Optimists will be disappointed, pessimists will be relieved, and realists will be unsurprised that 3I/ATLAS came as close as it was going to get to Earth on Friday (170 million miles) and is now, as comets are wont to do, speeding away. In the extraordinarily unlikely event that it was some sort of alien craft, its best moment for getting in touch or wiping us out has passed.
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has, as he did with Oumuamua, our first identified interstellar visitor, been speculating that, based on some anomalous qualities, 3I/ATLAS might be of alien origin. Undaunted by the no-show, and still intrigued by some of the object’s unusual characteristics, he has written an article for Medium suggesting that if it was an alien artifact of some sort, the reason for the lack of contact might have been that the beings in charge didn’t know that we were here.
[W]ith an interstellar speed of 60 kilometers per second, the journey of 3I/ATLAS through the Milky-Way disk of stars must have taken billions of years. When 3I/ATLAS started its journey, there were no humans on Earth. And besides, among the solar system planets — Jupiter is the center of attention given that its mass is 318 times larger than Earth’s.
Humans arrived late to the local cosmic party, only to witness the last 0.0001 of the Milky-Way history. Given that, we should not be surprised that interstellar visitors — who attended the party for much longer, did not plan to dance with us.
Oh, I don’t know.
Those interested in our alien friends/enemies can now turn their attention to The Age of Disclosure, a new documentary devoted to the need for the government to disclose what it knows about UFOs (or UAPs as they are now labeled). Full disclosure: I have not yet seen The Age of Disclosure, so won’t comment, but from what its New York Times reviewer has to say, it doesn’t sound… persuasive.
And then there is Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, which will be released in June. The plot has not been disclosed but, as People reports, heavy hints have been dropped:
The official logline for the sci-fi thriller asks fans, “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?”
Though the exact plot details have been kept under wraps, the synopsis concluded by teasing what is to come: “This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to … Disclosure Day.”
Seven billion? Where did all the others go? This film could be really dark.
The film’s announcement has kicked up conspiracy theories online, especially given that Spielberg’s works have long been seen by some in the UFO believer community as evidence that humanity is being gradually (very gradually, it seems) prepared for the U.S. government to disclose secrets about alien life.
A sort of soft launch (or landing), so to speak.