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Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb has raised a red flag about the interstellar visitor known as 3I/ATLAS, charging that NASA is keeping quiet about potentially critical imagery taken when the object swept near Mars. Loeb told national audiences that he formally requested HiRISE data and received no answer, a silence that in normal times should set off alarms about transparency at the agency Americans pay for with their tax dollars. The American people deserve straight talk from those entrusted with our space assets, not radio silence when extraordinary questions are asked.
According to Loeb, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera captured 3I/ATLAS on October 2, 2025 at a close approach to Mars, and that the resulting image would be the clearest picture yet of the object’s bizarre behavior. He says he reached out to the principal investigator for the HiRISE team for the raw data and was met with no response, a claim that only deepens suspicion when faced with an object that many scientists call “unusual.” If true, withholding that file from independent scrutiny is unacceptable and undermines scientific integrity.
Scientists have already flagged several strange signatures from 3I/ATLAS: an anti‑tail or sun‑facing jet, measurable non‑gravitational acceleration, and the detection of nickel vapor without the expected accompanying iron. Those anomalies are not minor footnotes; they are the very reasons respected researchers like Dr. Loeb are calling for full disclosure and independent analysis instead of a reflexive declaration that “nothing to see here.” When the data contradicts the tidy narrative, governmental agencies should open the vault, not slam the door.
Public reports show that the International Asteroid Warning Network has moved 3I/ATLAS onto a focused monitoring campaign running from November 27, 2025 through January 27, 2026, a rare and serious step that reflects the object’s unique behavior. Meanwhile, mainstream outlets note that NASA has not answered Loeb’s public request for the HiRISE images, which only fuels the distrust growing among concerned scientists and citizens alike. If the planetary defense community is mobilizing a special campaign, the burden on NASA to explain itself is even greater.
This is not a call for panic; it is a demand for accountability. Washington bureaucracies have a long habit of preferring closed‑door explanations and spoonfed talking points over raw evidence and open debate, and the 3I/ATLAS episode is shaping up as a textbook case. Congress and independent laboratories must insist that any HiRISE frames, spectroscopic data, and calibration files be released immediately so American taxpayers, scientists, and national security officials can evaluate the facts without political spin.
Patriotic citizens should be wary of comfortable reassurances from institutions that have repeatedly censored inconvenient truths in other arenas. Dr. Loeb went public with his concerns around October 29, 2025, just as 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion on October 30, 2025, making the timing of any withheld image painfully consequential to ongoing analyses and the IAWN campaign. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to demand openness now, not after some convenient conclusion is stitched together by nameless officials.
If Americans value truth and safety, we must insist on sunlight where shadows now fall. Let independent scientists examine the files, let congressional overseers subpoena answers if necessary, and let the people who fund NASA see the raw evidence for themselves. Our nation’s security and scientific leadership depend on transparency, not silence, and that principle must guide the response to whatever 3I/ATLAS ultimately proves to be.
