Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Welcome back to the deep dive,
where we take these really dense stacks of scientific documents,
sometimes competing theories, even political stuff, and try to boil
it all down into something clear for you.
Speaker 2: And today we're definitely moving beyond let's say comfortable astronomy.
We were diving deep into a mystery that forces us
to look at an object in space and ask a
really really fundamental question. Is this thing natural or was
it actually made?
Speaker 1: That really is the core puzzle, isn't it? And it's
all centered on this pretty unique astronomical body. It's called
three I eight less. We're talking about something that could
be billions of years old, like seriously ancient, traveling through
interstellar space.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: But it's physical characteristics, it's chemical makeup. They seem to
just defy almost every definition we have for a natural
celestial object.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so our mission today is pretty comprehensive. We're navigating
through a lot of material analyses of hard scientific data,
commentary from some pretty high profile astronomers, and also some
critical takes on how the institutions are handling the information
or maybe not handling it. We need to unpack these
competing ideas. Is it ancient space junk basically or could
it be well an intelligent artifact. And we also have
to think about the implications, you know, what happens when
science sort of goes quiet on something this big.
Speaker 1: And to really anchor this whole conversation, we absolutely have
to start with the fact that she kind of blew
the scientific doors off this whole mystery. The object's core
chemical signature. The sources we're looking at are pretty definitive.
Here ATLA has what they call an off scale nickel
content off scale, yeah, and critically almost zero iron mixed
in with it.
Speaker 2: And that combination high nickel low iron, that's the non
negotiable paradox here in the universes, we understand it. I mean,
iron and nickel they're cosmic best friends. They form together
in stars, exploding in supernovas. You find them combined in meteorites.
The chondritic ones, especially the sync together to form the
cores of planets and asteroids. Because they're heavy and chemically similar.
Speaker 1: They like each other chemically speaking, exactly.
Speaker 2: They're cidophiles, iron loving. So the sources we've looked at
they really hammer this point home. This specific ratio loads
of nickel, hardly any iron that's not some random cosmic accident,
not naturally, it's an alloy, a specific one. It has
the unmistakable fingerprint of well industrial manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So whether the manufacturing happened you know, down
the street last year or in some galaxy far far away,
seven billion years ago, the implication is the same. This
stuff needs intention, it requires intelligence, some kind of process.
Speaker 2: That's the core implication. It sets a pretty wild stage
for the rest of this deep dive, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: It really does. Okay, So let's start where the astronomers did.
Just looking at it, the physical behavior. What did we
actually see? There was observational data, particularly gathered by observers
over in Spain, that noted something really peculiar happened. Three
i e. Elass seemed to lose its tail, you know,
the classic comet tail after it's swung around the Sun.
Speaker 2: And that's significant obviously, because a tail is the defining
feature of a comet visually speaking. Anyway, it's the proof
you're seeing that frozen stuff water ice CO two methane
is heating up and turning straight into gas, sublimating because
of the sun.
Speaker 1: So if an object is called a comet, you expect
that tail. It should be outgassing like that consistently. Yeah,
So logically, then if the tail disappears, maybe it stops
being a comet, or at least you question the classification.
But this is exactly where the scientific story starts to
get complicated, factored.
Speaker 2: Maybe. Yeah, you see this split right away. We see
experts quoted in our source material sum insisting, oh, despite that,
it still looks like an ordinary comet, or it behaves
like an ordinary comet, trying to keep it in the
box pretty much, while others are pointing directly at that
missing tail and also its weird path and especially the chemistry,
and they're basically saying, hang on, this thing is not
what it seems. It might be something else in disguise.
Speaker 1: What strikes me there is the kind of immediate rush
to normalize the weirdness. You know, if your observation no
tail contradicts the definition, comments have tails. The standard scientific
approach is, well, maybe we need to rethink the definition
or the classification, reclassify it. But instead we see this
almost philosophical pushback, an effort to hang onto the comet
label and just treat the missing tail or, the weird
chemistry as oh, just a couple of quirky features well,
eccentricities exactly, rather than potentially paradigm shifting evidence. It kind
of speaks to that inertia that can exist sometimes in
big scientific fields. It's hard to change course.
Speaker 2: It is. It's the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence mantra.
But sometimes maybe the evidence is extraordinary and the resistance
comes from not wanting to accept the claim.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to the deeper anomaly, the one
tied to its path through space, it's trajectory, and this
incredible age estimate being widely talked about is that three
ad lass is old, like really old, potentially seven billion years.
Speaker 2: Seven billion, which you have to realize that puts it
way outside the typical age for comets from our own
solar system. Our local comets usually date back maybe three
four billion years to the formation of the Sun and planets.
Speaker 1: So this thing is potentially almost twice as old as
our entile solar system.
Speaker 2: That's the implication and figuring out such an extreme age.
It relies heavily on orbital mechanics. You look at its path,
this hyperbolic trajectory, meaning it's not bound.
Speaker 1: To our Sun, it's just passing through.
Speaker 2: Exactly speed the angle it came in at. It all
suggests an origin way, way outside the Sun's gravitational reach
over the vast history of the galaxy. The math points
to something that's been traveling for just immense stretches of time,
maybe even before the Sun itself.
Speaker 1: Formed, which is mind bending in itself. But this naturally
leads to a really thought provoking, almost and I don't know,
paranoid counter argument that some of the sources bring up.
If the object's identity its naturalness, hinges so much on
its trajectory implying this extreme age, can we actually trust
that trajectory tells the whole story?
