I've been a hardliner on the "Odin is trapped in Dalamud" party, but with this, and a few logic leaps, it seems pretty compelling that Atomos is trapped in Dalamud. It certainly could be something else, but given that the Aethyrite crystals are behaving exactly like the primals do when defeated, except that in the case of primals, aether is getting sucked into Dalamud, and the Aethyrite aether is getting sucked into Atomos.

It occurs to me that if what we are seeing now are merely astral projections of Atomos - proxies sucking out the Aether on a greater scale now that he is close enough to exert that much influence - everything makes a great deal of sense.