Our solar system has a visitor from far outside our neighborhood and its creating quite a stir in many scientific circles because it is not behaving like most visitors we’ve come to expect, like comets, asteroids and meteoroids. It’s called 3I/Atlas. The “I” stand for interstellar which denotes its distant origins.

At first sight it looked like a comet. But according to Harvard astronomer, Ari Loeb, the available data shows the comparison is so far off the mark, and the anomalies so extensive, that to call it a comet is more than likely a misevaluation.  

Taking into account its size, speed, trajectory, composition and behavior, Loeb is not fearful of sticking his academic neck out, claiming 3I/Atlas may be the product of an advanced alien civilization. He is not alone in his speculation. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, also suggests that 3I/Atas could be the product of a highly evolved intelligence that is many magnitudes above our own. If their assumptions about 3I/Atlas are true it obviously raises profound questions for all of us.

Plenty of astute thinkers have noted that humans have a long way to go in their development. But one man in particular — Arthur M. Young — actually formulated a theory of emergence that places humans (and all of the natural world, for that matter) on an evolving grid.

For Young, relative to our potential, we are stuck at the same stage where clams are in the Animal Kingdom! Nevertheless — and this is the hopeful part — he ultimately imagined beings beyond the capability of a Buddha or a Christ, though he demurred when it came to describing their exact nature “because it is so far beyond man.” Suffice to say they will have become more light than flesh, with unlimited abilities. To a large degree that leaves things up to one’s own mythic imagination. And now 3i/Atlas is here to fill the gap.

For Kaku the object demonstrates unearthly intelligence and consciousness by its ability to bend the laws of nature as we know them and perform technological miracles with seeming ease. In contrast, consider humans, anxious animals still teetering on the edge of disaster after 6 or 7 million years, and still largely driven by self-interest and an inclination to settle things by force rather than reason.

I find in 3I/Atlas an echo of our musical, The Further Shores of Knowing, where an evolved being knows the secret to harnessing enormous power to re-ignite a star that will restore light in the world and give humankind a second chance at making a better go of the opportunities life brings.  

3I/Atlas is an evolving story. In the next few months will 3I/Atlas continue on its merry way, out of our solar system? Or might 3I/Atlas shift direction and head towards earth? While that event is highly unlikely the potential has been expressed at the time of this writing.

So my friends, while the sun is still shining and planet Earth is still rotating with many good people on it, I urge you to contribute to our production now. I promise we will be at least as entertaining, and possibly as enlightening, as the interstellar visitor that now races above our heads, reminding us of incredible mysteries that are always on the horizon.