Non cancellation for smooth contractible affine threefolds

We construct two non isomorphic contractible affine threefolds X and Y with isomorphic cylinders, showing that the generalized Cancellation Problem has a negative answer in general for contractible affine threefolds. We also establish that X and Y are actually biholomorphic as complex analytic varieties, providing the first example of a pair of biholomorphic but not isomorphic exotic affine 3-spaces.