SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS: HALE-BOPP COMET

The sky came alive in 1997. Each six months for 18 months,we experienced a full lunar eclipse. Strangely enough, each of these three lunar eclipses has fallen on Jewish festival/feast days. The one that just occurred on March 23, 1997 was, however, even more spellbinding, as it was accompanied by the awesome spectacle we have come to know as Hale-Bopp. Never before has the world seen a lunar eclipse and a comet at the same time! "Coincidentally", this date was also the date when Hale-Bopp was closest to the earth!) The darkening of the moon served to accentuate the extraordinary brightness of this now well-known comet. Some areas of the world were treated to clear skies, and able to enjoy the once in a dispensation display more than others. Unfortunately, in central Florida, the skies were hazy!

What have people thought about comets in years gone by? Some would say they are harbingers of fateful changes and trouble to come. They have been associated with such things as poisoned waters, public insanity, disease, disaster, and anomalies such as two-headed calves. The approach of Halley in 1910 caused many Americans to panic, buying gas masks and "comet pills". One of the most interesting tidbits regarding comets, however, is the Talmudic tradition that if a comet ever passes through the constellation of Orion, the world would be destroyed. Now, according to the Nov. '95 issue of Sky & Telescope, Hale-Bopp passed through Orion. This started the day after Passover (April 23, 1997) during the counting of the Omer, and ended on Feast of Weeks or Pentecost (June 11, 1997). It passed just above and parallel to the three stars which compose Orion's belt. The creator of the Pyramids seemed to understand the significance of these stars, as they PERFECTLY match the alignment of the Pyramids! It then went from Orion into a region of the sky called Duat by ancient Egyptians (between Orion and Leo) It where the souls of the departed are said to try to go. (Note some see Pentecost as being a time of high likelihood for the Rapture of the "glorified church"!)

There has been much heated speculation on the Internet re: the supposed findings of an "amateur astrologist" by the name of Chuck Shramek. He is down played by many due to his views  regarding a "government conspiracy" to hide information from the public regarding Hale-Bopp. Indeed, some indicate that they can prove his work to be fraudulent. I must admit that the evidence from both sides creates a rather complex and unsettling picture. Chuck indicates that there were "companions" (or unidentified bodies) which seem to travel with Hale-Bopp. Whereas some say that the "companions" in the pictures he has published were stars, Chuck insists that the stars would remain stationary, but these "companions" moved WITH Hale-Bopp. At one point he states, "If I had claimed I took a picture of giant green rabbits on Neptune, would anyone have bothered to debunk me? I must have come close to revealing some truth that the powers that be wanted to be kept a secret or nobody would have cared! ... I have not made a penny off any of this work. In fact it's cost me several thousand dollars - but that's OK because I learned lots of things.

The biggest thing I learned is that many scientists are extremely threatened by new information that doesn't fit into their boxes."

(It is very interesting that in the days of "environmental awareness" the Vatican was able to pull some fast maneuvers to take over some "Sacred Native American Land" (at the expense of some endangered species) to build a huge telescope on the 33 of latitude in Arizona. It seems that this latitude is not just of interest to the Vatican. The space program was moved to Houston which shares the vacinity of this latitude. It also happens to be the latitude of the Giza Pyramids! It has been noted that the Apollo program patch shows the three stars of Orion's belt. Lest they would deny that these are the stars of Orion's belt, it should be noted that they just happen to be offset from one another to show the exact relationship we would find between the stars in the belt of this constellation!

Is it coincidence that on each landing of the moon, Orion was in a significant position in the lunar sky? Space expert Richard C. Hoagland believes that NASA knows of ancient old ruins on Mars  and the moon, and he believes that the moon landings were timed to the alignments of Orion. In fact, he claims that the first two men who graced the moon (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) held a mystical ritual 33 minutes after landing on the moon. Could it have been to establish a temple to Orion on the moon on July 20, 1969? Twenty-five years later to the day after this first Apollo landing, the largest chunk of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet struck Jupiter. Events like this happen about once every 100,000 years. When asked about his opinion regarding the "coincidence" of the timing being 25 years later to the day, Hoagland responded, "no comment ... (laughter) ... well, ... as Dorothy said to Toto, 'I don't think we're in Kansas anymore'."

March 23-29, 199, our government is sent up four rockets from the deserts of White Sands, New Mexico. They are not to go into orbit, but just penetrate the atmosphere, photograph Hale-Bopp, then parachute back down with information about the composition of the comet, gas emission and dust particles, etc. (White Sands, NM, by the way, just happens to be on the 33 latitudinal line, along with Roswell, NM, where the UFO allegedly crashed in July of 1947). Their expenditure of untold and unsolicited taxpayer dollars on these expendable rockets for research re: the composition of Hale-Bopp is particularly interesting after reading the speculations of other Internet faithfuls, i.e. that Hale-Bopp seems to have a "magnetic field", have fractured into many small pieces during its exposure to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field of Jupiter, and may be closer in composition to an asteroid than what is normally considered to be a comet. Such magnetic composition would imply some metallic substance, possibly rocklike in nature., greater in density than the "ice ball" we assume a comet to be.

Infrared pictures of the impact of Shoemaker Levy 9 with Jupiter show that the chunks of this comet that crashed into Jupiter caused rather catastrophic damage, much more than previously estimated. Many impacts were gauged to be roughly equivalent to that of 120 megatons of explosives. They also triggered volcanic eruptions on Io (one of Jupiter's moons) which were so violent that they flashed hundreds of miles into space.

There is much interesting phenomena associated with Hale-Bopp. At some times, it appears to have "eyes", or multiple centers, and the "companion(s)" seem to be there at times, and gone at others. (Many would write off these "eyes" and "companion(s)" as processing glitches, but the explanations themselves leave some questions in the minds of the reader!) Hale-Bopp went directly over the north pole of the sun, just as Hyakutake did before it. When a scale model of the solar system is observed, the chances of this happening has been related to the likelihood of two bullets being shot from 100 feet, and hitting two flies a foot apart, knocking off the left wing of each.

Hale-Bopp was occulted by the moon (the moon passed in front of it). This has never before happened in the history of comets. It likewise occulted a star. Hale-Bopp crossed the celestial equator on Dec. 5, 1999. Astronaut Hoagland says that this was a date of significant alignment of Orion, and that a secret (chamber of a pyramid was scheduled to be opened on that same day.

Are external forces influencing the direction and timing of this comet? If so, what forces? What is the composition of Hale-Bopp? Is there significance to the phenomena which surrounds it? Will it prove to be prophetic? Only time will tell, and it will possibly be 7-10 years before we know, but it is definitely an object of interest as we see these last days concluding, something well worth watching!