The current Mars euphoria reminded my dad of an astronomical event he observed as a child. Somewhere between 1955-1959, for three nights straight, he says a huge red planet, looking about the “10 times the size of moon”, appeared on the sky. “Bigger than comet Halley” he says. The press at the timed carried “End of The World” style headlines. People were blowing all their money or even borrowing money carelessly since the world was surely about to end. Does anyone know the name/date for the event he witnessed?
I think your dad is misremembering. I’m pretty sure nothing like this ever happened during that time period. Certainly not as it was described in your OP.
Sputnik on acid ? The Reds launched it on October 4, 1957, and it was a very big deal.
Or possibly the comet C/1956 R1 (Arend-Roland). This large, bright comet lit up the sky in 1957:
Bronson Beta?
I bet that comet is it, Squink.
Believe it or not, some bad press was claiming Mars would be as big as the Moon - this time! What they really meant was, at the time of the broadcast, Mars was located near the moon.
It was about that time that Arend-Roland was most visible in the Northern Hemisphere, but I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the prophesy. See a list of bright comets here: http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/bright_comet.html#recent
Another bright comet, Mrkos (or Myrkos 1957-D), also appeared in 1957.
With Arend-Roland being “The first brilliant comet to be visible from the Northern Hemisphere since Halley’s in 1910”, this second cosmic apparition convinced some people that the end was nigh.
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I was 11, and in a science club. I remember we looked at one or the other comet through a small telescope. It still looked like a Q-tip.
With no disrespect to your father intended, I wonder if he isn’t (1) kidding you, or (2) dealing with hazy recollections of a TV show from that era.
On Superman there was an episode about the trouble that follows after Earth acquires a “second moon”, an asteroid so big and so close that it causes eclipses on a daily basis.
On Alfred Hitchcock Presents there was an episode which begins with some practical jokers showing a phony newspaper to a credulous drunk who hangs out at the same bar as they frequent. It says that Earth will be destroyed later that night in a collision with Mars. The rest of the story details the good and the ill the man causes in the ensuing hours.