Speaker 2: And this is where we absolutely have to engage in
some deep critical thinking. Look, if we entertain the possibility,
just for a moment, that an advanced intelligent civilization exists
and can cross interstellar space.
Speaker 1: Which is the premise if it's manufactured.
Speaker 2: Right precisely, then we also have to accept they'd likely
have an incredibly advanced understanding of physics, including orbital mechanics,
far better than ours probably. Ok So the possibility exists
theoretically that such a civilization could intentionally design an object
send it out on a very specific path, a hyperbolic
trajectory that mathematically makes us believe it's seven billion years old,
and maybe it isn't.
Speaker 1: Wow like cosmic camouflage exactly.
Speaker 2: It would be a masterful deception, design the flight path
to mimic ancient origin, knowing that's the first thing we'd
look at to try and understand it.
Speaker 1: That's breathtaking. Actually, it forces you to realize that if
you're dealing with potential alien intelligence, you maybe can't take
any data point at face value. The moment you suspect
it's manufactured, its flight path could be a deliberate clue,
or it could be deliberate misdirection.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it shifts the whole discussion from just astronomy observing
natural paths to potentially deciphering intentional engineering. The age calculated
from the trajectory. It provides the perfect cover story, doesn't
It makes it seem natural, ancient, nothing to see here.
A civilization capable of building it would know that trajectory
is the key to fooling us.
Speaker 1: It's a huge intellectual challenge to the very definition of
natural history. In space.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: And this whole intellectual puzzle brings us right back to
the one piece of data that can't really be faked
by just plotting a clever course, the chemical paradox itself.
We need to really focus on this nickel anomaly again.
High nickel almost zero iron. Why is that just so
fundamentally non natural?
Speaker 2: Okay, let's break down the chemistry a bit for everyone listening.
Natural processes, mainly when planets are asteroids form and differentiate
their cores, it relies on gravity and temperature. Iron and nickel,
as we set, are chemically similar cybrophiles.
Speaker 1: Right, iron loving, They.
Speaker 2: Naturally like to hang out together. They're heavy, so they
tend to sync together under gravity to form metallic cores
inside rocky bodies. So when we analyze a natural space rock,
like a metallic meteorite that's a piece of one of
those cores, it's overwhelmingly iron. Nickel typically makes up maybe
five percent, sometimes up to twenty percent of the total mass.
Speaker 1: So they're basically inseparable in any natural cosmic formation process.
Speaker 2: We know pretty much inseparable in those ratios. Yeah, nature
mixes them, it doesn't typically separate them cleanly on a
large scale.
Speaker 1: So for three I eight loss, we've got this off
scale nickel, extremely high concentration, yet the iron, its usual
cosmic boddy is essentially missing in action.
Speaker 2: That is the industrial giveaway, that's the flag. To achieve
that kind of separation, to concentrate the nickels so purely
while getting rid of almost all the iron, it requires
enormous amounts of energy and really complex chemical processing.
Speaker 1: Like what we do on Earth, exactly like.
Speaker 2: What humans do, specialized smelting techniques, maybe hydrometallurgical processes, things
we use to create specific high performance alloys, alloys known
for resistant corrosion or for extreme strength, or specific magnetic properties.
Speaker 1: Things nature doesn't just cook up random.
Speaker 2: Nature has no known mechanism to achieve that kind of
purity and separation on a macroscopic scale. Look, if you
find a nugget of pure gold, okay, maybe that form
naturally through geological processes. But if you find a chunk
of high grade, specific ratio titanium steel alloy that was
made this high nickel low iron material from atl As,
it falls squarely into that made category based.
Speaker 1: On everything we know, Okay, And this is where the
conversation seems to pivot towards well, how this information is
being shared or not shared. I noticed the source material
includes a really sharp critique about how some mainstream astronomy
groups are talking about this finding, or maybe not talking
about it fully. Yes, they'll mention the object has nickel
iron content, maybe in a press release or summary, and
then they just stop.
Speaker 2: That is well, it's semantic manipulation, isn't it ye, Or
at least it's incredibly misleading by omission. Technically, yes, it
contains nickel and presumably trace amounts of iron somewhere, so
saying nickel iron content isn't an out right lie.
Speaker 1: But it's not the whole truth.
Speaker 2: Not even close. It's profoundly misleading because it makes it
sound like any old space rock, like a typical meteorite fragment.
It satisfies that public expectation of normalcy, you know, oh,
nickel and iron, Yeah, rocks.
Speaker 1: Have that well, completely leaving out the crucial qualifier, the ratio,
the fact that it's almost all nickel and almost no iron.
That's the part that screams industry exactly.
Speaker 2: Omitting that specific unnatural ratio allows the conventional it's just
a weird comet narrative to survive unchallenged in the public mind.
Speaker 1: It effectively steers people directly toward the ordinary comet box,
doesn't it It lets them ignore the most powerful piece
of physical evidence that suggested something entirely different.
Speaker 2: It really does, And at that point it stops being
purely a scientific discussion, you know, it becomes a lesson
in how institutions can potentially control a narrative through careful
wording and omission. That industrial fingerprint, the alloy. It's the
fact that refuses to be ignored if you look closely.
Speaker 1: And yet it's the fact that seems to be most
consistently glossed over or downplayed in the public messaging we're
seeing described.
