In the summer of 2025, the discovery of 31/ATLAS ignited a global conversation that stretched far beyond astronomy. Almost immediately, speculation flourished online that the interstellar object—formally designated 3I/ATLAS—might be alien technology. According to new research from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, this reaction fits a broader pattern known as the “Alien of the Gaps.”
This is a modern counterpart to older “god of the gaps” reasoning that fills scientific uncertainty with extraordinary explanations.
Mert Can Bayar, a postdoctoral scholar at the Center, coined the term to describe how incomplete or evolving scientific explanations about 31/ATLAS were transformed, through social media amplification, into claims that it could be an alien “mothership.”
3I ATLAS News | 3I/ATLAS Trajectory Tracking | ATLAS 3I | 31 ATLAS Update | Star Walk
From Faint Speck to Interstellar Celebrity
On July 1, 2025, NASA-funded astronomers working with the ATLAS survey quietly logged a faint new object later named C/2025 N1 (ATLAS). Within days, further observations confirmed it as only the third interstellar object ever observed passing through our Solar System.
