Leo D.M.J. Aurini - 3I⧸Atlas： The Increasingly Weird Interstellar Visitor

00:00:00.000 So it's come to my attention that a surprising number of you haven't been

00:00:10.500 paying attention to the interstellar visitor that's entered our solar system,

00:00:14.800 3i Atlas. Maybe it's nothing. Could be nothing. It's a very weird and interesting

00:00:25.260 nothing, even if it is just a nothing. But in case it's something, I figured I'd give

00:00:32.880 you folks a rundown of some of the weirder aspects of what this thing is. Now I should

00:00:42.120 start off saying that most of this information that I'm going to be talking about comes from

00:00:45.540 Professor Ari Avi Loeb of Harvard University. Link down to his article below. But a lot

00:00:58.500 more has come out since that time. And the closer this thing gets, the weirder it gets.

00:01:05.460 So let's talk about the 3i designation, 3i Atlas. Henceforth, I'm just going to be calling

00:01:14.440 it Atlas, since that's its name. The 3i is the designation for third interstellar object.

00:01:22.520 In other words, this is not something from the Oort cloud. This is not a regular returning

00:01:30.460 meteor. This is something foreign. The first interstellar object was Oumuamua back in 2017.

00:01:45.440 Now it came from the Vega system, or it came from the direction of Vega, more or less. All three of

00:01:54.480 these objects, they're kind of from the same quadrant of the night sky, but they look like they're coming

00:02:00.120 from very different places. Oumuamua was kind of weird. It was a weird, it was a cylindrical

00:02:08.260 object. Not really what we were expecting. Not a typical rogue asteroid. Some people at the time

00:02:18.020 were pointing out that something like this could be an interstellar probe, right? If you're going to

00:02:25.960 scout out a system before you arrive, maybe toss one in a hyperbolic arc. Never gets too close to any

00:02:32.300 of the planets, but you can take some pictures, kind of get a bird's eye view of what's going on there.

00:02:38.880 Maybe. It was kind of weird. The second interstellar object was Borislav back in 2019, coming from

00:02:47.920 Cassiopeia. By all indications, just a rogue asteroid. Nothing too weird about it, aside from the fact that

00:02:57.680 it's interstellar, and if you're a big nerd, there's a lot that's interesting about it. But this third

00:03:03.700 one, Atlas, from the Sagittarius constellation. Although currently, at the recording of this video,

00:03:13.640 it's, you know, if you could see, you can't because it's too bright, but it's almost in, it's almost

00:03:21.240 directly in between Venus and the Sun in the constellation of, uh, of Virgo.

00:03:32.980 You know, I have a telescope. I should have gotten a picture of it back when it was visible,

00:03:38.120 but it didn't even occur to me. And now it's, it's past the solar horizon where we can't see it

00:03:43.580 anymore. Now, what's weird about this thing? Well, first of all, it's probably about 20 kilometers

00:03:52.240 in diameter. And Umuamua was considered really weird because it was two kilometers, which is huge.

00:04:01.660 For, to find one 20 kilometer, we should see about 1 million 2 kilometer or smaller interstellar

00:04:17.220 objects. And we've only seen three. Three confirmed interstellar objects that we found. And one of

00:04:27.400 them is a one in a million size. So that is, that is pretty weird.

00:04:35.260 It's also approaching at only five degrees off of our ecliptic plane.

00:04:41.560 Which that means, the planets all rotate about the Sun on the ecliptic plane. Now that, the solar

00:04:53.360 ecliptic is not the same as the galactic ecliptic. If you look up in the night sky and you're away

00:05:01.580 from city lights, you can make out the Milky Way. The, the Milky Way is our galaxy. It's the cluster of

00:05:06.860 stars that make a line up through the sky. So our ecliptic is significantly different from that.