Speaker 2: That seems to be the case according to these analyses.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got this industrial alloy signature right at
the heart of the mystery that inevitably leads to a
clash of explanations. Let's start with the one that seems
designed to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground,
the accumulated garbage theory. This seems to be the dominant
conventional narrative trying to explain the weird chemistry.
Speaker 2: Right The core argument on the surface sounds kind of
plausible if you don't think too hard about it, Because
the object is claimed to be seven billion years.
Speaker 1: Old, that incredibly long time.
Speaker 2: Frame exactly, it's had supposedly plenty of time eons really
to just sort of sweep up garbage gases in different
elements as it drifted through interstellar maybe even intergalactic space.
And this random collection process over billions of years somehow
explains the bizarre chemical mix we see, including the nickel alloy.
Speaker 1: But I mean, when you start to apply even a
little bit of logical rigor or just basic chemistry and physics,
that argument seems to well, it seems to fall apart
pretty quickly into mathematical improbability, doesn't.
Speaker 2: It really does. We're not talking about just a random
dusting of accumulated cosmic fluff here. We're talking about finding
a material composition that perfectly mimics a specific, known type
of industrially produced alloy.
Speaker 1: It's not just weird stuff. It's weird stuff that looks
exactly like something we make in a factory.
Speaker 2: Precisely, we need to really dismantle this trash accumulation idea
for a second. Think about interstellar space it's incredibly empty,
vastly empty. Even over billions and billions of years. The
amount of material an object would sweep up is tiny,
and critically that material would be random dust, grains, individual
atoms of gas, hydrogen, helium, maybe some heavier elements from
stellar winds or supernovae. Accumulating that random stuff would result
in a chemically chaotic, mixed up, heterogeneous surface layer, a jumble,
A jumble exactly. It would not magically sort itself out
into a cohesive, refined metallic alloy with a very specific,
unnatural ratio of heinnickel to almost no iron.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels like saying you could throw I don't know,
random electronic components into a giant cosmic wash machine for
seven billion years and what comes out is a perfectly assembled,
functioning smartphone.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty good analogy. Actually, it defies the basic
laws of probability when it comes to spontaneous chemical refinement
and organization on that scale. Nature tends towards entropy, towards
mixing things up, not towards creating highly refined, specific alloy
is from random inputs.
Speaker 1: Over time, So it doesn't hold up chemically.
Speaker 2: Not really. Plus, think about it. If this object truly
formed from, say, a single star system seven billion years ago,
the bulk of its internal composition should reflect the chemistry
of that original system. It should be relatively homogeneous inside
based on its origin. The idea that only random surface
accumulation perfectly produced the exact signature of industrial smelting is well,
it seems like a bigger scientific miracle than just accepting
the possibility the object was built that way in.
Speaker 1: The first place, and the source material we looked at
highlights something else interesting here. The sort of strategic timing
of this garbage argument. They argue, it's a relatively new explanation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a key point, mixtutique.
Speaker 1: It was apparently rolled out mainly after the previous explanation,
which was just, oh, it's weird because it came from
a different star system, failed to really convince people, especially
when this specific chemical data, that nickel ratio became clearer.
Speaker 2: It creates the depression of a moving target, doesn't it. First,
the anomaly is just because it's intercellar, Okay, fine, But
then the specific chemistry comes out and that's too weird,
So the explanation shifts. Okay, okay, it's not just from
another star. It's actually super ancient, seven billion years old,
and that's why it's weird to collected trash.
Speaker 1: The explanation keeps getting tweaked to fit the desired conclusion,
which seems to be it must be natural exactly.
Speaker 2: Rather than letting the primary data of the industrial alloy
signature lead the hypothesis, the source material argues quite forcefully.
I think that calling this accumulated trash theory scientific is
kind of manipulative, because at its core it's fundamentally just
a freaking guess. As one's source part. It lacks any
real plausible physical mechanism to back it up. How does
random dust become a specific alloy? No one explains that part.
Speaker 1: So this inherent weakness, this almost illogical nature of the
mainstream explanation, it naturally gives a lot more weight to
the counter theory, doesn't it. The alien or industrial hypothesis.
This is the idea often linked with folks like avil
Bit Harvard, suggesting three acles isn't just a random chunk
of rock or ice. It's potentially extraterrestrial technology, maybe a
piece of debris from some ancient spacecraft, or maybe even
the craft itself or a probe, And.
Speaker 2: The contrast between the two explanations is really illuminating when
you put them side by side. We're basically asked to
choose between two big leaves of faith. One believe that
random cosmic chaos, acting over immense time, somehow accidentally creates
a perfect industrial alloy signature through sheer chance accumulation.
Speaker 1: The cosmic washing machine miracle pretty much.
Speaker 2: Or two believe that the object which looks chemically identical
to an intentional industrial alloy, actually is an intentional industrial
alloy created by some civilization we haven't met yet, give
it the direct physical evidence the alloy itself. The second hypothesis,
while obviously profound in its implications, actually feels far less
scientifically strained, doesn't it, Even though it requires a huge paradigm.
Speaker 1: Shift in our thinking, it aligns better with the actual
physical sample. Yeah. The source material is quite pointed about
this perceived double standard too. It critiques why the garbage
theory gets treated with the sort of scientific dignity It
gets discussed seriously in papers, even though it relies on
this unproven, mathematically dubious mechanism, while the industrial theory, which
actually matches the chemical evidence directly often gets dismissed out
of hand, as you know sensationalist sci fi.
