For the record: The Sentinel has never used the word 'alien' in twenty-eight briefings. We used the word machine because the data describes a machine. Our predictions: ghost coma persists at Jupiter, thrust profile changes, jets reappear, brightness deviates, chemistry shifts, are falsifiable and on the record.
Very good write up. Successful prediction is how scientific theories are “proven”.
Likewise it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Chinese Science ( STEM) is doing such heavy lifting. STEM is the last refuge of pure, apolitical intellect. Large populations produce the largest net numbers of Genius’s. ( In biology the Bell Curve cannot be denied.)
Intelligence is a property of individulals, not ideologies. The Chinese educational system excels at identifying geniuses and promoting their full flowering.
If the predictions described in this post are verified then human intelligence Is Not Alone in the universe. And Chinese Geniuses must get a lot of the credit.
Thank you Barry. If our predictions are true China was a large part of this.
What the Tianwen-1 team pulled off deserves its own headline in every outlet. They retasked a Mars orbiter to shoot something 30 million km away that was ten thousand times fainter than what the camera was built for.
That data is the only out-of-plane measurement in existence. Nobody else has it.
Chinese teams are coming through big for the world when we need them most.
The problem, is that standard theory of comets is garbage. Can you do a rigorous analysis of your findings mapped onto the EU model of cosmic bodies? I wrote a little article, months ago, detailing how certain types of propulsion systems are commonly found in Nature, and do not actually denote machinery. It would be nice if we could consider all these angles before jumping to any conclusions. The danger is that: the visitor may have some very important lessons for us to learn, but if we mis-categorize it, we might not get the message.
Occam's razor: rather than cite 28 briefings and 57 anomalies as to why it's a machine, I present to you the simpler, singular, answer: it's a comet. The more interstellar objects we observe, the less tenable the theory that each one is an alien probe.
Occam's Razor cuts both ways. The comet model requires you to assume icy grains that China's Mars orbiter just proved don't exist, chemistry that activates in sequence at specific distances instead of melting all at once, thrust that reverses direction at the Sun, and three objects from three different star systems that just happen to carry identical specs.
We're making one.
Our predictions are on the record. Where are yours?
My on the record prediction? Every time there is an interstellar object, people will leap to the conclusion that it is alien technology. And as we see more of these objects, we will learn more, the novelty will wear off, and explanations of alien tech will become less newsworthy. Ask professional astronomers what their informed opinion is. Also, you cannot assume the motivation of an organization or country that retasks a telescope, probe, etc. is based on anything other than scientific curoiusty.
"Ask professional astronomers" is an appeal to authority, not an argument. We cite the same professional astronomers you're deferring to. Their data is what we're analyzing. The difference is we read past the conclusions and into the tables.
You say we can't assume China's motivation for retasking a Mars orbiter. Ok. But you're assuming it was curiosity. A nation does not rebuild imaging strategies from scratch for a camera ten thousand times too weak for the target because something seemed interesting. That is an institutional decision with cost, risk, and opportunity cost to an active planetary mission.
Your prediction is that people will lose interest. Ours are that the ghost coma persists at Jupiter, the thrust profile changes, the jets reappear, the brightness deviates from the decay curve, and the chemistry shifts again.
When do you expect new data with which to compare your predictions about behavior at Jupiter?
I’m thoroughly intrigued by Atlas 31 and have enjoyed (and appreciate) your exploration of the available data to date!
Curiosity is a far underrated quality. In a world currently obsessed with a lot of politics and economies, and war, etc (which do deserve attention), it’s good for the soul to just be curious about something as awesome as the mysteries of our universe!
Unfortunately we have no instruments ourselves so we are at the mercy of the institutions who own them and the teams using them. No hard date on when but we will have an update here as soon as have analyzed the papers. Stay curious.
Interested lay person here. Thank you for presenting information in a digestible manner and refraining from the “alien tech” trope. Your emphasis on “machine” paired with your data and accompanying information around other agencies and governmental responses denotes that there is a lot more to “see” here. I’m watching and listening.
