonder.
But a lot of people out there right now are wondering.
A lot of people are getting kind of scared, a
lot of people going good old fashion into the world
scenario on this one and wondering whether indeed we are

(02:05):
about to meet something more than extraterrestrial technology. Maybe we
will meet our maker if this thing gets any closer
to Earth. Well, I can assure you we don't need
to be concerned right now, but we do need to
address the nones, the unknowns, the myths, and the speculations
versus the facts and realities about three I Atlas, and

(02:25):
so this week, that's what we're going to be doing. First, however,
a bit of news, because there are some developing stories
that we've been following here. First, there are a group
of researchers at Purdue University who say that they have
found a visual anomaly on a remote island, and they
believe this could be the answer to one of the
greatest mysteries of modern history, the ultimate fate of pilot

(02:49):
Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
According to this group of researchers, they say that there's
an object or something. It's an anomaly right now, but
they have detected this object out there on an island,
and more specifically in a lagoon on this island in
the area known as Kiribati, which is about halfway between
Australia and Hawaii. According to a recent news release about

(03:12):
this put out by Purdue University, they say some members
of the expedition will fly out to the Amelia Earhart
Terminal at the Purdue University Airport on October thirtieth and
will rendezvous with other team members on Majuro and the
Marshall Islands. Thereafter. The entire expedition is going to depart
Majuro by sea, and they're going to sail about twelve
hundred nautical miles out there to the island known as

(03:33):
Niki Mororo, where they believe that Amelia Earhart's plane may
indeed have gone down. Now, while they're out there on
the island, they're going to focus on inspecting what they
now call the Teraya object, first noticed in satellite imagery
in twenty twenty and later confirmed to be visible on
aerial photographs taken of the island's lagoon as far back
as nineteen thirty eight. So whatever this object is, it

(03:56):
had gone unnoticed previously, but now looking back at photographs,
are pretty confident that there was something there. They just
didn't see it at the time. But now satellite imagery
has revealed that there's unquestionably some kind of an anomaly
in this lagoon. So when they get out there, we
may finally have answers to this great long standing mystery
what happened to Amelia Earhart and her copilot so many

(04:19):
years ago. Of course, we'll be following this story if
there are updates, but no doubt you'll be hearing something
about this. If they do end up confirming what many
believe they have found, because this is a story that
has continued for decades people's fascination with the disappearance of
Amelia Earhart. But now looking at other stories we've been
tracking recently, those mystery drone sightings over in Europe, they've

(04:43):
now apparently made their way to Munich, at least according
to investigators who are now looking into an incident that
shut down Munich International Airport late Thursday night last week
and spilling over into Friday morning. According to a news
report by Reuters, they say that the airport reported that
German air tra Traffic Control restricted flights starting at ten
eighteen pm local time on Thursday. Thereafter they were suspended

(05:06):
out right because they said there were several drone sightings.
Seventeen flights from Munich were unable to depart that evening.
This reportedly affected about three thousand passengers, and an additional
fifteen incoming flights were also diverted to other cities. Now,
what was being observed in the skies over Munich last
week follows similar sighting reports that were made in Denmark

(05:29):
in recent days. We also had sightings over Oslo, Norway.
Many officials in European nations and in fact nations who
are NATO member states, expressing concerns about the possibility that
Moscow could be behind some of these sightings. It was
also reported in an article that we featured there at
the Debris last week by Tim McMillan that a French

(05:49):
vessel actually seized a Russian ship suspected of having been
a potential launchpad for some of these drone sightings. Now
one would think, of course that a there would have
to be some actual drone sidings, especially to justify the
capture of Russian vessels as part of an investigation to

(06:10):
try and find out where drones might be launched from.
But there's new information coming to light that actually casts
some doubt on these sidings, especially those that have occurred
recently over Denmark. I'm looking at a report here by
the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. This article, a translation of which
reads mysterious drones over Denmark investigation has debunked several drone

(06:32):
sidings explains that apparently with help from Ukrainian drone specialists
who have now been involved in this investigation, and that
on the technological side of things, incorporating anti drone equipment
from Sweden and the USA has helped establish temporary radars
that can detect in jam drones. But now, according to
investigating authorities, very little evidence of drones in the air

(06:55):
or hybrid attacks using these unmanned aerial vehicles has been found.
As dr dot Dk reported recently, the police are still
investigating the cases of possible violations of Danish airspace and
disruption of critical societal functions, but the question of the
extent to which there were drones in Denmark remains unanswered.
This report goes on to say that according to DR's information, however,

(07:17):
the authorities investigation has debunked some of the drone observations
which they initially saw as illegal drone activity, both over
airports and several military installations. Authorities apparently did not want
to provide any additional information on the status of investigations
into so called hybrid attacks, but DR says that according

(07:39):
to the information that it obtained, the assessment, in addition
to having already debunked several drone sightings, is now also
that the authorities will probably have difficulties solving the entire
drone mystery. According to a translation of this report available online.
I'll have it linked in the show notes so you
can read it as well. The Danish Broadcasting Corporation reports
that police have witnesses and obtained telecommunications data, video surveillance,

(08:04):
radar data, ship traffic data and a number of private
recordings of the flying objects that according to National Police
Chief or Killed Fogda what a cool name, but based
on the police investigations, they say several videos that the
police have looked at in the investigation or of a
training plane that apparently flew from Roskilled Airport into Castrop
last Monday. Dr says that it itself has seen a

(08:26):
publicly available video from that evening, which may be from
the same plane. The video shows an object in the
air that flashes. Now, if indeed those videos are the
same ones that have been circulating online, those objects to
me also look like they could have been aircraft, and
by that I mean planes of the conventional kind. So,
as I said last week, we can't rule out that

(08:47):
there might have been some legitimate drone sightings, and it
certainly sounded like initially there had been some, specifically those
reported over Copenhagen Airport a couple of weeks ago. I
also mentioned that with the rollout of sophisticated radar our equipment,
we would probably know in a few days whether there
were ongoing sidings and we would hope to get some
additional information that would offer some context for these sightings.