Speaker 2: It really comes down to the burden of proof and
maybe how that burden is being applied unevenly here, arguably
based only on the material science evidence of the alloy,
the artificial origin hypothesis should almost be the default the
null hypothesis.
Speaker 1: Because it matches the observation.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and the burden should be on proving a natural
mechanism that could replicate that specific industrial signature. Instead, it
feels like the establishment is scrambling to invent ever more exotic,
frankly quite speculative of natural mechanisms just to avoid the
industrial conclusion.
Speaker 1: This brings us to a really crucial point about speculation itself,
especially in science, when we talk about these potentially world
changing ideas. The sources note that thinkers like Avi Loeb,
even while proposing the artifact idea, have been surprisingly disciplined
about it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's sportant.
Speaker 1: Reportedly, low upstated his own confidence level in the industrial
hypothesis was actually quite low, maybe only a four on
a scale of one to.
Speaker 2: Ten, and that kind of transparency is absolutely essential for
scientific integrity, especially when you're dealing with high stake speculation
like this. Scientists have a profound responsibility, I think, to
communicate uncertainty clearly the moment a speculative guess gets presented
as a solid hypothesis without strong statistical backing or clear caveats.
The public discourse really suffers. By stating a confidence level,
say forty percent, low does something important. He anchors his.
Speaker 1: Speculation, he manages expectations exactly.
Speaker 2: He's effect saying, Look, the data strongly suggests this possibility,
it points in this direction, but I don't have definitive
proof yet. Here's how confident I am based on current evidence.
Speaker 1: And that forty percent confidence, even if low, feels much
more valuable and honest than say, a blanket assurance of
one hundred percent certainty in the space garbage theory, which
seems to have its own huge uncertainties.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And the sources point out this dual risk, right,
If you overstate the alien artifact case without proof, yeah,
you could potentially spark panic, you could lose scientific credibility
if you're wrong. That's a real concern.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, if you actively suppress or
dilute the raw data, like maybe downplaying the nickel ratio
or withholding images, you create an arguably even more toxic environment.
You create an information.
Speaker 1: Vacuum, and nature of whrrores of vacuum and.
Speaker 2: Speculation loves one. That vacuum gets filled with the most
reckless speculation, conspiracy theories, and maybe worst of all, it
breeds deep corrosive public distrust in scientific institutions.
Speaker 1: It feels like an impossible tightrope to walk, it really does.
Speaker 2: But transparency, even if it's transparency about uncertainty, seems like
the only ethical path forward in the long run.
Speaker 1: And this whole issue, this vacuum of trust and the
potential for suppressed data, it leads directly into the next
major theme. We need to tackle the ongoing questions about
institutional secrecy surrounding three ayatlas. Yeah, let's talk about the
elephant in the room, or maybe the lack of photos
of the elephant in the room. The sources highlight this
consistent issue, the withholding of updated imagery and maybe other
data on three aatlas, specifically from major US institutions like NASA.
We're hearing about observations from Spain, sure, but where's the
really high resolution evidence we'd expect from NASA's assets.
Speaker 2: This is definitely a major area of concern that's documented
in the source material we reviewed. You had heard mention
of political figures getting involved, like Representative Annapauline Luna, apparently
raising questions about why this data isn't being released right
and public excuse. The reason being given for not sharing
new images is apparently the infamous government shut down argument.
Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, the old we can't do anything because the
government's shut down line.
Speaker 2: Up pretty much. The claim is that operations including data
sharing protocols are suspended until Congress gets its funding sorted out.
Speaker 1: Okay, But the sources we looked at are rightly pretty
skeptical about that excuse, aren't they. They point out that
the timing just doesn't seem to add up exactly.
Speaker 2: They specifically cite the example of images from the Psyche probe. Now,
Psyche is a NASA emission specifically going to a metal
rich asteroid, so it's relevant to understanding metallic objects in space, okay,
And the claim is that images from Psyche were allegedly
being withheld a full month before the government shut down
even started.
Speaker 1: So the shutdown becomes a convenient retroactive excuse.
Speaker 2: Perhaps that timing discrepancy certainly raises that possibility, doesn't it.
It suggests that the decision to hold back data might
not just be a temporary beerocratic hurdle tied to funding issues.
It could be a more systemic choice about information control.
Speaker 1: A policy, not just a byproduct of dysfunction.
Speaker 2: Potentially, and the source material specifically mentions two key data
sets that people are really keen to see, which seem
to be missing in action. First, just updated high quality
images of three il lass itself from various NAS facilities
or telescopes.
Speaker 1: Right, what does it look like now?
Speaker 2: And second pictures that might have been captured by the
high rise camera that's on the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter, the MRO.
Apparently that data gets processed and stored or at least
archived at Arizona University.
Speaker 1: Okay for listeners who might not know, why is that
high rise camera data potentially so critical here? What could
it show?
Speaker 2: Well? Mro's high rise camera is exactly what the name suggests,
high resolution imaging science experiment. It's incredibly powerful. It orbits Mars,
but it can potentially observe other objects too, depending on
orbital alignments, and its resolution is phenomenal, capable of seeing
features down to maybe thirty centimeters about a foot across.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's detailed.
Speaker 2: Extremely detailed. So that level of resolution is crucial if
you want to move beyond just spectroscopy just figuring out
the chemical composition like the nickel alloy, and actually get
into structural analysis.
Speaker 1: What does the object physically look like up close exactly?
