In the weeks leading up to the perihelion of comet 3I/ATLAS on 29 October, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb floated a provocative hypothesis: that the object's arrival could represent a 'black swan event' for humanity, one in which global financial markets 'wouldn't matter at all'.
He did not sound entirely earnest, but by framing the comet in those terms, he tapped into a familiar worry: what if a bizarre object from another star system is not just a lump of ice and dust, but an alien probe with hostile intent?