(09:10):
And now that that information is coming in, indeed, the
emerging picture appears to be that a lot of these
objects were misidentifications of aircraft and other things. Speaking of
other things that have been seen in the skies over Europe.
By the way, there was another airport that was temporarily
shut down following a series of sightings of aerial objects. No,

(09:32):
these were not conventional aircraft. In fact, these objects were
later determined to have been hot air balloons. There were
nearly two dozen of these that actually shut down Vilnius
Airport Sunday night. And yes, we know in this instance
that these were hot air balloons because several of these
apparently were captured after the fact and were found to
be carrying illegal contraband in the form of cigarettes that

(09:54):
were being carried across the Lithuanian border into its airspace. Now,
this is nothing unique. It's probably getting a lot more
attention right now because of all the information out there
about possible drone sightings. But in fact, according to current
figures that have been provided by officials there in Lithuania,
there have been more than five hundred similar instances involving

(10:14):
hot air balloons this year alone, and furthermore, there were
more than nine hundred and sixty last year that we
used in similar smuggling operations. So long story short, there
are a lot of different things appearing in the skies
in Europe. However, as far as the sightings of drones
over Denmark, most of the current data is suggesting that
those objects were something else entirely. But of course, unusual

(10:37):
looking objects aren't just being seen in the skies above
European countries. No, we've got one out there in space
right now as well. And yes, I'm talking about three
I Atlas. This apparently has had everybody talking recently. In fact,
among those discussing this had been Bill Maher and several
of his guests on his program the other night. This
is what they had to say about the unusual object
and its relationship to similar sightings of unusual phenomena in

(10:59):
our skins eyes.

Speaker 6 (11:01):
Speaking of Pluto, should the government be more transparent about
the existence of UAPs uap is UFO, Yes, right. I
don't know why they think that's going to harm our
nerves by changing.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
It's a UFO.

Speaker 6 (11:15):
And I mean what I've been reading lately is that
there's one heading toward the Earth. There's something that's thirteen
miles long. It doesn't apparently look like any other comet
because the light is coming from the top, from the
front and not behind, and it's apparently making a trip
through the Solar system that is uncommon for comets. It

(11:36):
looks like it's doing a driveway of all the planets.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
I don't know, but I.

Speaker 6 (11:43):
Just think and there was that thing that bounced off
that they fired at something, And in the Navy military.

Speaker 7 (11:51):
I am into it. I think first of all, the
Pentagon now is by law has to give reports on
this stuff. And if I were in charge of a
big I would do wall to wall coverage of these
generals that have to sit there and say there's weird stuff,
we don't know what is that's news.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Well, we've had that increase.

Speaker 6 (12:11):
If we talk about it, we are to I mean,
I just think people there are certain people who just
think this goes in the file with the nuts who
think we didn't land on the Moon and every other
conspiracy theory, and it's different. I think there's no scientific reason,
Carl Sagan said it, there's no scientific reason why we
would necessarily be alone in the universe. We might be,

(12:34):
but increasingly it looks like we're at very least under surveillance.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Let's hope.

Speaker 6 (12:42):
That they're just observing and not ready readying us, you know,
for it. I don't want keyan o Rees to come
down and say, look, we get the benefit of the data.
You're just you're just way to disrupt them.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
I mean, that could be what's coming.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, yes, indeed it could be, mister Maher, although I
doubt in this case that we're being readied for anything,
and sure it's possible for all we know, we might
be under surveillance as well. That gentleman, by the way,
speaking with mister Maher in that statement was Van Jones,
political commentator, noting that the Pentagon now has to issue
reports about this, and he also said, if it were me,

(13:21):
we'd be doing wall to wall coverage of all this stuff. Well, fortunately,
dear listener, that is essentially what we do here on
this program. And to clear up a couple of the
things that they're talking about right there, I would hesitate
to call three I Atlas an object out there in space,
currently in our Solar System, but having originated from interstellar space. Yes,
I would hesitate to call that UAP. And the reason,

(13:44):
of course, is because UAP generally describes unidentified anomalous phenomena.
Previously UAP stood for unidentified aerial phenomena, and as mister
Maher points out right there, they were before that known
for a long time as UFOs. In fact, I'm still
okay with calling them UFO as long as we all
know what we're talking about. But UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena,

(14:05):
generally are operating in the air. In other words, they
are in our atmosphere. These objects, as the name would entail,
generally can't be identified. But many of them appear to
represent some kind of technologies, and that's one of the
things that people are so concerned about. If there are
technological devices of unknown origin operating in our skies, they

(14:26):
must belong to somebody. The question, of course remains whether
they belong to some foreign adversary nation of the US,
whether they belong to some unknown actor here on Earth,
or indeed, whether they could come from someplace else. And
I think that the lingering questions about UAP. While I
would hesitate to call an interstellar object out there in
space a UFO or UAP, the questions we have about

(14:51):
UAP and the lingering mysteries involving these objects have certainly
helped to propel the public interest prassing right now and
what has become known as three I at listen, So
when we come back here in a moment, we're going
to look at essentially everything we know about this object
that has taken the world off guard and has captured
the public's attention. More on that and so much more

(15:14):
when we return right here on the Micah Hanks program.

