The CIA has now weighed in on the possibility of comet 3I/ATLAS being a 'potentially hostile alien threat'.
First sighted in July last year, comet 3I/ATLAS became a hot topic during the back end of 2025 thanks to speculation that the flying chunk of space rock may actually be an alien reconnaissance craft hear to gather information ahead of an invasion of Earth.
Such claims were swiftly debunked by NASA, however this didn't stop scientists such as Avi Loeb arguing his case, with the Harvard physicist previously telling LADbible the truth about the interstellar object would be revealed by Christmas.
A date which has since passed and no sign of little green men or their spaceships.
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While the rest of the world has largely moved on from the topic, Loeb and several other 3I/ATLAS-truthers have maintained the argument that we can't rule out aliens.
Which is technically correct, but also very unlikely.
In his latest Medium post on the topic, Loeb touched on a response received from the CIA by UFO researcher/conspiracy theorist John Greenewald Jr.
In a response to a freedom of information request sent by Greenewald Jr, the US intelligence agency said they could 'neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records' the 3I/ATLAS.
"The fact of the existence or non-existence of such records is itself currently and properly classified," the response added.
Weighing in on the response, Loeb said it was 'surprising' to see that the CIA had given such as vague answer to the request, given the fact that NASA had said the comet was definitely natural in origin.
What does 'neither confirm nor deny' mean?
The phrase 'neither confirm nor deny' is known as the Glomar response, which is used by US officials to provide a deliberately vague response to questions.
Named after the CIA's clandestine Glomar Explorer project, the phrase was created to protect information which may provide a national security threat if released to the public.
Loeb takes the above definition into account when sharing his reaction to the CIA's decision to give a 'neither confirm nor deny' answer, saying it was one which made sense in his mind.
He acknowledged that government officials would've likely wanted to verify that 3I/ATLAS was not an alien threat, however unlikely, but the confirmation that files existed could lead people to panic about a potential government cover up.
"This is a wise policy for mitigating societal unrest or instability of financial markets at a time when the reality of a black swan event is still regarded as highly unlikely," he added.
Which when you put it that way, makes complete sense.
Brenna Cooper