00:05:16.160 And every solar system is going to have its own ecliptic. And this thing's, this thing's approaching

00:05:24.440 at only five degrees off of ours. So of all the angles that could have come, it's, it's slicing

00:05:33.240 the pie beautifully. It's, uh, another weird thing. Now this thing entered what you could

00:05:49.240 call our, our solar systems territory 8,000 years ago. Right around when we started recording

00:05:56.020 history as far as we know, according to current theories. Goblepe Tepe might disagree with that,

00:06:04.780 but we'll go with the civilization started in 4,000 BC. Okay. That's, that's about when

00:06:10.520 it entered our, our solar system, the outer limits of the Oort cloud, which is a hundred thousand

00:06:17.060 AU away. Uh, the Oort cloud is 2000 to a hundred thousand AU. And I'm going to be a little bit

00:06:26.780 fuzzy on this one, but that's about too lightly, too light years. It's close to that. It's about

00:06:33.640 halfway to the next star. So maybe calling that our territory is a bit of an exaggeration,

00:06:38.720 but this, this thing has been coming for a really long time, but we couldn't see it until the absolute

00:06:46.800 last minute because it was coming from the galactic core, from, from the region of the galactic

00:06:54.720 core. In fact, later estimates show that this thing might be billions of years old.

00:07:06.900 This thing might be older than our solar system. It's a, not just a traveler from deep space. It's a

00:07:14.240 traveler from deep time. At least if our reverse trajectories on it are correct.

00:07:28.300 So yeah, we could have landed a probe on it if we had spotted it one year earlier,

00:07:32.820 but we didn't. It's too late. There's not enough time to launch a probe to go look at the thing close

00:07:40.500 up. It's just going to rocket through the system and we got to look at it with what we have.

00:07:48.440 Next it's hitting perihelion, which is it's perihelion is the top of the arc when it's doing

00:07:55.820 a, when it's going to orbit around the sun and then leave perihelion is happening opposite from us.

00:08:03.680 So we won't be able to see what happens at perihelion, which is, this is where we start

00:08:10.320 getting into the really crazy parts. Okay. It's called a reverse Operth maneuver. Did I say that

00:08:15.680 right? Yeah. It's at perihelion when you're in a, when you're in a gravitational well, you're going

00:08:22.620 like this. If you want to orbit, that's the ideal place to hit your rockets to slow down.

00:08:28.780 And they would need a delta V of 20 kilometers a second to do that, to slow down and get into

00:08:42.720 orbit of earth or Jupiter about 20 kilometers a second, which we can't survive 20 kilometers

00:08:51.780 a second of delta V, but we can build things that do 20 kilometers a second. Missile rockets

00:09:00.920 do that. Intercontinental ballistic missiles do that. So that's totally feasible technology.

00:09:07.840 What else? It, um, if it were to launch, if it were to launch a probe at Pluto, Venus, Mars,

00:09:26.940 or Jupiter, five meters, no, sorry, five, five kilometers a second of delta V, which is again,

00:09:36.140 something we can accomplish. Then there's the distance there. It's coming by Pluto, Venus,

00:09:47.280 Mars, and Jupiter. Super close. Okay. Uh, Pluto, one, uh, 5.1 AU. I should clarify an astrononic,

00:09:57.100 an astronomical unit is the distance, the average distance from earth to the sun. So it's about

00:10:04.920 seven light minutes. Uh, Pluto, it's coming within 5.1 AU. Venus, it's buzzing it by 0.65 AU.

00:10:16.340 Mars is 0.19 AU. So it's, it went super close by Mars. We'll get the Mars rover actually got pictures

00:10:26.340 of it and Jupiter 0.36. And just to give you an idea of scale, Jupiter is 5 AU from the sun. So

00:10:41.480 five times as far as we are. And the beginning of the Oort cloud is 2,000 AU.

00:10:51.480 Space is really, really big.

00:11:02.360 Now there was some, there was some discussion from, uh, Professor Loeb that it might be a solar sail.

00:11:10.960 The thing that we're looking at could be a solar sail, which would be the ideal way to slow down,

00:11:19.080 slow down and then come into orbit of earth or Jupiter.

00:11:29.360 I mean, if you needed some hydrogen, Jupiter would be a good place to set up a base. Who knows?

00:11:34.680 I think that's, uh, that theory has been debunked because, well, here's another really weird thing

00:11:47.060 about it. So first of all, it started outgassing CO2. First, there was one plume and then there

00:11:52.640 were plumes on both sides. After that, it started outgassing cyanide, which is why it's green right

00:12:00.360 now. And yet the outgassing has not affected its velocity. So if it was a solar sail, it should have

00:12:09.080 been slowing down. I don't believe it has been slowing down. Even though these things usually do

00:12:17.860 slow down when they start outgassing. So either there's something else accelerating it or it's

00:12:26.640 incredibly massive. And the, what little outgassing there is, isn't enough to slow it down.