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Speaker 1 (17:24):
Humans have long looked up at the night skies with
questions about ourselves, our planet, and what other kinds of
worlds might exist out there. How common are worlds like ours?
The comets travel between stars the way birds can cross oceans.
If intelligence arises elsewhere would we even know how to

(17:48):
recognize its handiwork. Astronomy is a discipline built on patient doubt,
on letting mysteries ripen into measurements, and every so often
osmo's give us a chance to ask better questions. One
of those chances arrived on July first, twenty twenty five,

(18:10):
in the pre dawn hours over Chile, the NASA funded
Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System or ATLAS, logged a
faint moving point against the background of stars. Follow Up
checks piled in additional ATLAS sites, archival frames from mid June,
and data from caltex'swiki transient facility all seemed to point

(18:34):
to an unusual solution. Whatever the thing was, it wasn't
bound to the Sun. But what was the mysterious object
that seemingly had arrived from interstellar space? The Minor Planet
Center assigned it a name that carried both precision and poetry.
Three I Atlas the third known interstellar object ever found

(18:58):
passing through our solar Nens neighborhood. Almost from the very
early days of its discovery, three I Atlas was so
different that it almost felt familiar. In twenty seventeen, we
had the object known as O Muamua, and after it
two I Borisov and its dustier comet light passage in
twenty nineteen. And yet there were many things about three

(19:20):
I Atlas that made it quite different. One thing we
knew for sure, its hyperbolic arc had been proof both
of a home beyond the Sun's reach and also an
object traveling on a path that would never bring it back. Fortunately,
soon after its discovery, NASA answered one of the most
urgent questions rather quickly, there is no threat to Earth

(19:41):
posed by this object, its closest approach remaining a comfortable
one point eight astronomical units or about one hundred and
seventy million miles away, placing it well outside the orbit
of Earth, but just inside Mars at perhelion, which will
occur around October thirtieth, twenty twenty five, time for Halloween. Well,

(20:02):
what followed in the weeks after its discovery was a
rare kind of global choreography. Observatories queued up, time, spacecraft penciled,
and opportunities. Hubble captured a teardrop shaped coma surrounding the
object on July twenty first, when it was two hundred
and seventy seven million miles away, with the telescopes tracking
so precise that background stars around it appeared like streaks

(20:24):
of rain. Estimates for the nucleus size settled into a
conservative bracket at that time, no larger than five point
six kilometers, but maybe as small as four hundred and
forty meters a wide range, however, that invited more observing
runs well. Soon afterward, ground based telescopes began to watch
through September as through ie Atlas crept towards solar conjunction,

(20:46):
and then planned to reacquire it in early December as
it emerged on the far side of the Sun. Spacecraft
from the James Webb Space Telescope to the Parker Solar
Probe and even the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers with skyward
cameras would begin joining the hot campaign to collect as
much data about Three Eye Atlas as possible, and the
effort culminating in the last few weeks of observations seemingly

(21:09):
have had every astronomical asset available to humans training its
sites on this mysterious interstellar visitor.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Well.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
With new data has come possibilities. The most conservative and
most likely interpretation is that three Eye Atlas is a
natural interstellar comet, a fragment of distant planetary formation dynamics
set adrift and now sublimating and scattering dust, and the
glare of a new star that being our own sun,
that alone would be valuable. Every interstellar object is a

(21:40):
core sample from another planetary nursery, a chemistry, and a
structure lesson that we just can't get any other way.
Comparing three iyatlasts with its predecessors also helps astronomers sketch
the diversity of objects the galaxy launches between suns, and
which evidently every now and then make their way here.
Botomy also flourishes by entertaining hypotheses, sometimes and at times

(22:05):
also trying to break our traditional norms, and so since
the discovery of three I atlas, a wave of white
papers and preprints have laid out testable techno signature checklists
for interstellar visitors. One team of researchers has outlined how
to look for kinematic anomalies, in other words, non gravitational
accelerations that don't match things like outgassing but normally are observed.

(22:27):
When it comes to comets. Other things might be spectral
oddities that could betray engineered materials. Still, others emphasized radio
and optical laser searches, noting that even low powered beams,
if they were to be found, could be detectable across
astronomical unit scale distances and with modest spectrographic equipment. The
guidance wasn't breathless speculation. In fact, a lot of it

(22:49):
began to read like a field manual. Observe early and
often bracket perhelion and pedigree, collect astrometry, radar photometry, polarimetry,
cross caliberate with standard comet models, or extraordinary claims have
ordinary baselines to lean against.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Well.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Alongside the checklists came the boulder essays, the what ifs
that science uses to probe its own blind spots. What if,
for instance, a large reflective sale could masquerade as a comet,
i'd a visitor exploit celestial mechanics, an o birth maneuvers
they're known near the Sun, or maybe a gravity assist

(23:26):
closer to Jupiter. Might this allow it to linger in
our solar system? Such ideas championed most famously, perhaps by
Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Lobe and his collaborators, didn't declare
outright that three eye atlas was artificial. Instead, they posed
criteria by which an artificial origin might be falsified or supported.

(23:47):
Unexpected course corrections, persistent narrow band emissions, surface properties out
of family with non ices and dust. In other words,
these suppositions speculative, though they were extended the same invitation
the sky always does go look, measure carefully, and only
then with data in hand do we decide. Well for now,

(24:09):
the story of three Iyatlus lives on in that fruitful
tension between wonder and restraint, and it is very much
a story that's still being written. The object sweeps inward,
threads its per helium just inside Mars orbit, and heads
back to interstellar darkness. Maybe, if we're lucky on its
way past Jupiter, will get a few more images, But
for the time being, telescopes blink and hum instruments take

(24:33):
off their exposure sequences and data sets grow like coral
reefs and public archives. If three iye Atlas is a
garden variety interstellar comet, well we'll have learned a lot
more about cosmic gardens we've never visited. If it surprises us,
though chemically, dynamically, or in some way we haven't even
thought to test, Yet what would that data reveal, and

