AUTHOR’S NOTE: With all the buzz surrounding the supposed “comet” 3I Atlas, I decided to perform a tarot reading to see what it might tell me about the mystery.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that it is some kind of alien intrusion into our solar system, a (probably) unmanned spacecraft rather than a natural phenomenon. (I have Timothy Ferris to thank for the scientific premise that distances between the stars are far too great to permit manned exploration.) I asked about its origin; its mission; how it will carry out that mission; what we can expect from it; and what it will achieve. I used the Haindl Tarot to populate a five-card line.

The 10 of Swords (Ruin) as the “Origin” card implies that it may have been sent by a dying interstellar civilization. (Although I’m inclined to suspect a cabal of earthly conspirators armed with AI who are “trolling” the whole world by impersonating NASA and other authorities, I love a good science-fiction yarn as much as any other child of the 1950s. In this case, our expanding detection capabilities may be fueling our overheated imaginations. It also seems clear that the original images were manipulated to more closely resemble a starship with windows under the assumption that there is someone or something inside to look out of them.)

The Empress as the “Mission” card could mean that they are scouting a new home.

The Star as the “Execution” card suggests that they intend to remain distant in their survey.

The Magician as the “Interaction” card indicates that it’s a solitary probe that has no intention of making contact. It has the technology to both accomplish its mission and remain unmolested while doing so. (Gollum would call it “tricksy.”)

The 8 of Stones (Knowledge) shows that it will send information regarding what it came for back to where it came from.

As far as the next chapter in the drama, stay tuned! I may just be xenophobic, but when it comes to alien visitation I find little encouraging in these mostly benign cards. I’m reminded of the old Twilight Zone episode, in which a gentle alien race arrived on Earth with apparently benevolent intentions presented in a manifesto with a title that was translated as “To Serve Man.” While the translation continued, they invited several thousand humans aboard their vessel who had been charmed into thinking they were going to be ambassadors to an extraterrestrial culture. But at the last minute, after the group of fortunate ones had shuffled up the on-ramp and the door was closing, one of the translators rushed up shouting urgently “It’s a cookbook!”