00:12:37.140 I mentioned also that the Mars probe, the Mars rover managed to take some photos of it.

00:12:43.920 Now there's two cameras on the Mars rover. One is, one is designed for looking at space. The other

00:12:53.540 there isn't. They only published the ones that weren't designed for looking at space. So we've got a

00:12:58.940 streak in the sky is all that we have of it. They've had the other photos for weeks and they haven't

00:13:08.380 published them. The only photos we have have been where it's a blip in the distance with maybe a halo

00:13:19.620 around it and maybe a couple of plumes from the outgassing, which is outgassing is when an object

00:13:27.840 hits the solar wind, it heats it up and frozen, frozen things that we call gases like CO2

00:13:39.580 supplement. And they, they spray off. They go from solid to gas.

00:13:53.220 And there's finally two, two last things that are really, really weird.

00:13:56.900 I'm sure that most of you know about SETI, but I'll cover it briefly. The search for extraterrestrial

00:14:08.680 intelligence. SETI is a giant radar telescope scanning the heavens for anything weird, anything

00:14:21.920 noticeable. Prime numbers in sequence, for example. And the wow signal was back in 1977, I think.

00:14:33.200 They detected a sudden burst of radio frequency. And the guy that was checking the report the next

00:14:40.760 day wrote wow next to it. So that's the name of the wow signal, because it was like, whoa, that was

00:14:47.540 something. But what was it? The cynical view would say it was probably a spy satellite. American, Russian,

00:15:01.380 the radio telescope just happened to catch one of our own spy satellites that the government won't admit

00:15:07.180 to. However, this wow signal came from the course that Atlas was on. And there have been other reports

00:15:22.260 by amateur astronomers that they've been detecting bursts of radio information from this thing.

00:15:30.560 Some of them to go, some of them going so far as saying they are detecting repeating patterns of prime

00:15:35.740 numbers. The reason that's significant is that repeating patterns of prime numbers don't appear in nature. It's

00:15:48.960 something a mathematically aware species would create to signal its intention to communicate.

00:15:56.640 And this thing has basically disappeared. It's off our sensors right now. You know, some of the more advanced

00:16:07.780 satellites can still track it, but you can't see it with a telescope anymore, because it's too close to

00:16:14.500 the sun. It drops below the horizon before the sun does. At least up where I'm living. I'm not such an expert

00:16:22.340 of astronomy that I could say the same for where you are.

00:16:29.520 And it's going to disappear until late December.

00:16:35.720 And if it's coming to Earth, if it's doing a hard break on the other side,

00:16:41.320 well, we could expect it by about March or so.

00:16:44.700 NASA's claiming they haven't published the photos because the government's shut down.

00:16:52.780 Yeah, maybe.

00:16:55.620 Other people are worried about Project Bluebeam.

00:16:58.800 Project Bluebeam being a...

00:17:02.760 I don't like using conspiracy theory.

00:17:05.660 After all, that's a phrase invented by the CIA.

00:17:07.980 But the essence of it is that they

00:17:10.920 use advanced holographic technology

00:17:13.980 that, who knows how it works, but

00:17:16.000 they create

00:17:17.940 a simulation

00:17:18.960 of

00:17:21.000 an alien invasion, or the second

00:17:23.780 coming of Christ, or, or, or

00:17:25.860 giant squid hits New York City

00:17:28.060 to

00:17:33.220 control and corral the population.

00:17:36.040 Maybe.

00:17:36.280 Is this that?

00:17:38.240 Well,

00:17:39.220 it's not just NASA

00:17:43.680 talking about it.

00:17:45.860 A lot of amateurs

00:17:47.060 are seeing it as well.

00:17:53.200 And

00:17:53.720 Professor Loeb

00:17:54.880 talking about it

00:17:55.860 potentially being

00:17:57.000 an alien craft

00:17:58.180 is

00:18:02.680 well, I mean, I don't know the guy's

00:18:05.460 whole resume.

00:18:06.800 He seems

00:18:07.500 at first blush

00:18:08.880 to be one of those

00:18:09.900 those 1.00

00:18:10.240 those crazy intellectuals 0.93

00:18:12.300 that loves exploring weird ideas. 0.62

00:18:14.820 And he's not saying it is

00:18:15.900 an alien craft.

00:18:16.840 He's just saying,

00:18:17.840 you know, if it

00:18:18.840 if there was an alien craft,

00:18:20.280 it would look a lot like this.