You cite professional astronomers who are not concluding this is alien tech. You're taking their research, but ignoring their explanation or description? Yes, it is an appeal to an informed authority. If I have a medical question, I appeal to an informed authority ... a doctor. Yes, there is a cost and opportunity risk to retask a scientific asset to observe a (as of now) rare occurrence. Well worth that cost. Where is your evidence China is concerned this is an alien probe? As an amateur astronomer, I won't lose interest in these objects, and neither will you ... but the lay people will, and so will most of the media. Last question: all this discussion that comet models require icy grains; thrust profile changes, jets reappearing, etc. ... are you saying the only explanation is alien tech, and there is not a natural explanation? And you're saying this for something we have only seen 3 of so far? And if these 3 object exhibit similar properties, this ONLY suggests alien tech, and not a similar natural cause?
We haven't used the word alien once in twenty-eight briefings.
We said machine because the data said machine.
If you have a natural process that produces sequential activation, directional thrust, mode switching, and identical specs across three unrelated stellar environments simultaneously, publish it.
There's plenty to see in an interstellar comet. Isn't that fascinating enough? Must every interesting thing have a fantastic explanation that it is a "machine" or "alien tech?"
I appreciate their work @joe Barry and they aren’t holding a syringe to anyone’s arm based on their maximum convenience for human manipulation like say Tony fauci
The institutional response has been one of the strongest signals here. If we were writing fiction about a comet - we would not receive threats - people would ignore us and move on.
Very interesting post. I have questions. I may have missed answers that were already presented, due to lapses in my own technical comprehension. So these are not “gotcha” questions; they’re just questions I hope someone will answer.
Could the detection of water well away from the surface of 3I when 3I was quite warm be explained by water molecules that had already been sublimated or vaporized and then begun diffusing into space, earlier during the warming process of 3I’s long approach to the inner solar system, from what previously were ice grains?
Would a thrust plume and an exhaust plume from a machine be expected to differ in direction?
An interstellar machine >8 billion years in age would have been launched before the formation of solar system planets like Earth, Mars, or Jupiter.
Would there be any deliberate reason for such a machine to travel at speeds resembling those of natural celestial objects revolving around the galactic barycenter, rather than moving faster?
Would there be any deliberate reason for such a machine’s trajectory to coincide with the ecliptic plane of a planetary system that did not yet exist when it was launched, and only occupied a small subset of its journey?
Would there be any way for such a machine, or its designers, to anticipate what portions of its transit through our solar system might be visible to our orbital observation platforms when its launch was long prior to the emergence of life on our planet? (This question is not from your post, but from the attention others have given to the fact that 3I’s perihelion occurred outside the view of our telescopes.)
The leftover water argument doesn't hold. Ice melts fast that close to the Sun. Water released earlier would have scattered well beyond the detection zone by October. The production rate was actively increasing, not fading. You'd see a dying signal from old water, not a growing one.
Thrust and exhaust should point in opposite directions. That's exactly what we observe. Sunward jet on one side, carbon monoxide flowing away from the Sun on the other. Two telescopes, two gases, same line.
On the trajectory, we covered this in Dossier 001. The ecliptic alignment is a 0.2% probability for a random interstellar object. It came in retrograde, maximizing relative velocity against every planet it passed. It is arriving at Jupiter's Hill Sphere within 0.1% of the gravitational capture boundary.
On the age question, we don't have an answer and we won't invent one. The isotopes say 10-12 billion years. Whether it's been running that long or sitting dormant until solar activation, we don't know. The sequential startup pattern looks more like something waking up than something that never stopped.
We appreciate the rigor. These are the right questions to be asking.
Every observatory on earth is pointed at it right now. We expect Avi Loeb to have the first papers available his team works fast. No estimated time frame however it could be weeks or even months. We will update you as soon as we have the info.
