Why 3I/ATLAS Triggered A CIA Non-Answer Despite NASA’s Certainty

When intelligence agencies assess phenomena, however, they do not ask whether something is likely. They ask what happens if it is wrong. The simplest and most sober explanation for the CIA’s response is not that the agency believes 3I/ATLAS is artificial, hostile, or exotic, but that it recognizes the consequences of misclassification. In risk analysis terms, even a very small probability, when multiplied by an extreme potential impact, demands attention. That logic governs everything from asteroid-deflection exercises to pandemic modeling to nuclear-command safeguards.

History provides painful lessons in ignoring low-probability warnings. The residents of Troy famously welcomed what they believed was a harmless artifact. Modern intelligence agencies learned similar lessons after catastrophic failures of imagination preceding September 11, 2001, and again in the intelligence breakdowns surrounding October 7, 2023. In each case, the error was not a lack of data, but a premature closure of inquiry.