(24:55):
would we even have the right methods to catch such
a surprise if one we're to await well. Either way,
the questions that open this chapter in our cosmic history
feel a little sharper now, and it leads to new questions,
like how common interstellar wanderers like three eye Atlas may be.
What do they carrying? Their dust and their eyes or

(25:15):
whatever else they may be carrying. Are the signatures of
distant suns, the fingerprints of alien geology, or even the
faintest hint of engineering present on these cosmic vessels. Three
I Atlasts may not answer all these questions, but by
arriving when it did, and by rallying so many ideas
to the same patch of sky, it has reminded us

(25:38):
that the universe is noisy with evidence, and that curiosity,
properly instrumented, may be our very best scientific tool of all.
In other words, three I Atlas gives us an opportunity,
and that, of course, is one reason why people have
remained so fascinated with this mysterious object. But what do

(25:58):
we really know about three eye Atlasts? Amid all the speculation,
all the rumors were reading about online all the commentary
on television programs and podcasts like this one. Let's take
a look at what we know about this object right now.
Based on information from NASA, it is currently the third
known interstellar object discovered passing through our Solar system, but

(26:21):
as I've pointed out, in likelihood there have been many, many,
many more, although we didn't have the kind of technology
at that time that we needed to be able to
detect them. Now some might ask, but how do you
even know this thing came from outside our Solar system? Well,
that can be answered by its hyperbolic orbit. That's what
confirms that it originated from outside our planetary neighborhood, and

(26:42):
it doesn't behave therefore like typical comets that follow close
elliptical paths around our Sun.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
This is also.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Evidenced by the speed at which three Eye Atlass is moving.
It is moving extremely fast, so NASA has officially designated
it three I, meaning third interstellar Visitor, and of course
ATLAS named after the asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System.
As we've also mentioned, it does not pose a threat
to Earth, despite what anybody is saying online right now,

(27:10):
there's no evidence indicating that it has changed direction and
is now headed toward Mars, and that it's actually engaging
in course corrections as it moves through space. It was
always on a path that was going to bring it
close to Mars, and it happened to make its closest
approach just last Friday, October third. In fact, there were
a few images captured at that time, and although NASA

(27:31):
hasn't officially released any processed images, a few of them
are already available online. We'll get into that and what
all that means what the images reveal a little later.
But this object is going to reach what's known as
Perheli and its closest point to the Sun on October thirtieth,
which coincides roughly not only with Halloween, but also the

(27:51):
annual delivery date for the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Offices
annual UAP reports. We generally have and seen those on time,
but again we can expect one sometime around that period.
My money's probably going to be on the fact that
very little if anything will be said about three I
atlas in Arrow's report, because they probably share my contention

(28:12):
that we can't really categorize three I atlas as UAP.
It is an unknown object from interstellar space that exhibits
a lot of qualities that are very very similar to comets,
and yet it also is different enough that some most
notably a VI Lobe, have speculated about whether it could
be something else entirely. Now, we do already have a

(28:35):
lot of imagery that we've collected that helps to inform
our supposition that three I Atlas, based on the evidence,
is a comet. And these images were obtained by ground
based telescopes through September. Eventually it disappeared behind the Sun
from our perspective here on Earth, so we could no
longer observe it directly from Earth, but we still have
observatories elsewhere. We have cameras parked on Mars on the

(28:57):
Perseverance Rover that we mentioned. Of course, NASA's high Rise
camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to
have captured probably one of the clearest and highest resolution
images of the object to date, which is incredibly frustrating
because with the current US government shutdown, NASA understandably has
already informed the public folks, we're not going to be

(29:18):
updating our primary website, and although there will be some
limited information going online, nobody's getting paid right now and
the few people who are working or working without pay,
so don't expect any information anytime real soon. My guess
is probably that we'll see imagery collected by the European
Space Agency spacecraft that are up there orbiting Mars before

(29:38):
we'll see anything officially formally released by NASA and having
gone through proper processing. But there are raw images that
were obtained by the Perseverance rover. We reported on some
of those at the debrief the other day. In fact,
actually our site was probably one of the first websites
that actually picked up on the fact that some of
the raw images released by Perseverance appear to show three iAtlas,

(30:02):
and that based on the work of a lot of
amateur astronomers who, while NASA can't be doing that work themselves,
we're downloading those raw images being uploaded automatically to NASA's
website as Perseverance takes them, and they were doing the
analysis themselves. They were creating composites. And indeed, there were
some astronomers and officionados out there, amateur star watchers and

(30:23):
what have you, who began to notice, hey, there are
some objects in these images that are consistent with where
the position of three iatlass should place it at this
time now. While things are moving pretty slow at NASA
for the time being, fortunately, in the weeks leading up
to this near approach of three iAtlas, they've been employing
a range of different multimission observations, which include observations by

(30:44):
the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Web Space Telescope, the
Test Mission, Swift Missions, the sphere X mission, also the
SOHO which is a joint mission between the ESA and NASA,
and also NASA's Juice Mission, which is going to conduct
solar and outer planetary observations while hopefully maybe collecting some
additional data about three Eye Atlas. The two little robots

(31:05):
up there, Perseverance and its cousin Curiosity, have also obtained
some imagery. And then finally we've also got the Europa Clipper,
the Lucy Mission, the Psyche Mission, the Punch Mission, the
Parker Solar Probe, and others that are expected to provide
supplemental imaging and environmental context as this mysterious object transits
the inner Solar System. So, in short, based on all
the information we've collected to date, three iAtlas provides a

(31:28):
rare window and a material from another star system and
potentially may reveal chemical and structural differences between interstellar and
Solar system commets. But of course there are still a
lot of questions we have about it, and so when
we come back here in a moment, we're going to
shift our attention towards some of the more exotic possibilities
and the reasons why some researchers are saying we really

(31:49):
should remain open minded about this object and what it
could represent. We'll dive into all that and much more
when we return here on the Micah Hanks Program.

