MSNBC ARTICLE 'COMET STIRS UP TERRESTRIAL TEMPEST'
Thu, 05 Dec 1996 18:07:40 -0500
Source: MSNBC
Comet Stirs Up Terrestrial Tempest
Believers hint at alien mystery;
skeptics see flaws and fakery
By Alan Boyle
It sounds like a story line straight from 'The X-Files': A
smattering of highly enhanced pictures, mostly taken by amateur
astronomers, turn up a mysterious light accompanying a comet
through space. True believers get the word out over the Internet
and talk radio, while the scientific establishment tries to
explain away the discrepancies. The war of words soon escalates,
with charges of cover-ups and countercharges of fakery flying
through the ether.
The truth is out there — about 271 million miles out there, in
fact, and getting closer. Like the hot gases that surround a
comet's core, rumors and ridicule are surrounding the HaleBopp
comet as it swings around the sun and heads back out into deep
space.
Much of the controversy focuses on a photograph taken by Houston
amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek and posted on the Internet in
midNovember. It shows the comet with a bright object nearby - a
feature that has come to be known as the 'Saturnlike object'
because of what seems to be an oblique ring jutting out from
each side of the circle.
Shramek contended this was a large, mysterious sphere moving in
tandem with the comet. Further claims soon surfaced from various
sources: that the object was sending out radio signals, that it
was a hollow spaceship, that the government was withholding
photos of the comet and its 'companion' taken by the Hubble
Space Telescope, even that a prominent unnamed astronomer would
confirm the companion's existence this week.
Among those championing Shramek's claims are the Farsight
Institute in Atlanta, which promotes a mental technique known as
scientific remote viewing; and a radio talk show moderated by
Art Bell, who specializes in subjects that would warm the hearts
of 'XFiles' fans and others who believe in UFOs.
Among those discounting Shramek's photo are NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and Alan Hale, one of the comet's
discoverers. Another is Russell Sipe, an amateur astronomer in
the Los Angeles area who has maintained a Web site on HaleBopp
for the past year.
Sipe says the mysterious companion is nothing more than a
faraway star that Shramek failed to account for in his
photograph - SAO 141894, to be exact. In posts to the newsgroup
sci.astro, others are less charitable, contending that Shramek
altered his photograph to insert the Saturnlike object. Sipe and
other astronomers say the Saturnian rings are actually
diffraction spikes - a fairly common optical effect captured by
the photographic process.
Shramek vehemently rejects Sipe's claims.
Efforts to contact Shramek by telephone and email have been
unsuccessful, and his Web page was knocked out of commission by
overwhelming traffic. He has been quoted as saying that he was
'shocked at some of the personal attacks on me.'
For his part, Sipe says he weathered 150 hate letters via email
on the night of Art Bell's Nov. 19 radio show about HaleBopp and
the next morning.
"There is a story way beyond the fact that this guy
misidentified a star," Sipe said in an interview. "There seem to
be some people trying to whip up some sort of millennial
hysteria."
Complicating the issue are other photographs that appear to show
companions to the comet. For example, there is a Hubble photo
that astronomers say shows a chunk of material being sloughed
away from the comet.
And then there are shots taken by amateur astronomers in
Albuquerque and by the National Astronomical Observatory of
Japan: In those cases, skeptical observers believe the
'companion' was actually created during the process of enhancing
the photos. The technical debate centers on CCD photography, a
computerized method for enhancing a series of raw telescopic
images.
The tale of the comet is taking on a life of its own on the
Internet: Scores of astronomers are posting HaleBopp photos on
the World Wide Web, and the debate is spreading on newsgroups
from sci.astro to alt.prophecies.nostradamus.
Meanwhile, HaleBopp continues its silent approach, coming to
within 125 million miles of Earth. At its brightest, the comet
could rival the star Sirius, although observations will be
complicated by the fact that its projected position will be
relatively close to the sun.
And in a twist worthy of FBI Agent Fox Mulder himself, the best
viewing should come right around April Fool's Day.
© 1996 MSNBC
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