Hale-Bopp was last visible with the naked eye around 2213 B.C. and won't be back for a return engagement until 4397. From now until April 15 the comet Hale-Bopp, which was first discovered in 1995, will be easily visible in the northwest sky just after sunset. Brown claimed to have pictures showing the ship, and among the conspiracy minded, tales of imminent alien invasion started to circulate. New Mexico resident Alan Hale, one of the discoverers of the comet, immediately went to work disproving the myth, according to USA Today . Hale told the paper last week that if an alien invasion were planned, he'd demand to see the aliens while they were on their way back to Roswell, N.M., where some believe a spaceship crashed in 1947.
Aliens are just the last in a long line of apocalyptic myths that accompany comets.
Comets have been said to foretell doom for centuries. Comets, which are nothing more than ice-coated rocks buzzing through the solar system, have been thought to have preceded the assassination of Caesar, the death of Charlemagne and the suicide of Hannibal. Such experts are pushing for a comet and asteroid alarm system and some sort of space defense to destroy incoming space debris. Pointing to the extinction of the dinosaurs, scientists can make a strong case for investing in space defense, but when the price ticket on such a system tallies into the hundreds of millions of dollars, it's a pretty hard sell. There's no debate, however, as to the opportunity that Hale-Bopp is giving professionals and amateurs alike to observe the cosmos in all their glory.