Speaker 2: Is three it less just a smooth monolithic chunk, Does
it have sharp edges? Is it geometrically regular in some way?
Or conversely, is it highly fragmented, maybe showing stress fractures
from its journey or its pass around the sun. The
high rise data could potentially reveal that kind of detail.
Speaker 1: It might show surface features, textures, maybe even things that
look like well, antenna or panels if we're.
Speaker 2: Talking artifacts theoretically, yes, yeah, Or it could show definitive
proof of fragmentation that supports the breaking up comet idea.
It could potentially confirm or deny the industrial appearance that
the aloe suggests, seeing structural uniformity or specific types of
irregularities that would be huge. So hiding that specific highlution
visual evidence it only deepens the mystery and fuels speculation.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and what's the ultimate consequence of this kind of secrecy?
According to the sources, they argue pretty compellingly. I thought
that withholding information, even if it's just you know, a
sheet of paper with data or an image, it just
becomes counterproductive in the end, especially when the subject matter
is this inherently fascinating to people.
Speaker 2: Totally counterproductive. Look, the impulse from an institutional perspective may
be government or military to manage potential panic by controlling
sensitive information. It's understandable, right, you don't want mass hysteria,
see the logic, But the execution here seems flawed, especially
in today's world, in the age of instant global communication,
the Internet, social media, trying to hide data on something
this significant just creates an information vacuum, and that vacuum doesn't.
Speaker 1: Stay empty for long, No, it gets filled instantly.
Speaker 2: It gets filled instantly with the wildest possible speculation. Instead
of being reassured by calm official channels providing facts, the
public often assumes the worst. Either the object is truly
dangerous and they're hiding it, or the government has definitive
proof of alien life and they're covering that.
Speaker 1: Up, So the secrecy breeds more fear and distrust than
the truth might have done.
Speaker 2: Arguably, yes, yeah, it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy of distrust.
If the object really is harmless, which is the official
line we're hearing about.
Speaker 1: Its trajectory, right, it's far away.
Speaker 2: Then what do they actually have to lose by releasing
the facts, the images, the full spectral data. The public
desire for transparency, just for the raw data so people
can feel they understand the situation themselves. It's overwhelming. Secrecy
just signals that there is something worth hiding.
Speaker 1: And this whole control effort it seems clearly rooted in
that threat assessment aspect. They need to decouple the legitimate
scientific weirdness from sensationalist War of the world's type fears.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and that's reflected in how it's being handled officially
to some extent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sources confirm that three il US has been
formally integrated into the International Asteroid Warning Network, which admittedly
sounds pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2: It does sound ominous, like something from a disaster movie,
but the context is important. That network tracks anything that
comes near Earth's orbit basically, and the actual data associated
with that tracking provides strong reassurance in this case.
Speaker 1: Okay, what did the numbers say?
Speaker 2: The calculations confirmed there was really no reason for immediate
concern regarding impact. The closes the object was predicted to
approach Earth was still incredibly far away. Roughly one hundred
and sixty seven million miles that was expected around late December.
Speaker 1: Of the year was observed one hundred and sixty seven
million miles. Okay, that's that's not exactly skimming the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Not even close. It's well over one and a half
times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. So
the conclusion from the trajectory data is firm. The object
is far too distant to endanger Earth or pose any
kind of physical collision.
Speaker 1: Threat, which allows the experts quite reasonably to dismiss those
Hollywood movie set fears of imminent doom. Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2: But even with that physical threat assessment being low, those
other anomalies, the chemistry, the missing tail, they still remain,
and one of the most critical remaining puzzles is tied
to its actual motion through space.
Speaker 1: Ah yes, the acceleration right.
Speaker 2: So moving on from the chemistry and the secrecy issues,
we have to address the object's dynamic behavior, it's movement.
The trajectory suggested it was incredibly old, okay, But then
a subsequent finding emerge that was maybe even more challenging
to the purely natural explanation. What was that the object
seemed to be speeding up just a little bit as
it went around the sun. It showed non gravitational acceleration.
Speaker 1: Okay, And this is where the critique in the source
material really seemed to hit home for me, because this
slight acceleration apparently forced a kind of scientific backtrack or
rapid qualification. That's right, because previously a prominent scientific viewpoint,
maybe even the versus hint from some of the very
experts now speaking cautiously, had sort of established a condition.
They had said, look, if an object like Umumua or
something similar accelerated without an obvious gravitational reason, like a
close pass by a planet, that would be a strong
indicator of intelligent origin. It would signal some kind of
propulsion system was active.
Speaker 2: Yeah, non gravitational acceleration was framed as a key potential
biosignature or technosignature, I should say.
Speaker 1: So. The observation that three iteal Did show some slight acceleration.
It created this huge internal conflict for the mainstream narrative,
didn't it. They had, in a way set the very
condition for identifying an intelligent artifact.
Speaker 2: And then this object met the condition exactly.
Speaker 1: So this slight speed increase immediately required a very rapid qualification,
maybe even a retraction of the strength of that previous statement.
It turned what could have been a defining characteristic into well,
maybe just a coincidence, right.
Speaker 2: The narrative had to pivot quickly to neutralize the implication.
Speaker 1: So two the main explanations were quickly put forward for
this slight increase in speed. Both aims squarely at keeping
it in the natural causes category.
Speaker 2: Correct. The first and the most commonly cited one is
natural causes specifically outgassing. We need to be clear what
that means in this context, like.
Speaker 1: A comet, but maybe unevenly.
