Dr. Lee Shargel, a former NASA and Department of Defense scientist with doctorates in material science and robotics, calls in from Fort Lauderdale to reveal that colleagues have obtained 17 classified photographs of Hale-Bopp showing a distinct object causing a disturbance in the comet's tail. Art opens the broadcast with breaking news about water discovered on the Moon and a delayed Mars probe launch before turning to the deepening Hale-Bopp mystery.
Shargel claims the incoming signal from the object has already been decoded, consisting of 72 repeating mathematical images that form pictures of our solar system, another solar system, and trajectory maps. He interprets the transmission as both a greeting and a warning about a neutron radiation pulse cascading through the galaxy, similar to what he believes caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. He connects the HAARP installation and a classified Antarctic facility called Saranet to a planetary shield project.
Callers press Shargel on the physics of neutron pulses, the relationship to crop circles, and the implications for Earth. The episode adds another voice to the rapidly intensifying Hale-Bopp narrative, with Shargel insisting he predicted these events three years earlier in his book and offering to provide photographs directly to Art Bell.