00:18:21.500 and if it is an alien craft,

00:18:33.040 that's been, well,

00:18:34.760 by all indications,

00:18:38.720 unless if it's suddenly,

00:18:40.600 unless if it warped here and put on a cloaking device,

00:18:43.320 it's been traveling for thousands of years.

00:18:45.540 Atlantis, it's been traveling for

00:18:47.940 longer

00:18:49.360 than

00:18:51.520 well, I don't know how long we've been around.

00:18:55.340 all indications are Atlantis

00:18:59.060 was a real place.

00:19:00.800 Probably a Bronze Age level civilization

00:19:03.140 that

00:19:03.820 when the

00:19:05.460 when the

00:19:06.880 what do they call it?

00:19:08.940 doesn't matter.

00:19:11.880 When the

00:19:12.220 the end of the Ice Age occurred,

00:19:14.820 Atlantis collapsed,

00:19:16.460 and the refugees

00:19:17.580 went

00:19:18.140 lots of places,

00:19:19.460 leaving

00:19:19.760 legends of these water people

00:19:21.480 that taught civilization.

00:19:22.660 Gobleki-Tepi

00:19:24.320 was likely

00:19:26.280 built by the

00:19:27.680 descendants of Atlantis.

00:19:29.440 At least that's

00:19:30.180 that's

00:19:30.560 that's a very

00:19:31.660 educated guess

00:19:33.220 based upon what

00:19:34.460 very little data we have.

00:19:37.620 What very little data we have

00:19:39.480 shows that the standard model

00:19:40.860 of

00:19:41.460 nothing but hunter-gatherers 0.90

00:19:43.500 and then

00:19:44.460 Ur and Babylon are built 0.98

00:19:46.480 is completely incorrect.

00:19:49.080 Gobleki-Tepi

00:19:49.680 completely throws that

00:19:50.900 on its head.

00:19:51.640 does not fit that model at all.

00:19:57.040 So I'm on the

00:19:58.240 the Atlantis side.

00:19:59.160 Who knows?

00:19:59.720 Maybe we had

00:20:00.380 flying cars

00:20:01.440 50,000 years ago.

00:20:09.340 Or maybe this is

00:20:10.520 just something

00:20:11.340 from the

00:20:12.440 very early days

00:20:14.800 of our galaxy

00:20:16.060 let alone our universe.

00:20:18.620 Actually it wouldn't be that early

00:20:19.660 in the universe

00:20:20.220 but it'd be early for our galaxy.

00:20:21.640 What if this is some sort of

00:20:23.820 proto

00:20:25.620 matter

00:20:26.960 composed of

00:20:27.700 different

00:20:28.480 different combinations

00:20:30.000 of elements

00:20:30.620 than we expect to find

00:20:31.900 in a light object?

00:20:33.200 I don't know man.

00:20:35.060 That's still pretty

00:20:36.120 darned interesting.

00:20:37.460 Or maybe it is some sort of 0.79

00:20:44.840 generation sleeper ship

00:20:46.120 that looked into the distance

00:20:48.660 saw a

00:20:50.640 habitable planet.

00:20:52.960 It could see

00:20:54.300 from the oxygen

00:20:55.160 in the atmosphere

00:20:56.400 anytime our planet

00:20:57.680 transited

00:20:58.360 the sun

00:20:59.600 that there's life

00:21:01.960 on that planet.

00:21:02.880 Not intelligent life

00:21:04.140 not that they knew

00:21:04.920 but life.

00:21:08.480 Maybe they're going to be

00:21:09.360 just as surprised

00:21:10.100 as us

00:21:10.680 when they made

00:21:12.320 a technological

00:21:12.900 civilization.

00:21:15.500 Lots of things

00:21:16.340 could get spicy.

00:21:19.320 I've got a feeling

00:21:20.040 2026 is going to be

00:21:21.320 a far out year.

00:21:25.600 Carpe futurum

00:21:26.580 Tene Trattitum

00:21:27.780 and try and be

00:21:31.560 open-minded

00:21:32.220 with the alien

00:21:34.360 visitors

00:21:34.960 should

00:21:35.660 they arrive.

00:21:38.040 Burini

00:21:38.360 out.

Leo D.M.J. Aurini - October 26, 2025

3I⧸Atlas： The Increasingly Weird Interstellar Visitor

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