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Speaker 1 (34:46):
Enigma in our solar system, and one that has some
scientists saying, what if we're going to look at why
some people maintain three I atlas? This enigmatic interstellar visitor
could be a little more than a comet here in
a moment. First, I want to remind you, if you
aren't already an ex subscriber, you're only getting half of

(35:08):
the story because over there at Micah hanks dot com,
Forward Slash X subscribers get weekly additional updates in the
form of the X podcast, and of course all those
monthly enigmas specials. Plus you get your own specialized RSS
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(35:28):
comes to you add free at all in one place.
So it's a great way to support the tireless efforts
of yours, truly and again as somebody who occupies that
kind of liminal space between scientific skepticism but also exploring
possibilities when it comes to issues like UAP and this
week interstellar visitors like three I Atlas. It's a hard

(35:51):
place considering how ideological people tend to get and I
always endeavor to try and be fair, balanced and factual
in everything that we report, and occasionally, as you know,
we also have some scoops here from time to time.
Long time and of course, highly informed listeners of the
Micah Hanks Program know that occasionally there are insights into
government studies involving UAP, scientific perspectives on these issues and

(36:15):
many other topics that we discussed that you will have
heard here before you hear it anyplace else, and that
alone should be a good reason to consider supporting the
work that goes into this show every single week. It
is possible thanks to people like you, and especially those
who are subscribers to the podcast, so we'll have that
linked as always in the show notes, or you can
pop over to micahnks dot com forward slash x where

(36:39):
we left off, though we were talking, of course, about
what is known about the interstellar comet three I Atlas,
and the fact that I call it a comet actually
rubs a few people the wrong way. I get some
pretty fun emails from people every now and then because
I call it a comet, and they say, how do
you know it's a comet? Others actually are far less polite.

(37:01):
They say, it's not a comic. You're wrong, and you're
just a two bit journalist wannabe who's just regurgitating everything
that NASA tells us, which we know, of course is
a lie because they're part of the government. Well, in truth,
it's not just the US government Space agency NASA who
has released this information. We have information from the European

(37:23):
Space Agency. We have information from a range of different
agencies around the world, and then add to that the
collected information from amateur astronomers about three I Atlas. All
of the data, and believe me, I have looked at
virtually every paper that has been published on this object
since it was discovered, the abundance of that information all

(37:45):
points to this object being a comet. And yes, it
behaves a little different from those that we are used
to seeing, but that's because these comics that we're used
to seeing have existed in our solar system since time immemorial,
and naturally, an object from outside our solar system is
going to behave a little differently. And Yet, although I
concede that yes, three Eye Atlas appears to be a

(38:08):
really weird interstellar comet, I also want to be very
clear about an important point. I also strongly advocate looking
at three Eye Atlas for potential signs of alien techno
signatures there. I said it, and I stand by that
because we just won't know unless we look. But if

(38:29):
we don't look, we may miss out on an incredible opportunity.
And furthermore, if there were any potential dangers associated with
technologies on board three Eye Atlas, and I don't think
there are any, but if there were any and we
didn't bother to look, it could potentially spell danger for
all life on Earth as far as we know. So, Yes,

(38:52):
although it appears to be a comet, I am firmly
in the camp. I strongly support scientists looking for evidence
as to whether or not three I Atlas could be
something else, or whether it could be accompanied by something
other than natural forms of cosmic phenomena. And that very

(39:12):
position essentially has also been championed by Harvard theoretical physicist
Auvi Loeb and his colleagues. There was a paper they
co authored earlier this year which we mentioned here on
the podcast at the time that it was published, and
that study was titled is the Interstellar object three I Atlas?
Alien Technology? Now let's be very clear in looking at
what this paper does and does not say. First, this

(39:36):
paper explores, but does not assert, the testable hypothesis that
three I atlasts could be a technological artifact and possibly
one of extraterrestrial origin. The study describes essentially this research
as a theoretical exercise pedagogical, I think, is the term
they use for it. In other words, it's meant to

(39:57):
analyze astrodynamic anomalies and the objects in usual orbital parameters
as an opportunity to learn. But in their paper, the
author's note that if technological three eye Atlas might exhibit benign,
exploratory or yes even hostile intent and hence why it
should be taken seriously. But fundamentally, what the paper does

(40:17):
is it examines a range of orbital and physical anomalies
that have been associated with three eye atlas. For instance,
it follows a retrograde orbit tilted only about five degrees
from the ecliptic. And for those out there who are
not speakers of astronomical lingo, that essentially means that three
eye atlas from the moment it entered our Solar system
was unusually well aligned for potential planetary encounters. Specifically, it

(40:42):
was determined early on that its path would bring it
unusually close to Venus, to Mars, to Jupiter, all the
while also taking it behind the Sun when it would
be the closest to Earth, and so Lobe and colleagues
Hibberd at al. Said in the paper, Well, if this
object is going to be hidden from view behind the
Sun when it is actually its closest to Earth, but

(41:03):
its path through the Solar System brings it really close
to all these other planets, that would be consistent, we
might assume with an object that is trying to remain
hidden from view so we can't get a good look
at it, but it wants to learn as much as
it possibly can about our Solar system. But then there
were other things that were addressed in their paper as well.
For instance, the object's size is really inconsistent with the

(41:26):
expected populations of interstellar objects out there. At that time,
there was very little evidence, if any, of cometary activity,
apart from the fact that the apparent cometary coma was
coming off of the wrong side as opposed to what
you expect from most comets. A particularly fascinating possibility put
forward by Auvi Lobe involved the idea of a solar

