by Geri Destefano & Alfred Webre - EcoNews Service
<econews@ecologynews.com>

VANCOUVER - Remember those dramatic photos of twenty fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter in July 16-22, 1994?

Well, scientists at the Millennium Group are worried that Comet Lee, a wild card (non-periodic) comet first discovered by Australian Steven Lee on April 16, 1999, may pass discomfortingly close to Earth sometime starting in mid-August, 1999 and continuing through early 2000.

 At the very least, they say, Comet Lee may cause solar explosions (CMEs) in our solar system, earthquakes, and hurricane - like weather on Earth.  At the worst, well, Shoemaker-Levy’s comet fragments crashing into Jupiter could be a pictorial
warning for Earth if Comet Lee is captured in Earth-moon orbit.

What has Millennium Group scientists James B. Ervin, Jim McCanney, Alexey Dmitriev, Gary D. Goodwin, Ray Ward, Hal
Blondell, Don Carros, and Wayne Moody worried is that Comet Lee’s behavior is defying all predictive models by NASA's and other's super-computers.

Millennium Group scientist James B. Ervin says, ““The truth of the matter about [Comet Lee] is that nobody can project its path….I believe there is ample evidence to suggest that it will pass much closer to Earth than originally anticipated….Especially, if Comet Lee is hit by a [solar explosion] during its perihelion passage.”

Earl L. Crockett, another Millennium Group Scientist, says we may already be experiencing the effects of Comet Lee. “I would personally add that it may in fact already be responsible for the very weird actions we have been seeing from the sun over the last several months; i.e. the appearance that something has been "pulling" energetic charges away from the Sun in the opposite
direction of Earth producing large [solar] CME's/flares that for the most part have had little electromagnetic effect here on Earth.”

Scientist Jim McCanney adds, “[Comet Lee] is truly a lawless comet, and with the erratic brightening happening it is certain to be far off course every day….This could be a doozy! August is now looking like a time for the first possible trouble.”

Disturbingly, scientist Ray Ward says tight military security has been mounted around official tracking of Comet Lee, impeding
public knowledge and scientific study. “The word is Ultra tight security on Comet Lee. The Military side of NASA is running this show now, so forget any type of cooperation.”. Ward adds, “Too bad NASA has destroyed the [Comet] Hale-Bopp data that we could really use to help provide the correction factors needed on Comet Lee.”  Comet Hale-Bopp’s closest Earth approach was on March 22, 1997.

According to McCanney, planetary alignments in mid-August and September 1999 may make Comet Lee particularly hazardous. “The big key here is the upcoming planetary alignments and that it will be the electrical plasma alignments not gravity that will be the potential harm givers. Most critical is the September 6, 1999 alignment of Venus, and Earth with the new Moon….I have even considered that if the comet orbit is "hooked" enough we could see a close enough encounter that the Earth and moon could capture this thing as a permanent new member of the earth moon system, or worse; at it would flip out into a future collision course with us again and again like Venus did to Mars some 4000 years ago.”

Researchers have raised concern about the potentially catastrophic effects of two other space events in mid-August, 1999, which may be compounded by Comet Lee.  One is the Solar Eclipse of August 11, 1999.  The other is the Earth flyby of the Cassini spacecraft on August 18, 1999, carrying 72 pounds of plutonium, equivalent to over 50% of all the radiation released since the beginning of nuclear testing.

The Millennium Group is an independent group of scientists and researchers “organized to create an unbiased outlet for scientific research and critical thinking.”  Millennium Group research on Comet Lee appears at:
http://www.millenngroup.com/repository/cometary/lee.htm

See Our Comet/Asteroids Page: http://www.earthchangesTV.com/comets/index.htm