Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) was perhaps the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811.

Hale-Bopp was discovered on July 23, 1995, at a great distance from the Sun, raising expectations that the comet would brighten considerably by the time it passed close to Earth. Although predicting the brightness of comets with any degree of accuracy is very difficult, Hale-Bopp met or exceeded most predictions when it passed perihelion on April 1, 1997. The comet was dubbed the Great Comet of 1997. Read more

Comet Hale-Bopp Over Indian Cove   NASA - November 24, 2013

Comet Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997, was quite a sight. In the above photograph taken on 1997 April 6, Comet Hale-Bopp was imaged from the Indian Cove Campground in the Joshua Tree National Park in California, USA. A flashlight was used to momentarily illuminate foreground rocks in this six minute exposure. An impressive blue ion tail was visible above a sunlight-reflecting white dust tail. Comet Hale-Bopp remained visible to the unaided eye for over a year before returning to the outer Solar System and fading. As Comet ISON approaches the Sun this week, sky enthusiasts around the Earth are waiting to see if its tails will become even more spectacular than those displayed by Comet Hale-Bopp.

Comet Hale-Bopp was connected to apocalyptic theories, channeling, and UFOlogy - none of which turned out to be true.

Nancy Lieder, a self-proclaimed contactee claimed to received messages from aliens through an implant in her brain and stated that Hale-Bopp wa 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, has now passed, the imminent arrival of Nibiru is still predicted by various conspiracy websites, most of whom tie it to the 2012 phenomenon. This date also passed without incident. I had spoken to Leider at the time and thought she had mental issues but like other channelerd - she believed what she wrote and talked about. She is wrong about Nibiru returning and knows nothing about the Anunnaki

Marshall Applewhite, leader of the doomsday cult, Heaven's Gate, who organized a mass suicide in hopes of spiritually riding along with a UFO he thought followed the Hale-Bopp comet.

In November 1996 amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek 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.

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 J. Tholen of the University of Hawaii stated that the alleged photo was an altered copy of one of their own comet images.

A few months later, in March 1997, the cult Heaven's Gate committed mass suicide with the intention of teleporting to a spaceship they believed was flying behind the comet.