When news first broke that a foreign body, nicknamed Atlas, had drifted into our solar system from the deep unknown, the story ignited imaginations across the world. Unlike the countless comets and asteroids that pass silently and obediently under the rule of gravity, Atlas appeared to resist the script of physics, straying from expected trajectories, releasing strange exhaust, and fueling a chorus of voices who insisted that this was no ordinary celestial wanderer. For some, it was a harbinger of hope, for others, it was a reason for dread, and for many more, simply another case of social media whipping fantasy into fear.

As the reports multiplied, so too did the speculations. Atlas, they said, was not just a ball of rock and ice, but a thinking structure, a body with a mind. It seemed to accelerate and decelerate as if under command. Its tail expelled jets that some described as more like controlled emissions than the natural outgassing of frozen material. More astonishing still were claims about its makeup: pristine water ice, carbon dioxide, nickel, oxygen, and other minerals necessary for sustaining life.

If comets are the ancient archives of planetary chemistry, Atlas was presented as something more—a vault stocked with the ingredients of creation. In some theories, it carried not just the seeds of life but the nursery for colonizing Mars, a shortcut to a dream that has eluded human ambition and bankrupted engineering calculations for decades.

If Elon Musk and the world’s brightest engineers struggled with the exorbitant demands of turning Mars into a second Earth, perhaps, suggested the more audacious voices, Atlas itself had arrived as nature’s or someone’s ready-made supply ship.

The speculation did not stop there. Atlas, according to some, was accompanied by smaller supporting objects, a fleet of escorts that moved in formation,........

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