Comet Hale–Bopp
The Heaven's Gate event was widely publicized in the media as an example of mass suicide. When news broke of the suicides and their relation to Comet Hale–Bopp, the co-discoverer of the comet, Alan Hale, was drawn into the story. Hale's phone "never stopped ringing the entire day". He did not respond until the next day, when he spoke on the subject at a press conference, but only after researching the details of the incident. Speaking at the Second World Skeptics Congress in Heidelberg, Germany on July 24, 1998: