The Pentagon is refusing to release UFO files on a bizarre interstellar object passing through our solar system which some scientists believe could be alien. The 3.5-mile wide cosmic visitor, known as 3I/ATLAS, was initially thought to be an unusual comet and that it would break up as its trajectory brought it close to the sun.

However, despite passing closest to the sun on October 29 the structure of 3I/ATLAS did not melt as was expected or display a large cloud of debris. Harvard professor Avi Loeb said images taken of 3I/ATLAS on November 11, show it remains a single body, with no evidence of the expected breakup. 

He wrote that the new images obtained by astronomers David Jewitt and Jane Luu show two massive jets of material shooting out from the object, one pointing towards the sun and another larger one pointing away from it. 

The latest images are from the Nordic Optical Telescope in Spain. Powerful solar radiation wind should show a tail of debris from a comet pointing away from the sun, but in the case of 3I/ATLAS there is an unexplained jet of material 620,000 miles long pointing towards the sun like a “thruster”.

Another tail 1.86 million miles in length is pointing away from the sun, and sceptical scientists argue the unexplained jet may just be an optical illusion.

But Professor Loeb said: “Technological thrusters which point their exhaust towards the sun would accelerate away from the sun.

“This post-perihelion maneuver might be employed by a spacecraft that aims to gain speed rather than slow down through the gravitational assist from the sun.”

The professor also said the amount of material expended by 3I/ATLAS did not match the size of the object if it was a normal comet. The Mail Online reports he calculated the three-mile-wide comet would have needed an icy surface at least 14 miles across if it was composed of CO₂ ice and 32 miles across if 3I/ATLAS was venting water ice into space.

On Wednesday, Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating reports of UFOs and extraterrestrials, revealed she had been denied access to classified information on 3I/ATLAS by the Pentagon. 

However, she told NewsMax: “I do believe it’s a passing through comet, and so I don’t think we are going to have any contact with any non-human intelligence yet, but the ruling is still out there on what this is.”

NASA tonight (Thursday) released more information on 3I/ATLAS. It said: “Astronomers have categorised this object as interstellar because of the hyperbolic shape of its orbital path. It does not follow a closed orbital path about the Sun.

“When the orbit of 3I/ATLAS is traced into the past, the comet clearly originates from outside our solar system. The interstellar comet’s size and physical properties are being investigated by astronomers around the world.”

Supporting his research against a backdrop of some detractors online, Prof Loeb said 3I/ATLAS “maintained its integrity and did not break up into numerous fragments”.

He added: “This raises a new anomaly of 3I/ATLAS that must be explained by those who wish to shove the anomalies of 3I/ATLAS under the carpet of traditional knowledge on solar system comets rather than consider alternatives.

“As Albert Einstein said ‘knowledge is realising that the street is one way; wisdom is looking in both directions anyway’.”