Great question. Loeb proposed a Juno intercept last summer, but NASA never confirmed executing the maneuver. Juno's main engine hasn't fired since 2016 and the spacecraft is low on fuel. No Juno imaging has been released. JunoCam was still active as of late January, so the hardware is alive, but whether it was pointed at 3I/ATLAS during the flyby is currently unknown. We're watching for any data drops.
I saw clickbait on YT suggesting Juno entered safe mode during the fly by past Jupiter. I don't recall a source, probably because there isn't one. It's fun to speculate on conspiracy theories but I enjoy your data and science based approach much more. Not to mention the proliferation of AI slop content that is everywhere you look now. I sincerely appreciate that you lay out facts and predictions and observations based only on the actual data. It really helps me as a layperson to have aggregated data that is explained in a way I can understand and engage with.
The idea that NASA stands for Never a Straight Answer is an accurate observation, I think. We're all entitled to speculate on what might be happening that we might not have awareness of. They aren't conspiracy theories if there are actual conspiracies afoot. In the past in all kinds of different cases involving disclosure and UAPs, the data has ended up showing that things are not as they seem and the truth often contradicts what we've actually been told. In short, I love a good mystery.
The Juno safe mode is real, but it happened April 4, 2025. The safe mode was caused by radiation belt transit, same thing that's tripped Juno three other times since 2016. Someone stitched two real events together and forgot the dates. Classic clickbait architecture. Good catch!
Conspiracy theories aren't theories when you have the data.
Slight problem - the timestamps on the stacked images of 3I/ATLAS acquired by HiRIC CMOS camera onboard Tianwen-1 are Gregorian - should be Julian Days.
Message received … long story short … We’re not ready…? The anomaly is not making a U-turn … There’s no problem here except for mankind’s war against humanity…? The Truth! There’s more here 🤷🏾🌏🤷🏽♀️than meets the eye. Good Luck✨❗️🙏🏻
The data may describe a mechanistic process but that doesn’t necessarily mean the presence of an artificial machine. We also name hurricanes…
More to the point, we have limited data points. Our ability to make detailed observations of comets is not old, we have no observations of the majority of comets that have traversed our solar system. Even the ostensibly mechanical variety.
I am also of the opinion that the Chinese have little to do with the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Open mind, of course.
Several comments herein refer to data, the one thing in short supply.
The story so far includes an orbital inclination, emissions signatures, and isotope age. Each of these is not only explicable, but well-expected within the bounds of existing cosmology and astrophysics.
I would like to sample this object, I suspect cores would show a layered structure comprised of various material, interstellar media, each with different physical properties, accumulated through eons of travel. Each layer with different specific heat, melting points, viscosity, volatility.
An interstellar species would have something much better than this for travel.... technology something like the warp speed that is theorized to actually exist and be in our government's possession. It would not need cooling systems as described, cyanide, water/ice jets, etc... it would be so fast that it would appear to phase in and out of existence. It would use unfathomably strong magnetic fields and zero-resistance superconductors to bend space around itself while experiencing no inertial effects. It would not follow a trajectory like this, IMHO. This is a "normal " interstellar space object, based on many factors. Was it sent by the infinite creator to ignite a spark for some people? Maybe...
We read telescope data from fifteen teams across three continents. You're describing a ship from a movie. We can only work with the evidence we have and the evidence points to machine.
Unfortunately for all of us, this is the only "logical" conclusion based on the current scientifically approved level of perception. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, and patents, that circumstantially prove what I have said, though. Very interesting article, either way, and I love the food for thought.
For the record: The Sentinel has never used the word 'alien' in twenty-eight briefings. We used the word machine because the data describes a machine. Our predictions: ghost coma persists at Jupiter, thrust profile changes, jets reappear, brightness deviates, chemistry shifts, are falsifiable and on the record.
Very good write up. Successful prediction is how scientific theories are “proven”.
Likewise it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Chinese Science ( STEM) is doing such heavy lifting. STEM is the last refuge of pure, apolitical intellect. Large populations produce the largest net numbers of Genius’s. ( In biology the Bell Curve cannot be denied.)
