An invading alien spacecraft, four times the size of Earth, is closing in on our planet behind a huge, brilliant comet.
The alien ship actually is steering the comet, which could smash into the Earth, ending life as we know it. NASA scientists have proof of this, but they and other “Earth traitors” are covering up the facts.
Since the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp in July 1995, these and other wild charges have run rampant among UFO aficionados.
Some of them predict an invasion from beyond when the comet makes its closest pass to Earth in March.
Reports of the “Saturn-like object” following the comet have swamped the Internet and late-night talk radio in recent weeks, whipping conspiracy theorists into a frenzy. The talk both entertains and annoys scientists such as Alan Hale, the New Mexico astronomer who discovered the comet. The biggest annoyance is that the fear could detract from what might be one of Mother Nature’s best light shows in years.
“The ‘alien spacecraft’ is nothing more than a bright star the comet happened to be next to one night,” Hale said, exasperated. “But the stories refuse to die.”
The stories began 18 months ago, when Hale and amateur astronomer Thomas Bopp first noticed the comet.
A giant, dirty iceball about 25 miles in diameter, Hale-Bopp is hurtling through our neck of the Milky Way galaxy in an egg-shaped orbit at more than 7,200 mph.
Some comets have relatively short orbits, and pass through the solar system frequently. Halley’s comet orbits the sun every 76 years, for instance.
Not Hale-Bopp. The last time it visited, the pharoahs were building the first pyramids in Egypt. The comet won’t return to our solar system until the year 4360.
Early predictions say Hale-Bopp could outshine last year’s Comet Hyakutake and the 1986 appearance of Halley’s. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth – 122 million miles, or about 500 times farther away than our moon – on March 22.
“If it continues to brighten, it should be a fairly impressive naked-eye object in late March or early April,” said Don Yeomans, an astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The tail is likely to be very impressive.”
If scientists are impressed with Hale-Bopp, flying saucer buffs seem obsessed.
The uproar over aliens reached a crescendo on Nov. 14, when Chuck Shramek, an amateur astronomer in Houston, took a picture that supposedly showed a ringed object resembling Saturn following the comet.
The find was announced on Art Bell’s late-night radio show, syndicated nationally on more than 300 stations and broadcast in South Florida on WFTL, 1400-AM.
Scientists quickly determined the image was a distorted photo of a star designated SAO 141894. Still, the furor has continued to grow.
One Hale-Bopp Internet link now offers somber instructions on how to make it through the coming Armageddon.
Another, the Hale-Bopp Companion’s Fan Club and Alien Visitor Supply Center, advertises INVADE-O brand anti-abduction cover blankets to keep the little green men away.
Radio host Bell has an Internet site that takes a tongue-in-cheek attitude. It features such topics as alien implants and the alleged UFO crash in Roswell, N.M. Bell recently staged a contest to name the object photographed near Hale-Bopp. “Hale-Mary” won.
Runners-up included Big Bopper, Genesis, Rapture Mobile – and Steve.
Others, however, take an attitude that might be described as true-believer serious.
A group known as the Farsight Institute claims to have collected information on the approaching spacecraft through scientific remote viewing – a kind of out-of-body telepathic experience.
Other accounts say the ship is carrying 10,000 aliens, possibly bent on the destruction of Earth.
After scientists made minor revisions in the predicted course of the newly discovered comet, conspiracy theorists interpreted the revisions as an attempt to hide course changes caused by alien control.
Hale, Yeomans and other beleaguered scientists have been flooded with phone calls and e-mail ever since.
“They’re true believers and logic isn’t going to persuade them,” said Russell Sipe, an amateur astronomer in Anaheim, Calif., whose Hale-Bopp web site debunks the UFO claims.
Sensational claims of supernatural events connected with comets are nothing new, astronomers point out. Since the beginning of recorded history, comets have been viewed as harbingers of evil and doom.
“Comets have always generated great fervor,” said Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Planetarium. “They’re seen as divine intervention for the worse, not the better.”
Comets often wind up being associated with any wars, disasters or noteworthy deaths that occur at the time of their appearance, Horkheimer said. He quotes Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “When paupers die there are no comets seen, but the heavens themselves blaze forth the deaths of princes.”
Talk of doom and aliens notwithstanding, Hale-Bopp might be one of the few comets that lives up to its pre-arrival hype – unlike such comets as Kohoutek, Halley’s and last year’s Hyaku-take.
Although passing Earth at a far greater distance than Hyakutake, for instance, Hale-Bopp’s large size is expected to make it unusually bright. Since first becoming visible to observers with binoculars last fall, Hale-Bopp has moved behind the sun and now is almost completely hidden.
Next week, the comet should become faintly visible about an hour before sunrise, just above the horizon in the eastern sky. Hale-Bopp will get higher in the sky in February, before reaching peak brilliance in late March and early April. It should remain visible without a telescope through June.
Horkheimer says the comet will be magnificent for professional stargazers but, as always, could be a disappointment for non-astronomers.
“All comets in the 20th century are duds for the layman,” Horkheimer said. “City lighting has wiped them out and what nature provides has been surpassed by our culture with TV and film. Our technology has cheated us out of the appreciation of the night sky and its natural wonders.”
