STATEMENT BY ALAN HALE
ON HEAVEN'S GATE MASS SUICIDE

  To begin, I'd like to read an excerpt from the last book Carl Sagan wrote before he died, entitled The Demon-Haunted World and subtitled Science as a Candle in the Dark. He quotes from a pamphlet entitled A Candle in the Dark written about 350 years ago: ". . . the Nations [will] perish for lack of knowledge" and then goes on to say: "Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purposes, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us — then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls."

The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

  Two years ago, what was apparently a group of Christian extremists bombed a building in Oklahoma City. If I remember the numbers correctly, 168 people, including a lot of innocent children, were killed. A victory for ignorance and superstition.

  Last week, Tom Bopp and I had the illustrious honor of being the "people of the week" on ABC's World News Tonight. I watched the broadcast in order to see how much of me the ABC editors threw onto the cutting-room floor. Before that segment of the broadcast was reached there was a report from Tel Aviv, where what was apparently an Islamic extremist, if I remember the details correctly, went into a restaurant with some dynamite strapped to himself, and then detonated it. I watched the various images of the bloodied and bleeding bodies, and one image which really struck me was that of a screaming young baby, who now will have to live with the experience of growing up without her mother, who was killed in the blast. Another victory for ignorance and superstition.

  And now — the reason we're all here, of course — this week in Rancho Santa Fe, California, 39 individuals committed a mass suicide, apparently — from what information I've been able to gather so far — so that their "inner beings" could rendezvous with another group of "beings" on an alien spacecraft traveling alongside Comet Hale-Bopp. Score another victory for ignorance and superstition.

  Before I go any further, I'd like to offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of the 39 individuals who lost their lives in such a senseless and tragic manner.

  Ignorance and superstition have been with us all along; the bloodbaths that have occurred throughout human history offer ample testimony to that. A lot of this ignorance and superstition has been focused upon these celestial objects we call "comets." If we put ourselves into the shoes of those who lived 500 years ago, it isn't all that difficult to understand why. The people then were familiar with the stars, and with the motions of the planets. But every once in a while one of these comets, which can really be quite impressive in the sky, would appear from out of nowhere, hang around for a couple of weeks or so, and then essentially disappear back into nowhere. It was all too easy to connect these objects in the sky with whatever bad events were occurring here on Earth, and as a result the comets acquired a reputation as being harbingers of doom and portents of disaster.

  Folks, this isn't 500 years ago; we've learned quite a bit about these objects in the years that have elapsed since then. Back at the turn of the 18th Century Edmond Halley showed that comets are members of the solar system, and are subject to the same laws of physics that everything else in the universe is subject to. Earlier this century Fred Whipple hypothesized that comets could be described as "dirty snowballs," and all the scientific evidence we've gathered since then supports this. That's all a comet is: a dirty snowball. They are no more portents of doom than are the snowballs that my sons and I throw at each other after the snowstorms we get here in Cloudcroft.

  But ignorance and superstition still exist, even now, as we are approaching the dawn of a new century, and a new millennium. Some of you I spoke with on the phone yesterday, and some of you hopped on an airplane and flew over here. Images of me and recordings of my voice are now being transmitted all over the planet. All of this would have been completely inconceivable to the people who lived 500 years ago. And yet the ignorance and superstition still persist.

  Some of this ignorance and superstition is retaining its old form. I've had people tell me that Hale-Bopp is "an angel from God," and I even had one person say that Hale-Bopp is God. I've seen lots of discussion referring to Hale-Bopp as one of the "signs of the end times" and claims that it is a fulfillment of the prophecies in Revelation or the prophecies of Nostradamus, or other such prophecies.

  Some of this ignorance and superstition has mutated into a newer form. Almost from day one I have heard claims that Hale-Bopp is an "alien mothership" or is "under intelligent control" or some such. And then, of course, there is this business of the "mysterious Saturn-shaped companion" following Hale-Bopp that broke last November. According to the claims, this was an "alien spacecraft, four times larger than Earth," coming to do one of various things to us.

  After that story broke out, I received a number of inquiries from the press, almost as many as I received yesterday. It didn't take me long to figure out what was going on: the object that was photographed was nothing more than a bright background star that the comet happened to be located next to on the night in question. Once I had determined this I posted this explanation, along with the photographs to prove it, on the World Wide Web.

  But ignorance and superstition didn't want to hear this. I was called a "traitor to Earth" for "withholding information." I was called a lot of other names that I can't repeat in this company. Even now I still get questions about this, and I still encounter people who are adamant that there is a "companion" following Hale-Bopp. I've even pointed out the comet to these people and asked them to show me where this "companion" is, something they can't do, of course. And now, this has been carried to an extreme; 39 people have now lost their lives as a result of this ignorance and superstition.

  I guess it's been about 30 years now, since Bob Dylan asked the question "How many deaths will it take 'til we know, that too many people have died?" How many more Oklahoma Cities will we have to endure? How many more Tel Avivs? How many more Rancho Santa Fes are we going to have before we finally say "Enough!" to ignorance and superstition? How many more of these types of reports are we going to have to listen to before we finally decide that we are going to use the candle of science, and the reasoning skills that we have, to take back the darkness from the ignorance and superstition that is enveloping us?

  I hate to sound like I'm saying "I told you so," but I'd like to read the last paragraph of the explanation I posted to the Web after this business of the Saturn-like object broke out last fall. I remind you that this is dated November 16, 1996. After explaining that the "object" was nothing more than a bright star, I wrote: "There are many `fringe' people who are trying to attach apocalyptic significance to Comet Hale-Bopp, and incidents like this one . . . are sure to increase as we get closer to the comet's perihelion. I ask readers to treat all these irresponsible reports with the disdain they deserve, and instead enjoy the beauty of the comet for its own sake."

  I really meant that last sentence. What I want everyone to do — and I mean everyone who is here today, and everyone who is seeing my image and listening to my voice — is, tonight, to drop what you're doing, forget about the world for a minute, go outside, look up in the northwest, and take a look at this comet. It's a beautiful object. It's lovely. It's one of the most magnificent celestial objects you will ever see. But for all its beauty, its magnificence, its splendor, all it is is a dirty snowball that's orbiting the sun. Nothing more. It has no influence on Earthly events. It has no power to affect anything that happens here on Earth. It has no power, but we do. We have the power to build a world for the 3rd Millennium that is free of the ignorance and superstition that is so rampant in our society today. We have that power. What I'd like you to do when you're looking at the comet tonight is to think of some ways to make that happen. I'd like to hear what you come up with.