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

So maybe the lesson of 3I/ATLAS isn’t whether it’s alien or not. Maybe it’s that our species has two different ways of recognizing truth — one for science and one for survival. Science demands certainty. Law demands reasonableness. But both, in the end, seek the same thing: enough proof to justify belief before it’s too late.

As of this writing, NASA classifies 3I/ATLAS as an interstellar comet, and no evidence of artificial behavior has been detected. Still, as Loeb notes, “The remote possibility of an Oberth maneuver must be considered seriously as a black swan event — because of its huge implications for humanity.”

Sources: NASA Science, IFL Science, The Planetary Society, Reuters, People.