Intelligence is a property of individulals, not ideologies. The Chinese educational system excels at identifying geniuses and promoting their full flowering.
If the predictions described in this post are verified then human intelligence Is Not Alone in the universe. And Chinese Geniuses must get a lot of the credit.
Thank you Barry. If our predictions are true China was a large part of this.
What the Tianwen-1 team pulled off deserves its own headline in every outlet. They retasked a Mars orbiter to shoot something 30 million km away that was ten thousand times fainter than what the camera was built for.
That data is the only out-of-plane measurement in existence. Nobody else has it.
Chinese teams are coming through big for the world when we need them most.
The problem, is that standard theory of comets is garbage. Can you do a rigorous analysis of your findings mapped onto the EU model of cosmic bodies? I wrote a little article, months ago, detailing how certain types of propulsion systems are commonly found in Nature, and do not actually denote machinery. It would be nice if we could consider all these angles before jumping to any conclusions. The danger is that: the visitor may have some very important lessons for us to learn, but if we mis-categorize it, we might not get the message.
The only model of important bodies the EU should care about right now are B-52S
Occam's razor: rather than cite 28 briefings and 57 anomalies as to why it's a machine, I present to you the simpler, singular, answer: it's a comet. The more interstellar objects we observe, the less tenable the theory that each one is an alien probe.
Occam's Razor cuts both ways. The comet model requires you to assume icy grains that China's Mars orbiter just proved don't exist, chemistry that activates in sequence at specific distances instead of melting all at once, thrust that reverses direction at the Sun, and three objects from three different star systems that just happen to carry identical specs.
We're making one.
Our predictions are on the record. Where are yours?
My on the record prediction? Every time there is an interstellar object, people will leap to the conclusion that it is alien technology. And as we see more of these objects, we will learn more, the novelty will wear off, and explanations of alien tech will become less newsworthy. Ask professional astronomers what their informed opinion is. Also, you cannot assume the motivation of an organization or country that retasks a telescope, probe, etc. is based on anything other than scientific curoiusty.
"Ask professional astronomers" is an appeal to authority, not an argument. We cite the same professional astronomers you're deferring to. Their data is what we're analyzing. The difference is we read past the conclusions and into the tables.
You say we can't assume China's motivation for retasking a Mars orbiter. Ok. But you're assuming it was curiosity. A nation does not rebuild imaging strategies from scratch for a camera ten thousand times too weak for the target because something seemed interesting. That is an institutional decision with cost, risk, and opportunity cost to an active planetary mission.
Your prediction is that people will lose interest. Ours are that the ghost coma persists at Jupiter, the thrust profile changes, the jets reappear, the brightness deviates from the decay curve, and the chemistry shifts again.
One of us put something falsifiable on the table.
When do you expect new data with which to compare your predictions about behavior at Jupiter?
I’m thoroughly intrigued by Atlas 31 and have enjoyed (and appreciate) your exploration of the available data to date!
Curiosity is a far underrated quality. In a world currently obsessed with a lot of politics and economies, and war, etc (which do deserve attention), it’s good for the soul to just be curious about something as awesome as the mysteries of our universe!
Unfortunately we have no instruments ourselves so we are at the mercy of the institutions who own them and the teams using them. No hard date on when but we will have an update here as soon as have analyzed the papers. Stay curious.
Interested lay person here. Thank you for presenting information in a digestible manner and refraining from the “alien tech” trope. Your emphasis on “machine” paired with your data and accompanying information around other agencies and governmental responses denotes that there is a lot more to “see” here. I’m watching and listening.
