The 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.
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in November 2025, the intelligence agency issued what is termed a "Glomar response".
This effectively says it would not reveal whether it possesses information, as doing so might expose classified material.
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.
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UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr, who filed the original request, has announced plans to appeal the CIA's non-answer.
He has also submitted identical requests to Nasa and other federal agencies - with no response as of yet.
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.
Among these anomalies is a distinctive "anti-tail" - a bright trail extending in the opposite direction to what comets typically display.
Nasa has consistently maintained that 3I/ATLAS is simply a natural comet
| NASAThe object has also demonstrated trajectory alterations that appear to contradict gravitational laws, Prof Loeb says.
Observations suggest 3I/ATLAS has an outer layer of nickel - a metal commonly used in spacecraft construction for heat deflection purposes.
"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.
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".
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Harvard physicist Avi Loeb continues to dispute the official narrative
| GETTY
Observations suggest 3I/ATLAS possesses a nickel outer layer
| NASAYet for some, the agency's announcement deepened suspicions rather than quelling them.
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.
Amateur stargazers using standard telescopes had managed to photograph the supposed comet with far greater clarity as it approached Earth in December.
These hobbyist images were taken from distances exceeding 200 million miles, prompting accusations that Nasa was deliberately concealing clearer footage.
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.
The agency's announcement arguably deepened suspicions rather than quelling them
| GETTY"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.
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.
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.
Both the US military and federal authorities maintain that no physical evidence of alien life or unidentified craft has ever been obtained.
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