(41:48):
o birth maneuver. In other words, as the object is
approaching the Sun, this would give it an optimal opportunity
for breaking effectively by getting a bit of a gravity
assist from the Sun. And of course while this was occurring,
one would think, well, that would be the time we'd
want to be training our telescopes on it and really
try to get a good look at it, because if
it's doing anything weird, that's when we're going to see it. Well, Fortunately,

(42:11):
at least for three eye atlis, the object will be
on the other side of the Sun when that occurs,
and so it will be hidden from view, not only
keeping it out of view when it is at its closest,
but also when the object is presumably most likely to
do anything weird. And that again, supposing that it actually
is some kind of technological artifact. Now, if there were

(42:31):
any validity to these ideas, how in the world might
we try to test this? Well, the first opportunity actually
arrived last week, that's right when Three Eye Atlas made
its way past Mars. We may have already gotten the
closest look at this object that we have yet attained,
maybe the closest we will get at all. And yet again,

(42:53):
much to the frustration of so many of us out here,
myself included, NASA is working at a snail's pace, if
at all, because the government has shut down. Of all
times that the government would shut down when there is
an unusual object approaching Earth, And we just had an
opportunity to spot this thing using cameras we've got over
there on Mars. And let me just say again, the

(43:15):
images we've already seen from Mars of three Eye outlets,
they are weird enough that they have invigorated a lot
of the alien theorists out there. There's an article currently
available online at the debrief dot Org by yours truly,
and it explains not only what these images show, but
why they look so strange. And you can see those
images for yourself, So go check that out, and I'll

(43:36):
have it in the show notes for you. But again,
with so much going on, these little images obtained by
the Perseverance Rover, which are fairly low res, are going
to be nothing compared to whatever the high rise camera
on board the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter might have obtained, and
we don't know when we'll even get to see those.
I couldn't imagine worse timing for all this. But considering

(43:57):
that we've potentially flubbed this one, or that we're going
to have to wait a little while on any information
we might have obtained, we do still have other opportunities, right.
That's so called reverse Solar O birth or Jupiter O
birth maneuver, if one occurs, could allow three I atlats
to slow down and remain bound to the Solar System,
and so presumably once it makes its way around the
Sun and heads off in the direction of Jupiter, we

(44:19):
could keep watching and if anything strange happens as it
nears the gas giant in our Solar system, one of them,
then maybe we'll be able to watch then. Fortunately, we've
also got spacecraft out there that can observe three I
at LISS when it passes Jupiter, so that would be
another opportunity to test some of these ideas, and in fact,
in their paper, Ave Lobe and his colleagues said that

(44:41):
any kind of intercept window with Earth or Jupiter would
occur between late November and early December twenty twenty five,
and so that might give us a little time to
plan for things, hoping, of course, that the government doesn't
remain shut down well into the Christmas holiday. I guess
we'll have to wait and see. But in their paper,
one of the interesting possibilities put f involving that so

(45:01):
called Jupiter obirth. An aero capture scenario would be that
a large low density spherical sale, if deployed by the object,
would be capable of performing an aero capture maneuver at
Jupiter to enter its orbit. And based on simulations that
Lobe and his colleagues ran, they suggested that there would
be entry speeds around that time of about seventy five
point six kilometers per second, with manageable heat loads of

(45:24):
around six point six millidewels I believe per meter square,
which puts it far below Apollo re entry levels. But
all that aside. In simple layman's terms, what we're saying
is that this object if indeed it begins behaving like
some kind of technological object is going to be moving
slower than the Apollo re entry capsules during human space

(45:44):
missions from decades ago. So yet again we should be
able to notice that. And once it's in orbit around Jupiter,
if all this were to happen, three iyeatlis could potentially
use Jupiter's magnetosphere as well as its moons to aid
it in making further maneuvers with little or no need
for propellant. Now, of course, this is all a whole
lot of speculation for it to just be a comet, right,

(46:07):
and so naturally a lot of people, most astronomers in fact,
read the paper by Lobe and his colleagues, and they said, look,
it's wonderful to use this as a learning opportunity, but
let's not scare everybody. And furthermore, let's not think so
far outside the box. Did our brains start falling out
of our heads? Okay, because three ie Atlas is probably

(46:28):
not any kind of technological object. It's not some sort
of a spacecraft. It's probably not going to be engaging
in o birth maneuvers as it approaches the Sun or Jupiter.
It's probably just going to take off into interstellar space
and continue its journey and drift for another few million
years or so, and we're never going to see it again.
So let's accept it for what it is, an interstellar comet,

(46:50):
and one that offers us a glimpse at something from
quite literally alien regions of our universe, the likes of
which we have never seen before, and for all we know,
we may never see again, at least in terms of
being quite like three I Atlas. I do think, of course,
in the years ahead, we're very likely to see additional
interstellar objects thanks to the Vera c Rubend Observatory, which

(47:13):
is designed to detect at least maybe one or two
a year, maybe as many as sixty depending on who
you ask, And so as you can see, three I
Atlas has generated a lot of controversy, and yes, Avi
Loeb has both gotten a lot of attention for his
commentary on the what ifs, and he's also gotten a
lot of pushback from the more skeptically inclined astronomers out
there who are saying, Avi, you were saying, oh Muamua

(47:36):
back in twenty seventeen, might be an alien spacecraft, And
that was later debunked that was later proven to most
likely be a comet. Here's another interstellar object, and it's
like oh muamoa all over again. You're basically following the
exact same logic and presenting many of the same arguments
in favor of why you think this thing could be
an alien spacecraft.

Speaker 8 (47:57):
And I get it.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
While many are very opposed to even entertaining the idea
of something technological, I maintain, as I said earlier, that
while I am firmly in the comet camp as far
as what I think through I Atlas is and what
the abundance of the data tells us, I also think
we would be foolish not to look at other possibilities

(48:18):
based on the very unlikely possibility that we might find
something truly exotic. And let me tell you, there are
other scientists out there who think the very same thing.
We're going to look at what they have had to
say about the search for techno signatures coming from interstellar objects.
Here in a moment, when we wrap things up right
here on the Micah Hanks program.