*curiosity
You cite professional astronomers who are not concluding this is alien tech. You're taking their research, but ignoring their explanation or description? Yes, it is an appeal to an informed authority. If I have a medical question, I appeal to an informed authority ... a doctor. Yes, there is a cost and opportunity risk to retask a scientific asset to observe a (as of now) rare occurrence. Well worth that cost. Where is your evidence China is concerned this is an alien probe? As an amateur astronomer, I won't lose interest in these objects, and neither will you ... but the lay people will, and so will most of the media. Last question: all this discussion that comet models require icy grains; thrust profile changes, jets reappearing, etc. ... are you saying the only explanation is alien tech, and there is not a natural explanation? And you're saying this for something we have only seen 3 of so far? And if these 3 object exhibit similar properties, this ONLY suggests alien tech, and not a similar natural cause?
We haven't used the word alien once in twenty-eight briefings.
We said machine because the data said machine.
If you have a natural process that produces sequential activation, directional thrust, mode switching, and identical specs across three unrelated stellar environments simultaneously, publish it.
We'll cover it.
The longest version of ‘nothing to see here’ I have read…..give this man a golden turkey!!
There's plenty to see in an interstellar comet. Isn't that fascinating enough? Must every interesting thing have a fantastic explanation that it is a "machine" or "alien tech?"
I appreciate their work @joe Barry and they aren’t holding a syringe to anyone’s arm based on their maximum convenience for human manipulation like say Tony fauci
Illusory pattern perception
Illusory pattern perception
Once official channels start shutting things down, you know there's something to hide. Fascinating article, thank you.
The institutional response has been one of the strongest signals here. If we were writing fiction about a comet - we would not receive threats - people would ignore us and move on.
It was the sequential start-up that got me. That simply looks artificial.
And the 'heat shield' was the first thing that occurred to me on reading the observations made.
It's a crying shame that Arthur C Clarke isn't still with us to see this.
Very interesting post. I have questions. I may have missed answers that were already presented, due to lapses in my own technical comprehension. So these are not “gotcha” questions; they’re just questions I hope someone will answer.
Could the detection of water well away from the surface of 3I when 3I was quite warm be explained by water molecules that had already been sublimated or vaporized and then begun diffusing into space, earlier during the warming process of 3I’s long approach to the inner solar system, from what previously were ice grains?
Would a thrust plume and an exhaust plume from a machine be expected to differ in direction?
An interstellar machine >8 billion years in age would have been launched before the formation of solar system planets like Earth, Mars, or Jupiter.
Would there be any deliberate reason for such a machine to travel at speeds resembling those of natural celestial objects revolving around the galactic barycenter, rather than moving faster?
Would there be any deliberate reason for such a machine’s trajectory to coincide with the ecliptic plane of a planetary system that did not yet exist when it was launched, and only occupied a small subset of its journey?
Would there be any way for such a machine, or its designers, to anticipate what portions of its transit through our solar system might be visible to our orbital observation platforms when its launch was long prior to the emergence of life on our planet? (This question is not from your post, but from the attention others have given to the fact that 3I’s perihelion occurred outside the view of our telescopes.)
Good questions. In order:
The leftover water argument doesn't hold. Ice melts fast that close to the Sun. Water released earlier would have scattered well beyond the detection zone by October. The production rate was actively increasing, not fading. You'd see a dying signal from old water, not a growing one.
Thrust and exhaust should point in opposite directions. That's exactly what we observe. Sunward jet on one side, carbon monoxide flowing away from the Sun on the other. Two telescopes, two gases, same line.
On the trajectory, we covered this in Dossier 001. The ecliptic alignment is a 0.2% probability for a random interstellar object. It came in retrograde, maximizing relative velocity against every planet it passed. It is arriving at Jupiter's Hill Sphere within 0.1% of the gravitational capture boundary.
On the age question, we don't have an answer and we won't invent one. The isotopes say 10-12 billion years. Whether it's been running that long or sitting dormant until solar activation, we don't know. The sequential startup pattern looks more like something waking up than something that never stopped.
We appreciate the rigor. These are the right questions to be asking.
When will we know what has (already) happened at Jupiter?
Every observatory on earth is pointed at it right now. We expect Avi Loeb to have the first papers available his team works fast. No estimated time frame however it could be weeks or even months. We will update you as soon as we have the info.