Speaker 2: Exactly As a comet or even an asteroid with some
volatile ices tracked inside, gets near the Sun, it heats
up the volatile material on the sun facing side, turns
into gas, and vents off. If this venting isn't perfectly
uniformal around like.
Speaker 1: Little jets firing off randomly.
Speaker 2: Precisely, if it happens more strongly in one direction than others,
it acts like tiny uncontrolled rocket thrusters. It can produce
a slight push, a non gravitational acceleration. This mechanism is
known and observed in regular commets. So it's a plausible
natural explanation.
Speaker 1: Okay, plausible, And the second explanation offered well, the.
Speaker 2: Second explanation is the one they were trying to avoid
intelligent guidance. The idea that the acceleration, however slight, is deliberate.
It suggests an engine, maybe low thrust, ion drive or
some form of controlled manipulation is occurring, similar perhaps to
how our own engineers use tiny thrust or burns to
make minute course corrections for deep space probes like Voyager
or New Horizons.
Speaker 1: Right, so you have natural random jets versus controlled intentional thrust.
Speaker 2: And the official qualification was immediately applied very strongly. While
acceleration is certainly a factor, a condition that can guide
thinking towards intelligent life, it is definitively not a smoking gun.
It's not definitive proof. Why not, precisely because it could
be plausibly explained at least qualitatively by the known natural
forces of outcasting. So the scientific narrative successfully minimized the
anomaly's significance by demonstrating that a non natural mechanism could
theoretically produce the observed effect.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense from a strictly conservative scientific standpoint.
You know, Okham's razor. If you can explain it naturally,
even if it feels a bit convenient, you generally should
prefer that explanation over invoking alien.
Speaker 2: That's the standard approach.
Speaker 1: Yes, but given the sheer strength of that other anomaly,
the industrial nickel alloy, this acceleration finding, even if explainable
by outgassing, it feels like yet another piece of data
piling up on the artificial side of the ledger, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very fair point. It might not
be the smoking gun all by itself, especially if outgassing
is possible, but when you combine it with the highly
anomalous chemistry, it certainly adds to the cumulative weight of
evidence suggesting something non natural is going on. It's maybe
not the smoking gun, but it's definitely more ammunition for
that hypothesis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as to the pattern.
Speaker 2: It is exactly that cumulative evidence, but the conservative mainstream
scientific approach often requires definitive, irrefutable, singular proof before accepting
such an extraordinary claim. So this really bigs the question
that the sources grapple with. What would constitute that ultimate
irrefutable smoking gun. What would it take to convince the
scientific consensus that an object like this is of alien origin?
Speaker 1: And the answer usually offered, according to the material, is
pretty specific.
Speaker 2: Isn't it very specific? The answer is typically communication. The
object would need to actively signal us. It would need
to phone home, so to speak, or transmit data using
a language we could recognize as artificial and intelligent.
Speaker 1: Like what radio waves lasers perhaps, or maybe using a
universally understandable language like mathematics or fundamental physics constants what
one source rather poetically called a numerous code, something clearly
non random patterned information rich.
Speaker 2: So basically, it needs to talk to us. That seems
to be the prevailing standard for definitive proof. It establishes
an incredibly high bar for confirmation, doesn't it. It requires
the artifact not only to exist and be detectably artificial
in its makeup or motion, but it also has to
actively seek interaction with us, it has to prove its
intelligence through deliberate communication.
Speaker 1: Which means if it's just a passive piece of debris,
however obviously manufactured it might.
Speaker 2: Look, then the system seems designed to default back to
finding some kind of natural explanation, however contrived. It might
feel like the outgassing for acceleration or the space garbage
for the alloy.
Speaker 1: Okay, and this is where the source material introduces what
I thought was its most powerful and elegant philosophical critique
of that high standard. It uses the analogy of the
voyager probe.
Speaker 2: Yes, that analogy is really critical because it forces us
to confront our own actions and definitions. Think about the
Voyager one and two pobes. They are arguably our most famous,
most enduring, definitely indstriately manufactured artifacts that we ourselves have
sent out into interstellar.
Speaker 1: Space, carrying the Golden Record and all that exactly.
Speaker 2: Now, in probably just a few more years, NASA expects
to lose all ability to command or even receive data
from them. Their power sources are fading. They will effectively
become silent, non communicating ghost probes drifting through the void. Okay, Now,
imagine fast forward maybe a million years, some advanced alien
civilization exploring the galaxy encounters one of these silent voyager
probes tumbling through space.
Speaker 1: What would they conclude, Well, they'd instantly know it was artificial, right,
It's got metal antennas, instruments that golden record its screams, manufacturing.
Speaker 2: Precisely, they would instantly and definitively recognize it as an
alien artifact. Why because the physical evidence of its industrial
creation is completely obvious, the specific materials, the complex structure,
the components. It's clearly not natural, and humans are by
definition aliens to them. And here's the crucial point the
analogy makes. That voyager probe does not need to start
transmitting mathematical sequences or phone home to its long dead
controllers on Earth for that alien civilization to recognize it
as technology. It's recognized as technology because it is visibly
fabricated and designed.
Speaker 1: Its physical nature is enough.
Speaker 2: Its physical nature is the proof. So the source uses
this to directly challenge the current astronomical standard being applied
to things like three iyatlaws. If we ourselves create and
send out silent, non communicating, yet obviously industrial artifacts, why
do we demand a much higher communication based standard before
we'll even consider recognizing an object like three autlaws as
potentially non natural despite its own industrial chemical signature.
