Newsgroups: alt.politics.jaffo,alt.religion.kibology Path: news.cinenet.net!news.isi.edu!usc!howland.erols.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed4.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!coop.net!world!ppp0a003.std.com!user From: mmcirvin@world.std.com (Matt McIrvin) Subject: Re: I Have No Joke Here Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:02:10 GMT References: <3344f2cb.5945389@news.onramp.net> Nntp-Posting-Host: ppp0a003.std.com Organization: Software Tool & Die, Brookline MA Lines: 26 Xref: news.cinenet.net alt.politics.jaffo:7865 alt.religion.kibology:24648 In article <3344f2cb.5945389@news.onramp.net>, jaffo@onramp.net (Jaffo) wrote: > They thought a UFO was following the Hale-Bopp comet, and was going to take > them away. They made money making WEB PAGES. The thing that haunts me is that I have clear memories of those people posting their "Last Chance to Advance Beyond Human" announcement to a bunch of Usenet groups a few years ago. It doesn't seem to be in the DejaNews archive; it was probably before late '95. There was nothing to distinguish it from any other garden-variety UFO cult; it was nothing you hadn't read in a John Winston post. The "Hale-Bopp UFO" was all over Usenet a few months ago. Somebody saw a "Saturn-like object" (really just a star) in an astronomical photo, and some loons started making a big deal out of it. By now, I thought that even the UFO folks had stopped thinking about it, since the dot is clearly not present in later photographs, or, heck, visible in the *sky*, where the comet is now a big, bright object. I've been watching various flavors of paranormal nuttiness on and off the net for years, and I keep having to remind myself how seriously some of these people take it. It all seems like it could only be a big joke, then it ends up killing somebody. -- More Matt McIrvin than you need! http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/