Demand:
Scientists discovered robotic alien spiders from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on Earth's polar ice sheets in October 2025.
Rating:
Rating: False
In October 2025 Facebook post (in the archive) about an unusual find scattered across the platform. According to the report, scientists have discovered microspider robots from comet 3I/ATLAS in Antarctica. The spiders, which apparently separated from the comet “during its closest passage to our planet,” allegedly collected data from the ice and transmitted it into space.
Posted by others Facebook Pages (in the archive) shortly after its initial publication. Some people emailed Snopes to ask if the claim was true or searched the website to find out the same thing.
There was no evidence to support any details of the story published in the messages. Therefore, we rate this statement as false.
Snopes searched for “3I/ATLAS spiderbots” on Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing And Yahoo. No results were found on any search engine other than social media posts related to the claim. If the story, which the Facebook post described as “sending global shockwaves,” were real, major news outlets would have covered it and there would likely have been some kind of scientific publication or update released on the matter.
In fact, the details of this story just don't add up.
The Facebook post said scientists had speculated that the spiders had “come off” from the comet during its closest flyby to Earth, but that had not actually happened yet. According to the report, 3I/ATLAS's closest approach to Earth will occur no earlier than December 19, 2025. European Space Agency. Animation created NASA showed that the Sun was partially or completely between the Earth and 3I/ATLAS most of the time since the discovery of the comet.
The image attached to the story was also not real. Although the location was described as Antarctica, the Northern Lights, which do not appear around the South Pole, could be seen in the sky in the upper left corner. Additionally, the “spiders” in the image had different numbers of legs, and the image of the “spider” in the inset was different from the spiders seen in the larger image. These inconsistencies suggest that the image was most likely created by artificial intelligence.
Space Lanethe page on which the story is published often publishes fabricated stories suggesting contact with or opening extraterrestrial life. Many of these posts link 3I/ATLASa comet that came from outside the solar system and was discovered in 2025.
Snopes previously verified fact the claim that 3I/ATLAS was “most likely” an alien craft heading towards Earth.
Sources:
“Comet 3I/ATLAS – Frequently Asked Questions.” Esa.intEuropean Space Agency, www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Comet_3I_ATLAS_frequly_asked_questions. Accessed October 29, 2025
“Spiderbots 3I/Atlas – Bing.” Bingwww.bing.com/search?q=robot+spiders+3I%2Fatlas&form=QBLH&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=robot+spiders+3i%2Fatlas&sc=0-22&qs=n&sk=&cvid=55501FB40E3B4965B2FEE68065DF26B0. Accessed October 29, 2025
“Spiderbots 3I/Atlas – Search DuckDuckGo.” duckduckgo.com,uckduckgo.com/?origin=funnel_home_website&t=h_&q=robot+spiders+3I%2Fatlas&ia=web. Accessed October 29, 2025
“Spiderbot 3I/Atlas – Google Search.” Google.comwww.google.com/search?q=robot+spiders+3I%2Fatlas&sca_esv=ef29957d23e94eec&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A10%2F29%2F2025&tbm=. Accessed October 29, 2025
“Spiderbot 3I/Atlas – Yahoo Search Results.” Yahoo.comsearch.yahoo.com/search?p=robot+spiders+3I%2Fatlas&fr=yfp-t&fr2=p%3Afp%2Cm%3Asb&fp=1. Accessed October 29, 2025
Wasser, Molly. “Comet 3I/ATLAS”. NASA Science3 July 2025, science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/. Accessed October 29, 2025
