Did CNN report the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has contacted Earth, as a viral social media post declared? No, that’s not true: There’s no such report on CNN.com. CNN has not used the chyron “IT’S GETTING SERIOUS” on any of its reports about 3I/ATLAS, which was first spotted in July 2025.
The claim was made in an October 22, 2025 X post (archived here) where it was published on the WorldNews_X_ account with the CNN logo beside a chyron that read “IT’S GETTING SERIOUS”. The caption across the image read:
BREAKING: 3I/ATLAS Just Contacted Earth — Scientists Terrified by the Message!
Here’s what the post looked like on X at the time this article was written:
Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/WorldNews.
The post is completely fabricated.
Lead Stories searched for reports about communication from the comet, using Google site-specific search (archived here) and CNN’s own website search function, and found no such reporting by CNN.
Not even the CNN-style chyron is real.
Lead Stories conducted a site-specific search of cnn.com for the phrase “It’s Getting Serious” (archived here) and found the network had made no use of it, on any stories, since the interstellar comet became a news story in July of 2025.
Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google search.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, says on its website that 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will remain far away (archived here).
