<P> In November 1996 amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek (1950--2000) of Houston, Texas took a CCD image of the comet, which showed a fuzzy, slightly elongated object nearby . When his computer sky - viewing program did not identify the star, Shramek called the Art Bell radio program Coast to Coast AM to announce that he had discovered a "Saturn - like object" following Hale--Bopp . UFO enthusiasts, such as remote viewing proponent Courtney Brown, soon concluded that there was an alien spacecraft following the comet . </P> <P> Several astronomers, including Alan Hale, claimed the object was simply an 8.5 - magnitude star, SAO141894, which did not appear on Shramek's computer program because the user preferences were set incorrectly . Later, Art Bell even claimed to have obtained an image of the object from an anonymous astrophysicist who was about to confirm its discovery . However, astronomers Olivier Hainaut and David Tholen of the University of Hawaii stated that the alleged photo was an altered copy of one of their own comet images . </P> <P> A few months later, in March 1997, 39 members of the cult Heaven's Gate committed mass suicide with the intention of teleporting to a spaceship they believed was flying behind the comet . </P> <P> Nancy Lieder, a self - proclaimed contactee who claims to receive messages from aliens through an implant in her brain, stated that Hale--Bopp was a fiction designed to distract the population from the coming arrival of "Nibiru" or "Planet X", a giant planet whose close passage would disrupt the Earth's rotation, causing global cataclysm . Although Lieder's original date for the apocalypse, May 2003, passed without incident, predictions of the imminent arrival of Nibiru continued by various conspiracy websites, most of whom tied it to the 2012 phenomenon . </P>

Who discovered or who had seen the comet