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Speaker 1 (50:34):
Three I Atlas. Could there be more to this mysterious
interstellar visitor than meets the eye? Well, the short answer
is yes, but depending of course on who you ask.
Welcome back so far in our foray into answers about
what is known what could be possible about three I

(50:58):
Atlas on this podcast this week, we have looked at
what is known, we have looked at speculations by Harvard
theoretical physicist Avi Loeb and his colleagues, and of course
we've acknowledged some of the pushback. In fact, earlier this year,
Avi had said that for a paper that he published
about this, the journal was willing to accept the paper

(51:19):
on the conditions that Avi removed any speculations about this
object in any way being related to extraterrestrial technology and
again being in the comet camp. Myself, when it comes
to three I Atlas, I understand why many out there
in the academic community are very hesitant to in any

(51:40):
way encourage belief in this thing as being anything other
than a comet. One reason, of course, is because there
are already plenty of people out there who are going
to take an idea like that and they're going to
run with it, and that based partly on misinterpretations of
the existing data. Good example of that occurred in recent

(52:00):
days because, as we discussed, those photographs that were obtained,
and they weren't necessarily really good ones, but there were
photographs apparently of three iAtlas obtained by the Perseverance rover
using its navcam. The right navcam had been directed at
the correct region in the sky and it actually spotted
this object as it went streaking through the sky above Mars.

(52:21):
Once these images appeared online, they show little more than
a little bar of light, but everyone starts looking at
the bar of light and saying, my gosh, three I
atlas is shaped like a cigar. It's a tic tac,
and so people were going nuts on social media. Fortunately
we have people like for instance, Avi Lobe, who on

(52:41):
his blog, despite having entertained some of the extraterrestrial possibilities himself,
he was quick to point out look, this object as
it appears in the Perseverance right navcam images is not
an accurate depiction of the shape of three I atlas.
He says that is a motion artifact, which is a
result of the object moving through the frame, and also

(53:04):
several composite images that were overlaid on top of one another,
which superficially causes the object in the image to look
much longer than it actually is. I saw my friend's
science Bob Maguire out there on social media also commenting
on earlier photographs of three iyatlas, where when the telescopes
were trained on three iAtlas, it of course appears round,

(53:28):
but instead all of the stars around it appeared elongated,
and he jokingly pointed out, look at all of these
flying saucers. Look at all these three I atlas alien
artifacts all around the comet. Of course, the point that
Bob was trying to make is, no, those stars aren't
actually shaped like cigars. It's because when the telescopes were
trained on three I atlas and we're tracking it, it

(53:50):
no longer appeared elongated. The stars did all around it,
because with the telescope tracking three I atlas, it appears
stationary and all the stars around it in the background
appear to be moving. So the very same thing happened
in the recent images released by NASA. The only ones
that they've released to date since three iye Atlas passed Mars,

(54:12):
and people are going nuts saying, my gosh, there's thing's massive.
It's got to be several miles long. It's a great
big tubular thing.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Well not really.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Again, it's a misinterpretation of the data. And one of
the very people who points all this out and explains
why the images looked that way had been a vi lobe.
But back to my broader point, The issue, of course
is that because there are so many people out there
who are going to misinterpret the data, because they don't
have the kind of qualifications to know what they are
looking at, there's already going to be plenty of misinformation

(54:43):
about an object like three I Atlas, And so to
an extent, I can sympathize with the scientists to say, look,
you know, we appreciate doctor Loeb's perspectives and we recognize
as contributions. But if you're going to publish in our journal,
we're not going to talk about alien techno signatures. You're
going to talk talk about a comet, because that's what
all the evidence seems to say.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
I can get it.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
I understand a certain amount of what some would view
as gatekeeping when it comes to a subject like this.
They're also trying to protect the public, knowing that a
lot of people who see these misinterpretations and they get
the bad data and the hot takes, they could be scared.
I think a lot of people out there right now
are scared because I get emails every week from people,

(55:24):
and I get messages and phone calls. Is there really
a mothership on its way to Earth? Michael, what's going on? Well, again,
all the evidence points to this thing being a comet,
But as I maintain, there are also reasons, valid ones
why we should entertain the possibility that there could be
things learned about three I Atlas, and why it presents,

(55:45):
more broadly, an opportunity almost to practice run if you will,
for how we might conduct future searches of interstellar objects,
for evidences of extraterrestrial technology. And if you happen to
think I'm crazy for maintaining that there is an opportunity
here with three Iyatlas, then I will direct your attention
to a paper that came out earlier this year that

(56:07):
was co authored by an international team. The lead author
James R. A. Davenport, but again Brian Lackey was one
of the authors. Jason Wright also one of the co authors.
Adam Frank, who's been on the program here with us,
people whose names are very well known in modern astronomy
and astrophysics. Darryl Seligman also one of the co authors

(56:27):
of this paper. I mean, really some of the who's
who of not only the study of astrophysics, but also
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Some of the authors of
this paper, by the way, associated with the SETI Institute.
But the paper I'm referring to here was titled Techno
Signature Searches of Interstellar Objects, and I want to quote
now from the abstract where the author's write, with the

(56:49):
discovery of the third confirmed interstellar object, three iAtlas, we
have entered a new phase in the exploration of these
long predicted objects. Though confirmed discovery of interstellar objects is
quite recent, the utility the researcher is right as targets
in the search for techno signatures, historically known as the

(57:09):
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI, has been discussed for
many decades. With the upcoming National Science Foundation, Department of
Energy Veric Reuben Observatories Legacy Survey of space and time.
The discovery and tracking of such objects is expected to
become routine, and thus so must our examination of these