I may have missed it, but has the Juno spacecraft done any imaging and has that been released?
Great question. Loeb proposed a Juno intercept last summer, but NASA never confirmed executing the maneuver. Juno's main engine hasn't fired since 2016 and the spacecraft is low on fuel. No Juno imaging has been released. JunoCam was still active as of late January, so the hardware is alive, but whether it was pointed at 3I/ATLAS during the flyby is currently unknown. We're watching for any data drops.
I saw clickbait on YT suggesting Juno entered safe mode during the fly by past Jupiter. I don't recall a source, probably because there isn't one. It's fun to speculate on conspiracy theories but I enjoy your data and science based approach much more. Not to mention the proliferation of AI slop content that is everywhere you look now. I sincerely appreciate that you lay out facts and predictions and observations based only on the actual data. It really helps me as a layperson to have aggregated data that is explained in a way I can understand and engage with.
The idea that NASA stands for Never a Straight Answer is an accurate observation, I think. We're all entitled to speculate on what might be happening that we might not have awareness of. They aren't conspiracy theories if there are actual conspiracies afoot. In the past in all kinds of different cases involving disclosure and UAPs, the data has ended up showing that things are not as they seem and the truth often contradicts what we've actually been told. In short, I love a good mystery.
The Juno safe mode is real, but it happened April 4, 2025. The safe mode was caused by radiation belt transit, same thing that's tripped Juno three other times since 2016. Someone stitched two real events together and forgot the dates. Classic clickbait architecture. Good catch!
Conspiracy theories aren't theories when you have the data.
Slight problem - the timestamps on the stacked images of 3I/ATLAS acquired by HiRIC CMOS camera onboard Tianwen-1 are Gregorian - should be Julian Days.
The paper uses UTC in ISO format. Both are standard in the literature. The timestamps are unambiguous.
Message received … long story short … We’re not ready…? The anomaly is not making a U-turn … There’s no problem here except for mankind’s war against humanity…? The Truth! There’s more here 🤷🏾🌏🤷🏽♀️than meets the eye. Good Luck✨❗️🙏🏻
Interesting point of view
The data may describe a mechanistic process but that doesn’t necessarily mean the presence of an artificial machine. We also name hurricanes…
More to the point, we have limited data points. Our ability to make detailed observations of comets is not old, we have no observations of the majority of comets that have traversed our solar system. Even the ostensibly mechanical variety.
I am also of the opinion that the Chinese have little to do with the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Open mind, of course.
Several comments herein refer to data, the one thing in short supply.
The story so far includes an orbital inclination, emissions signatures, and isotope age. Each of these is not only explicable, but well-expected within the bounds of existing cosmology and astrophysics.
I would like to sample this object, I suspect cores would show a layered structure comprised of various material, interstellar media, each with different physical properties, accumulated through eons of travel. Each layer with different specific heat, melting points, viscosity, volatility.
I appreciate your work.
An interstellar species would have something much better than this for travel.... technology something like the warp speed that is theorized to actually exist and be in our government's possession. It would not need cooling systems as described, cyanide, water/ice jets, etc... it would be so fast that it would appear to phase in and out of existence. It would use unfathomably strong magnetic fields and zero-resistance superconductors to bend space around itself while experiencing no inertial effects. It would not follow a trajectory like this, IMHO. This is a "normal " interstellar space object, based on many factors. Was it sent by the infinite creator to ignite a spark for some people? Maybe...
We read telescope data from fifteen teams across three continents. You're describing a ship from a movie. We can only work with the evidence we have and the evidence points to machine.
Unfortunately for all of us, this is the only "logical" conclusion based on the current scientifically approved level of perception. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, and patents, that circumstantially prove what I have said, though. Very interesting article, either way, and I love the food for thought.
What if it's not an "interstellar" object
What if it's not an "interstellar" object?
"What if it's not an "interstellar" object?"
----------
Then the dinosaurs built some really durable space hardware?
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-07-25