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Things to beware of in 1997:
Govermental attempts to control or legislate the 'net'; remember that
control is just a synonym for 'manipulate'!
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Apocalyptic visions tied to comets past
March 27, 1997
Web posted at: 10:21 p.m. EST (0321 GMT)
From Correspondent Dick Wilson
ATLANTA (CNN) -- For centuries, some stargazers have taken approaching comets
as a sign of impending disaster, or a portent of death. In more recent years,
however, some have assigned comets a less celestial but still otherworldly
role: harbingers of UFOs.
Higher Source group members reportedly took Comet Hale-Bopp as a sign it was
time to commit mass suicide. A California businessman who employs a former
member of the group said he was told members were planning to leave the planet
on a UFO.
"They explained that they believed that there was a UFO following behind that
comet and using it as a shield so it could not be detected by Earth, and that
that UFO may very well be the one to take them away," said Nick Matzorkis of
Interact Entertainment Group.
Cult experts say this idea is common to UFO cults dating back to the 1960s.
The cults are composed of people who believe they are beings from another
planet, waiting to be picked up by a spaceship from their visit to Earth.
"So we have this combination of a type of belief in the body as being a
temporary arrangement, along with this popular science mythology, which creates
a whole strange type of belief system," said Frank Flinn, a cult expert from
Washington University.
Comet Hale-Bopp has collected a fair number of alien associations itself. Talk
of a supposed connection between the comet and a UFO is widespread on the
Internet; some sites contain pictures said to show a UFO moving near Hale-Bopp.
'Farsight viewers' saw ship trailing comet
When he's not teaching political science at Emory University, Professor
Courtney Brown runs a group in Atlanta not affiliated with the university,
called the Farsight Institute.
Brown's organization practices and promotes a technique he calls "remote
viewing," which he claims allows people to see events in different parts of the
world and even the universe.
According to Brown, his group members detected a spaceship trailing the comet
using psychic reception. "The data do suggest that there was an actual anomaly,
there was some type of a vehicle, some type of a ship, some type of thing of
extraterrestrial origin," he said.
"And our data does suggest that it was following the comet precisely in order
to get attention for itself." Rancho Santa Fe group suggested link
While it's unclear whether or not the Rancho Santa Fe group paid any attention
to the UFO controversy on the Internet, they did run a business creating Web
sites. One of their sites suggests a link between Hale-Bopp and a spacecraft --
presumably the one destined to take them off Earth.
However, an astronomer who co-discovered the Hale-Bopp comet says the
so-called UFO is a bunch of bunk. Astronomer Alan Hale says the object people
claim is a UFO is simply a bright star.
In the Middle Ages, comets were thought to be warning shots fired at a sinful
Earth from the right hand of a vengeful god. In 1843, a major comet appearance
signified to some that the end of the world was near.
Now, UFOs are using the comets for a shield. While all these theories are so
far just superstition, you can still check out the comet's effect on yourself:
Hale-Bopp remains visible in the northwest sky just after sunset through
mid-April, in the Northern Hemisphere.