On July 1, 2025, astronomers caught sight of a mysterious object racing through the solar system. This object, now named 3I/ATLAS, became only the third known visitor from outside our planetary neighborhood.

The paper presented several anomalous characteristics of the object, which could indicate that it is not a comet at all but instead a directed craft.

"We should put all possibilities on the table that it's a rock, a comet, or something else until we get the evidence, the data that will tell us what it is," Loeb said in an interview with WBZ-TV.