Speaker 1: It really exposes a potential flaw in the logic, doesn't it.
It suggests that it must communicate requirement. Isn't really a
neutral scientific measure of intelligence or artificiality. Maybe it's more
like a philosophical defense mechanism.
Speaker 2: That's the implication, a way to ensure we never actually
have to confront the reality of finding an alien artifact
unless it literally forces the issue by initiating contact. Otherwise
we can always find a way to rationalize it away.
Oh it's just outgassing. Oh it's just space trash. Oh
it's just weird geology from another star. Wow.
Speaker 1: That voyager analogy really does powerfully dismantle the communication only standard.
When you think it through.
Speaker 2: It makes you question the criteria we're setting definitely. So
if we look back over this whole sequence of events
and explanations surrounding three ilis, we can pretty clearly map
out how the scientific narrative has shifted over time, and
it really feels like a narrative defined by continuous adjustment
and maybe even defensiveness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the timeline seems to go something like this based
on the sources. Step one. Huh, this object is weird.
It must be because it came from a different star system.
That explains its oddities.
Speaker 2: Okay, initial deflection.
Speaker 1: Get two. Whoops, Wait, the chemistry is really weird. Just
saying different star system isn't enough. Okay, new theory. It's
not just from another star. It's incredibly ancient, seven billion
years old.
Speaker 2: Right, introduce extreme age.
Speaker 1: Step three, and that extreme age explains its strange composition
because it had all that time to accumulate random space
trash that just coincidentally happened to for a perfect industrial
nickel alloy.
Speaker 2: The garbage theory arrives Step four.
Speaker 1: Oh, and by the way, that little bit of acceleration
we detected, don't worry about that. That's definitely just natural
outgassing like a leaky commet, definitely not alien propulsion.
Speaker 2: Move along, minimize the suspicious motion.
Speaker 1: And finally, step five, and most importantly for public messaging,
there is absolutely no danger. It's super far away, nothing
to worry about. Everything is fine, it's probably natural.
Speaker 2: Reassure and normalize. It's quite a progression when you lay
it out like that. It illustrates a clear commitment. It
seems to maintaining the status quo explanation that it must
be natural, even as the anomalies pile up.
Speaker 1: And what makes this critique particularly interesting, maybe even poignant,
is how the source material juxtaposes this seemingly rigid, defensive
narrative with a deep seated respect for the main scientist,
often commenting on this.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's no sense of attacking the individual, but rather
questioning the current posture.
Speaker 1: Right, there's this respect, but it's placed right alongside a
sharp observation that the current very conservative answers being given
about three a Atlas don't seem to match the tone
or content of previous, much broader, more philosophical conversations that
the same scientist has had in the past about the
sheer possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Speaker 2: Right, the critique points to a perceived inconsistency.
Speaker 1: I recall the source materials, specifically bringing up the scientist's
past use of really profound, open minded analogies like the
famous one about the fish living in a lake.
Speaker 2: Yes, the fish in the lake analogy very potent one
for thinking about unknown realities. The idea is fish living
in a lake are only aware of their reality the water,
the lakebed, other fish, maybe some weeds, two dimensions of
movement basically within the water.
Speaker 1: Their whole world is the lake exactly.
Speaker 2: They're completely, utterly unaware of the entirely different reality existing
just inches above the surface of the water, the reality
of air, sunlight, trees, land, technology, maybe humans walking by
the shore.
Speaker 1: Different dimensions, different physics.
Speaker 2: Almost right. And the scientist apparently use this analogy brilliantly
in the past to our you that advanced alien civilizations
might exist in dimensions, or operate using technologies, or exist
on levels of reality that we simply cannot perceive or
interact with using our current scientific instruments. They could be
all around us metaphorically speaking, but effectively invisible to us,
just like the world above the water is invisible to
the fish.
Speaker 1: That's a demonstration of incredible intellectual openness, a willingness to
explore really radical, mind bending possibilities about the nature of
reality in life. It absolutely is, And that philosophical openness
contrasts so sharply with the highly conservative, almost restrictive, and
defensive explanations now being given for three alas an object
whose physical properties, especially that industrial alloy, are practically screaming
artificial based on our current understanding.
Speaker 2: That's the core of the critique presented in the source.
It's pointing out what seems like a dramatic change in posture,
a shift in perspective. The scientists, who is previously comfortable
discussing high dimensions and potentially unperceivable alien life, is now
rigidly insisting that this bizarre high nickel low iron object
must just be random space garbage accumulated over eons.
Speaker 1: The two stances feel difficult to reconcile.
Speaker 2: They do feel dissonant, and this apparent rapid shift in
tone in the type of explanation offered leads directly to
the source's most critical and perhaps most speculative conclusion, which
is the suggestion, and it is presented as speculation that
the commentator the scientist might be scripting, or worse scripted,
that maybe the answers being given now are intentionally designed
to align with a predetermined mainstream conservative.
Speaker 1: Narrative, potentially to avoid institutional blowback or maybe to prevent
public panic.
Speaker 2: Those are the implied motivations. Yes, it's a very strong
claim suggesting external pressure or self censorship might be shaping
the public scientific discourse on this object.
