- "A judgement is upon us! Repent! The end of the world is at hand! Woe, a judgement! A judgement is upon us!"
- —Philippulus the Prophet[src]
Philippulus the Prophet is an astronomer and an absent-minded professor who appears only in The Shooting Star.
History
After observing a ball of fire heading towards Earth, Philippulus goes insane, dresses himself in white sheets and goes around town beating a gong and claiming to be a prophet tasked with announcing the end of the world to others. The madman also judges that Tintin is a spawn of the Devil after the reporter advises him to go home. He then starts harassing Tintin at his home. Philippulus is later sent to a mental asylum, but escapes, and attempts to stop the expedition looking for a fallen fragment of the shooting star in the Artic Ocean. He makes it to the expedition's ship, the Aurora, and causes a great deal of initial trouble, eventually taking refuge up the main mast and nearly setting off a stick of dynamite in the belief that it is a firework. Tintin manages to trick him into getting down by using a megaphone to shout supposedly divine instructions at him, and eventually Philippulus is taken back to the hospital.