(57:31):
objects for possible techno signatures. So let that sink in
for a minute. Here we have a group of scientists
who are saying, with three i atlasts, we have now
probably been given the best reminder that we have seen
to date for why we need to be looking for
techno signatures possible evidences of technology from extraterrestrial intelligence. Quoting

(57:54):
again from the abstract of this paper, they go on
to say, here we review the literature surrounding interstellar objects
as targets for technosignatures, which provides a well developed motivation
for such exploration. We outline four broad classes of technosignatures
that are well suited for interstellar object follow up, including
the type of data needed and the best timing for study. Finally,

(58:14):
the author's write that given the limitations in the current
understanding of interstellar objects, we show that care must be
taken in identifying technosignatures based primarily on comparison to objects
in the Solar System, and we therefore provide a roadmap
for careful and consistent study of the population of interstellar
objects in the hope of identifying techno signatures. All that

(58:35):
to say, in short, hey, we need to be looking
at interstellar objects like three I Atlas in case there
are any possible technological indications that these objects exhibit. More specifically,
in their paper, what they do is they try to
provide a framework for how said techno signatures might be detected,

(58:57):
because we don't know how evidence of non human technology
might be found. But think about this for a moment.
We've been looking for signals from the stars for decades,
and so far we've found very little in the way
of convincing evidence that aliens are beaming messages across the
cosmos that we would be able to receive and potentially decipher.

(59:19):
So how else might we find evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence
If we can't find signals, maybe we should be looking
for weird looking interstellar objects that, if not themselves extraterrestrial technologies,
which might be used by any prospective alien intelligence to
dispatch such technologies and help them disperse throughout the universe.

(59:41):
That's right, For all we know, that could be the
very way that we ultimately end up finding evidence of
non human technology. So in their article, They talk about
some of the classic ideas like Bracewell probes, von Neumann
probe concepts involving autonomous or self replicating probes exploring the
galaxy currently. They acknowledge that no current interstellar objects. Keep

(01:00:04):
in mind there were two before three i atlasts o
Muamua and Borisov, but none of them have shown any
strong evidence of artificiality. And in their paper, let me
be clear, these authors say clearly three iatless appears to
be a comment. We are not trying to say it
is an alien spacecraft. We're simply saying that there's a
long history of speculation about how we might search for

(01:00:26):
evidence of alien technology when interstellar objects are something we
can detect. Those speculations predated our ability to detect these things.
Now that we're spotting them and we've got one hanging
out in our solar system here for a few months,
we should be taking opportunities like this to search We've
always wanted to do this, why not do it? But
of course the question then comes down to, well what

(01:00:48):
do you search for? Well, honestly, a lot of the
same sorts of things that Avi Lob and his colleagues
have also been saying you could look for kinematic anomalies
like unexpected non gravitational accelerations, surface or co op positional anomalies,
thermal or energy emission anomalies, electromagnetic transmissions. Now intriguingly, while

(01:01:08):
these are all put forward as possibilities things that should
be searched for in the paper by Davenport at all,
there have actually been some observations of some weird things
about three I atlas that come very close to falling
in this category, if not actually being evidence of those
anomalies themselves. Specifically, you may have heard in recent days that,

(01:01:30):
first of all, based on current estimates for its size,
three I atlas appears to be anomalously massive, borrowing the
words of Avvi Lobe and colleagues of his, who wrote
another paper recently where they say this thing is a
whole lot more massive than it probably should be. Another
weird thing that has recently come to light about three
I atlas is the bizarre nickel to iron ratio observed

(01:01:54):
in spectrographic observations of three iyatlas. And in fact this
has been pointed out to me previously by A. Vi Lobe.
I thought it was interesting at that time because he
associates the appearent iron anomalies we might say observed in
three iAtlas as being the kinds of things that are
only observed through industrial processes when it involves those metals

(01:02:17):
here on Earth. So he says, that's kind of a
weird thing. Well, low and behold, a new paper has
come out in recent days that also explores the nickel
and iron anomalies. And the authors of that paper too,
while saying, you know, we think it's a comet, we
acknowledge this is highly strange, extremely anomalous, some of the
metallic properties that three iatlists seems to exhibit. And on

(01:02:39):
the subject of electromagnetic transmissions, currently, I don't know of
any efforts using radio astronomy to try and see if
there are emissions coming from three iatlists. But yet again,
a vi lobe trying to explore all possibilities, did a
very interesting post on his Medium page recently asking whether
it could be that the Wow signal actually originated from

(01:03:01):
three iyatlas. Now to me that seems like a pretty
remote possibility, But basically AVI looked at the location from
which the famous Wow signal decades ago is believed to
have originated from he's looking at the direction from which
it seems the interstellar object three iye Atlas has come from,
and he says they were actually pretty darn close. So

(01:03:23):
we can't rule out the idea that there could have
been a radio emission produced by an object like three iyatlis,
and that that in fact could have been the source
of the WOW signal. Again, I think we'd need a
little more evidence to support that before we could draw conclusions,
But currently nobody's asking that question apart from AVI Lobe,
And as he correctly points out, I don't think there
have been any radio astronomy surveys conducted to see if

(01:03:47):
there are any additional emissions coming from three Iyeatlis. So,
in conclusion, for the time being, my money is still
on Comet. But we still have a lot of data
to sift through it when it comes to this particular
interstellar visitor, and we only have it best preliminary image
from this object's recent Martian flyby. So when the new

(01:04:10):
data is made available by NASA from the Mars Reconnaissance
orbiter and the ESA gets its information out there and
new images become available online, who knows what else we
might see. I guess we should suspend our disbelief for
the time being. For right now, that wraps up this podcast.
I'll catch you guys next time. As always, stay strange
out there.