Comet 3I/ATLAS was first detected in July 2025 by the ATLAS survey telescope.
Elon Musk made a dramatic declaration on The Joe Rogan Experience during a discussion on the mysterious interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Speaking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the comet having alien links, Musk made a bizarre vow. He said he was “never committing suicide.”
Musk’s vow was a veiled jibe at online conspiracy theories that anyone who uncovers alien secrets is silenced.
“I mean, one thing I can say is like, look, if I was aware of any evidence of aliens – Joe, you have my word – I will come on your show and I will reveal it on the show,” Musk said when asked if he thought there was an alien connection to the comet. Then Musk added, “I’m never committing suicide, to be clear. So, on camera, guys, I am never committing suicide ever!”
The 3I/ATLAS is currently passing through the solar system at a speed of 130,000 mph. First detected in July, the comet has baffled scientists and astronomers by its unusual behaviour.
Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb suggested that the comet was an “alien probe sent to do recon on Earth”, noting that the comet was releasing “four grams of nickel per second” with no iron detected – an unheard-of signature.
Loeb also expressed concern about the comet’s nongravitational acceleration and path that brings it close to Jupiter, Venus and Mars, and accused NASA of holding back information.
Rogan asked Musk whether he was tracking the Manhattan-sized interstellar object and whether it could be artificial in origin.
Musk pushed back on the comet’s unusual nickel signature, saying that many comets and asteroids are “made primarily of nickel”. He added, “The places where you mine nickel on Earth is actually where there was an asteroid or comet that hit earth – that was a nickel rich meteorite.”
When Rogan pushed the alien angle further, Musk acknowledged that it would “be a very sort of heavy spaceship if you make it all out of nickel”. Such an object, he said, could “obliterate a continent type of thing – maybe worse”.
Pressed again, Musk added, “It could be aliens, I don’t know.”
The alien talk spread like wildfire after amateur radio operators detected unusual downlink signals from SpaceX’s Starshield satellites in a frequency band reserved for Earth-to-space transmissions. This occurred the same day major observatories tracked 3I/ATLAS near perihelion.
The timing fuelled conspiracy chatter online, although analysts say the link may be coincidence.