Carl Sagan’s “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” Meets the 3I/ATLAS “Don’t Look Up” Moment

In the law, a judge might say the burden of proof rests not on proving alien origin beyond all doubt, but on whether observable evidence makes that origin more likely than not. If post-conjunction data show non-gravitational acceleration, non-natural composition, or emission of smaller objects, the legal argument for artificiality could suddenly meet that “preponderance” standard.

The hypothetical court’s ruling would be historic: the first judicial acknowledgment that an interstellar object likely originated from intelligent design. The scientific community might still require another decade of verification — but public policy, defense planning, and global consciousness could change overnight.

And that’s the real point of this thought experiment. In law, there’s such a thing as the precautionary principle — the idea that you don’t wait for catastrophe to prove itself before you prepare. If there’s even a small probability of a high-impact event, you act early. That’s what “Don’t Look Up” got right: denial delays consequence, but it doesn’t prevent it.