As if the comet hurtling toward us isn’t enough of a cheek-clencher, someone just added spiders.

The story caught fire on Facebook after a page claimed scientists found tiny robotic space arachnids crawling across Antarctica. They’d allegedly hitched a ride from trending interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

The claim even came with an image of the creatures said to be “collecting ice data” for its cosmic overlords.

It was fake, of course.

Snopes found no trace of the 31\ATLAS residents beyond social media echo chambers.

A quick search of actual science databases and news outlets turned up nothing.

NASA’s data shows 3I/ATLAS won’t even make its closest pass to Earth until mid-December

So, no detached robot swarm, no alien surveillance, and no cosmic spider uprising.

The photo itself was clearly AI-generated, with anatomy that would make a green screen set crew wince.

But the origin of this whole myth traces back to a real, much tamer story.

3I/ATLAS was spotted in July 2025

It’s also known as the third interstellar object ever observed.

For a few weeks, online theorists treated it like a stealth spacecraft, citing a tongue-in-cheek paper from Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb asking if it could be “alien technology.”

The researchers later explained they did it for fun, a thought experiment more than a warning. 

NASA and the European Space Agency identified the object as a standard comet, the kind of visitor that occasionally swings by from outside our solar system.

In fact, it’ll stay about 168 million miles away from us. As such, it apparently poses zero threat to us humble Earthlings.

According to Space.com, some people might be able to spot 3I/ATLAS through advanced ground telescopes when it comes back out from the sun’s glare around late November to early December. Current predictions target December 19 as the day the comet’s position comes closest to our planet as it passes by.