During a mysterious 36-hour global telescope blackout in September 2025, China’s Yunnan Observatory became the only site to detect an impossible signal from interstellar object 3I/ATLAS — carbon dioxide without water — leaving scientists stunned and sparking worldwide suspicion of a cover-up and possible extraterrestrial involvement.

In a development that has shaken the global scientific community, China’s Yunnan Observatory has reportedly detected an unexplained signal from the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS — just as nearly every major telescope across the globe went offline for more than a day.

The event, which took place between September 9 and 11, 2025, has sparked controversy, speculation, and even accusations of a possible data cover-up among international space agencies.

According to official statements, the world’s leading observatories — including Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Paranal in Chile, and the European Southern Observatory — were all temporarily shut down for what authorities described as “routine maintenance and calibration.

” Yet this timing coincided precisely with the moment 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object first detected in 2023, passed behind the Sun — a rare and critical observation window that scientists had been anticipating for months.

When the telescopes came back online, the data didn’t match prior readings.

The object’s glow appeared altered, and its spectrum — the light signature that reveals an object’s chemical makeup — had changed dramatically.

The alteration raised questions that no one, except one country, seemed ready to answer.

While NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) declined to release any data or comment on what might have been observed, China’s deep-space network quietly posted an untranslated scientific bulletin late on September 13.

The report, originating from the Yunnan Observatory, included a spectral analysis that stunned astrophysicists who managed to translate and examine it.

Within the signal were traces of carbon dioxide — but no detectable water vapor, a combination that defies known physics for an interstellar object.

Even more mysterious was a faint secondary emission line, a form of radiation that doesn’t fit any natural source known to astronomy.

Dr.Liu Wen, a senior researcher at Yunnan Observatory, wrote in the document that the emission was “non-thermal in origin,” suggesting it wasn’t caused by heat or reflected sunlight.

Instead, it may have been the result of an unknown internal process — or possibly, as some fringe theorists have claimed, an artificial one.

“The signal is unlike anything we have seen from comets, asteroids, or known interstellar debris,” the report stated.

When asked for clarification, Chinese officials did not respond.

Instead, the original bulletin was quietly removed from the observatory’s public database within 48 hours.

However, screenshots and translated excerpts continue to circulate in scientific forums and independent research groups worldwide.

NASA’s silence has only deepened the intrigue.

Several astronomers within the agency, speaking anonymously, have admitted that the timing of the global observatory blackout was “unusual.

” One source reportedly said, “It’s not normal for every major instrument to go down simultaneously, especially during a scheduled observation window for a rare object like 3I/ATLAS.”

3I/ATLAS, named after the telescope system that first spotted it, is the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, following the controversial ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.

Unlike those earlier visitors, ATLAS appeared to emit an anomalous infrared signature that didn’t correspond to any natural composition, even before this new development.

The discovery in Yunnan has reignited debates over whether interstellar objects might be artificial — debris from distant civilizations or remnants of ancient technologies.

Harvard astrophysicist Dr.Avi Loeb, who has long championed the possibility of alien artifacts, commented after the Yunnan findings were leaked: “If these data are genuine, the absence of water with carbon dioxide could indicate industrial or engineered material rather than natural rock or ice.

This is not a conclusion — but it is an invitation to look deeper.”

Meanwhile, global observatories have resumed normal operations, but none have released new readings from 3I/ATLAS since the September blackout.

Both NASA and ESA maintain that “no unusual activity” was recorded.

Yet amateur astronomers tracking the object claim its brightness continues to fluctuate in irregular intervals — as if pulsing.

Online, theories range from plausible to fantastical.

Some believe China’s observatory was the only one operational because it was testing new deep-space communication hardware.

Others suspect that the “routine maintenance” was coordinated to allow for a data blackout while agencies recalibrated their systems — or filtered what the public would eventually see.

For now, the mystery remains unsolved.

Why was China the only nation to record the anomaly? Was it a coincidence of timing, or a moment of deliberate preparedness? As one astrophysicist posted in a now-deleted thread on Reddit, “If what Yunnan saw is real, then either they’re ahead of everyone else — or they were the only ones willing to look when the rest of the world closed its eyes.”

The universe may not be offering second chances.

Whatever passed through our skies that September — whether a rock, a relic, or a message — may already be gone.

But its signal, faint and inexplicable, continues to echo across a world still unsure of what, or who, it just ignored.