My E-Mail to a skeptical scientific type who didn't think I was much of a scientist, who doubted a cover-up, and who told me the Hubble has a lot of other things to look at.....

November 3, 1996

Dear ________,

I'm not a scientist, just a jerk on the radio who does news. 99.9 per cent of the news I report is not about comets. However, I do have a real interest in science - especially astronomy.  My radio reporting experience of 30 years has also given me a real sense to tell when people are lying or trying to hide something.

Since the discovery of HB, I've been a real junkie for information about it. Initially, there was a lot of information on the net from NASA, JPL and the major observatories like ESO, Tiede and the Maxwell in Hawaii. I know the Hubble has other things to look at, I see the schedules. But I also know they had a number of HB observations planned on nearly a monthly basis. There was also a plan from the start to give Hubble time to observe phenomenon they could not plan for. This comet with the brightest absolute brightness in centuries certainly would qualify for that. I know also that a year ago NASA was very excited about the comet and had coordinated observations with major observatories. But something happened in May of 1996. Information stopped flowing. I was really tuned into the flow of information and felt this very strongly. Good pictures ceased to be posted.

I heard later from a scientist that indeed his observatory was under a threat of losing big government contracts if they didn't play along. I have also caught NASA and JPL in a number of lies about why the information stopped. An example of just one of these lies was when a JPL guy told me Hubble and the big scopes were not looking at HB because it was now too bright. If he thinks I believe this then he's not too bright. This was at a time when HB was fainter than magnitude 6!

I don't know why there is a coverup, but I do KNOW there is one. I raise questions in my web because they have been raised in my mind. I'm just thinking out load and looking for answers from people like you. Yes, from my own observations and comments from others it appears there are forces - magnetic, electric or other, that are influencing the jets. They remind me more or aurora displays or solar flares than gas shooting out of crevasses in a rock. HB's coma which apparently was detected 13 AU out is a clue something beyond just thermal heating and its outgassing is at work. It has been seen on old sky surveys way back in 1992 and just a rock, even a few hundred miles in diameter should not have been visible out there - well beyond Saturn. It should be interesting to see what happens when the comet passes almost precisely over the north pole of the sun. Maybe this is the real reason for a coverup-- some new scientific principle is being shown and someone wants to patent or exploit this knowledge first.

It makes me mad though that the way NASA is structured with private contractors - like Applied Reserach - that those contractors can legally sit on information for a year - or longer. Those exciting days when people could watch live pictures coming from Saturn or the moon are gone forever. The arrogance that JPL and NASA displays regarding this is shocking. They seem to forget that tax payers bought their stuff, now their hoarding it and acting like it's OK.

Sincerely

Chuck Shramek - Houston