A student in an introductory astronomy class in 1975 wrote an extra credit report concerning the comet Kohoutek. The report, obviously copied directly from an old magazine article, was written in the future tense with a glowing description of the coming of Kohoutek and how it would probably be the brightest comet of the century. It was replete with predictions of what would be observed when the comet came close to the Sun, and detailed discussions of what to look for when the great sight hove into view.

The problem was that, as almost anyone who read newspapers or watched the nightly television news would have known, Kohoutek had already come and gone the previous year (1974), and had been one of the most spectacular flops in the history of comet prediction. It yielded important scientific information, but never became bright enough to see very well with the naked eye! The student, apparently completely unaware of all of this, did not fare well in the grading of his extra credit report.

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