New viral clip claims 3I/Atlas is sending signals as it gets closer to Earth: What we actually know

3I/Atlas is back in the spotlight after a viral clip claims it is “sending signals” while approaching Earth. The short reel stitches telescope footage with ominous beeps and captions to imply real-time transmissions. No observatory or radio facility has verified that.

What scientists actually detected is routine comet physics that just happens to be measurable at radio wavelengths.

Teams using South Africa’s MeerKAT array and NASA’s Swift telescope have seen hydroxyl signatures that form when sunlight breaks apart water vapor venting from 3I/Atlas.

That is a chemistry fingerprint, not a message. Meanwhile, NASA’s latest briefing reiterated two boring but important facts. First, 3I/Atlas never gets closer than about 170 million miles from Earth.

Second, all instruments so far say it behaves like a natural comet. Put simply, 3I/Atlas is interesting because it is old, fast, interstellar, and unusually active, not because it is artificial.

The “signals” reveal ice, outgassing, and composition, which is exactly the kind of data planetary scientists want.

What the “3I/Atlas is sending signals” clip actually claims

The viral post frames 3I/Atlas as broadcasting to Earth, pairing generic sky footage with beeping audio and spectrogram overlays.

None of the visuals is tied to a specific observatory log, and there is no released spectrum showing a modulated transmission.

A related rumor recycled an old “Fibonacci signal” story about pulses at the hydrogen line and a decoded phrase.

Reporting tracks that lead to social posts with no public data, no observatory records, and no confirmation from SETI or any radio telescope.

As per a Reuters report dated November 19, 2025, NASA’s Nicola Fox stated,

“We certainly haven’t seen any technosignatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.”

NASA’s Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said,

“This object is a comet....It looks and behaves like a comet. And all evidence points to it being a comet.”

Coverage that rounded up the viral clip also noted that astronomers attribute “radio activity” to water chemistry rather than communication.

That is the consensus across observatories and agencies.

The real radio detection from 3I/Atlas: What telescopes actually saw

Here is the physics behind the headlines. When 3I/Atlas warms near the Sun, water ice sublimates and releases gas. Ultraviolet light from the Sun then splits some of that water into hydroxyl radicals.

Those OH molecules imprint narrow, predictable features in radio wavelengths that radio arrays can detect. That is a passive spectral fingerprint, not an encoded broadcast.

MeerKAT reported OH absorption consistent with an active, outgassing comet around perihelion. Independent teams using NASA’s Swift telescope earlier snagged ultraviolet OH, implying vigorous water loss at surprising distances.

As per Space.com report dated October 8, 2025, lead author Zexi Xing remarked,

“ʻOumuamua was dry, Borisov was rich in carbon monoxide, and now ATLAS is giving up water at a distance where we didn’t expect it.....Each one is rewriting what we thought we knew about how planets and comets form around stars.”

Beyond water, spectroscopy shows carbon dioxide and other volatiles, while imaging constrains a modest nucleus inside a bright coma. These lines and images match natural comet behavior.

NASA’s briefing added that no “technosignatures” have been seen and that the object’s oddities, like small trajectory wiggles, are consistent with jets of gas pushing on the nucleus.

A minority view keeps the door open to wilder ideas. As per the Anadolu Agency report dated November 4, 2025, Harvard’s Avi Loeb stated,

“the non-gravitational acceleration might be the technological signature of an internal engine.”

That speculation remains unsubstantiated by shared data.

How close 3I/Atlas really gets and what we actually know next?

3I/Atlas follows a hyperbolic path. Closest to the Sun was around October 30, 2025, near 1.4 AU. Closest to Earth is about December 19, 2025, near 1.8 AU, roughly 170 million miles. NASA lists the impact risk as zero.

Those distances also explain why most official pictures look like a fuzzy coma with tails rather than a resolved “craft.”

During late October, 3I/Atlas ducked behind the Sun from Earth’s viewpoint, so ground telescopes briefly lost it while spacecraft continued tracking. As viewing geometry improves, agencies are compiling multi-mission images and spectra.

The latest NASA update emphasized a normal, if chemically rich, comet and released new long-distance images from multiple platforms.

Where the “signals” story lands after the facts

• Viral clips talk about “messages” without data

• A speculative minority proposes technological explanations

• The mainstream evidence shows 3I/Atlas as a CO₂-and-water-rich interstellar comet whose radio features arise from hydroxyl chemistry, not communication, on a safe outbound path through the solar system.

In short, 3I/Atlas is not secretly talking to us. The real “signal” is water chemistry in radio and ultraviolet light, and that is the valuable part for science.

Stay tuned for more updates.