Speaker 1: It's a powerful conclusion, definitely something we have to handle carefully,
as you say, But it does speak to the immense
pressure institutions and the scientists within them must feel when
faced with something potentially paradigm shattering.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the institution, whether it's NASA or academia or government,
faces a profound dilemma, doesn't it. Do they risk potentially
widespread public panic, maybe ridicule, maybe destabilization by coming out
and confirming the existence of a clearly industrial object of
unknown origin that also shows non gravitational acceleration.
Speaker 1: That sounds like the plot of a movie, and maybe
not one with a happy ending, right, Or do.
Speaker 2: They choose option B manage the narrative, release an explanation
however scientifically strained or improbable it might seem under scrutiny
that effectively removes all immediate fear and classifies the object
as natural but weird.
Speaker 1: It's a classic control versus chaos scenario. But let's just
play Devil's advocate for a second here. Imagine they did
release everything crystal clear MRO photos showing I don't know,
rivets and seams, confirmation of the exact industrial alloy speck.
Wouldn't that cause the exact public hysteria and chaos that
these institutions are presumably trying to prevent? In that context,
is censorship or at least careful narrative control truly worse
than potentially triggering mass fear or a complete collapse of
public trust in normalcy?
Speaker 2: That is the absolute core tension. Isn't It's a genuine
ethical and practical dilemma. The source material we looked at
argues quite strongly that while the impulse to prevent panic
is understandable, even valid, the current behavior the pattern withholding
high res data using questionable excuses like the shutdown, constantly
shifting the natural explanation to fit new weirdness is fundamentally
damaging trust in the long run.
Speaker 1: Because it looks like a cover up, even if it
isn't intended that way.
Speaker 2: Exactly when transparency is abandoned, the public doesn't necessarily gain calm.
Often they gain paranoia. Instead. The institutions might end up
losing credibility anyway, without actually achieving their goal of maintaining
public order. Because people sense something as being hidden, the
cure might be worse than the disease.
Speaker 1: So when the hard data is kept under wraps, and
the scientific story keeps morphing to explain away each new anomaly.
The public is left with really nothing else to go
on but those behavioral cues. We see the shifting explanations,
the secrecy, the defensive posture of the experts, and.
Speaker 2: People notice that disconnect. They see the incredible nature of
the reported data points, the alloy, the acceleration, and they
compare it to the almost boring, normalized official explanation being offered,
and that disparity, that gap is where trust erodes and
speculation flourishes. Yeah. Ultimately, the takeaway here seems to be
that the challenge posed by three eyelts isn't just about
astronomical detection or analysis. It's become a crisis almost in
scientific communication and transparency. It's exposed the vulnerabilities and the
difficult choices involved when our institutions encounter information that could
potentially rewrite our understanding of the universe and our place
in it.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, this deep dive into three i at list
has been a really fascinating and frank slightly unsettling journey
through scientific anomaly, conflicting narratives, and institutional behavior we've basically
uncovered two central conflicts that are driving this whole story.
Speaker 2: That's right. First, there's the fundamental conflict between the actual
physical data we have, especially that off scale nickel alloy
with no iron and the slight, non gravitational acceleration versus
the conventional, constantly adjusted explanations that rely heavily on extreme
age and natural processes like outgassing. The object itself is
fundamentally challenging our definitions of what natural formation can produce.
Speaker 1: In second, there's that equally important conflict between the public's
desire for arguably right to full information access and the
apparent institutional control being exerted over that information evidence, potentially
by the withholding of updated images and data, often behind
these questionable administrative excuses.
Speaker 2: So our core nuggets of knowledge from this deep dive,
the things to really take away and think about first,
always look beyond the headline summary to the specific data
points that industrial signature high nickel virtually no iron. That
is the absolute key piece of physical evidence here based
on current knowledge, that implies intentional processing.
Speaker 1: Intentionality. Yeah, remember the philosophical power of that voyager probe analogy.
It really does undermine the scientific communities apparent current requirement
that an alien object must actively phone home or communicate
mathematically before we'll consider it truly artificial. If we ourselves
send out silent, industrially complex artifacts into the cosmos, we
have to be prepared for the possibility that we might
receive them too, and recognize them for what they are
based on their physical nature alone.
Speaker 2: And finally, really appreciate the importance and the responsibility of
scientists clearly quantifying their confidence levels when they're speculating, especially
about huge topics like this. ABVI Lobes reported four out
of ten confidence in the artifact hypothesis. However, low it
sounds is actually a model of scientific honesty and managing
expect patients right.
Speaker 1: It contrasts pretty sharply with the almost unquestioned mathematical certainty
sometimes assumed in these strained natural explanations like the seven
billion year old space garbage theory, which have their own
massive uncertainties. Absolutely, so we leave you, our listeners with
this final maybe provocative thought to chew on. If the
greatest challenge to agitifying an intelligent artifact in space turns
out not to be the limits of our technology to
spot it, but rather the unwillingness, or perhaps the perceived
inability of powerful institutions to release the raw, unfiltered data
once they have spotted it. Then what fundamental shift needs
to occur in our approach to scientific transparency before we
as a society are truly ready to confront the unknown,
whatever form it takes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are we perhaps so deeply committed to finding only
natural explanations that will unconsciously manufacture increasingly strained theories just
to avoid confronting the most obvious interpretation of the data.
Or can we reach a point where we accept that
the universe might actually be filled with object phenomena, maybe
even intelligences that simply don't fit neatly into our current
pre defined boxes.
Speaker 1: Definitely something, Tom all Over, thanks for joining us on
the deep dive. We'll catch you next time.