Astronomer Carl Sagan relates an anecdote on page 80 of his 1980 book "Cosmos" about being on duty in an observatory near Chicago in 1957 when a late-night phone call from an inebriated man asked what was the "fuzzy thing" they were seeing in the sky. Sagan told the man that it was a comet (Arend–Roland). The man asked what a comet was, and Sagan answered that it was "a snowball, one mile wide". After a long pause, the man said, quoting Sagan: "Lemme talk to a "real" 'shtronomer!".