Arthur "Art" Bell, III (born June 17, 1945) is an American broadcaster and author, known primarily as the founder and a longtime host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM. He also created and at one time hosted its companion show, Dreamland.

Semi-retired from Coast to Coast AM, he is on hiatus from hosting the weekend broadcasts. Bell also ownes oldies station: KNYE 95.1 FM ("The Kingdom of Nye ... Things That Go Pahrump In The Night") in Pahrump, Nevada.

Early years

Bell was born to Arthur Bell, Jr., a United States Marine Corps Captain, and Jane Bell, a Marine drill instructor. He was always interested in radio and at the age of 13 he became a licensed amateur radio operator. Bell served in the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, and in his free time operated a pirate radio station on his base. He would go out of his way to play anti-war music (like Eve of Destruction and Fortunate Son) that was not being played on the American Forces Network.

After leaving military service he stayed in the Far East, residing on the Japanese island of Okinawa where he worked as a disc jockey for KSBK, the only non-military English-language station in Japan.

While in Anchorage, Alaska at radio station KENI he set a Guinness record for staying on the air for 116 hours 15 minutes^{[citation needed]}. He also set the world record for seesawing while broadcasting for 57 hours. The money raised there allowed Bell to charter a DC-8, fly to Vietnam and rescue 130 Vietnamese Orphans stranded in Saigon at the war's end. They were eventually all brought to the United States and adopted by American families.

Bell returned to the United States and studied engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He dropped out and went back to radio, this time as a board operator and chief engineer. Being around the stations he got a few opportunities to be on the air. For several years he worked back and forth behind and in front of the microphone. After a period of working in cable television, in 1989 the 50,000-watt KDWN in Las Vegas, Nevada offered Bell a five-hour time slot in the middle of the night.

Background

Bell's original program in Las Vegas was a political call-in talk radio show, but he tired of the format, believing there were too many such programs, especially in the wake of Rush Limbaugh's massive success.

Thus, Bell abandoned political talk and began highlighting topics such as gun control, conspiracy theories, and other topics that appealed to a segment of the populace that thrived on such discussion. This led to a significant success in his overnight ratings. However the main focus of his show shifted significantly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Many in the media did not want to be blamed for inciting the militia/anti government actions like the bombing. At that time his show shifted to its current focus of his long interest in topics and guests not generally invited to appear on his competitors. Bell's guests and their topics often deal with the paranormal, occult knowledge, conspiracy theories, Unidentified Flying Objects, protoscience, and pseudo-science. If someone were to see a transcript of his early 90's shows (and not hear the voice) they would not recognize it as the same show. Gone is the militia talk - replaced with ET's.

At his peak popularity, Coast To Coast AM was syndicated on over 500 radio stations, and it claimed 15 million listeners nightly. In its current form, the show receives upwards of 30 million listeners when Bell is actually hosting the show. [1] Bell formerly broadcast from his home in the town of Pahrump, located in Nye County, Nevada, hence, the catchphrase "from the Kingdom of Nye".

Some critics see Bell as a charlatan, and some guests have been criticized as cranks or quacks; Coast-to-Coast is subject to frequent ridicule and criticism on the usenet group alt.fan.art-bell, in the AOL chatroom "Beyond Belief", and on blogs. Radio host Phil Hendrie occasionally lampoons Bell (using the bumper Dancing Queen by the pop group ABBA), his guests ("General Johnson Jameson" is a combination of Coast regulars Ed Dames and Richard Hoagland), and the unusual products offered by advertisers.

Others regard Bell as simply a master showman, noting that he calls his show "absolute entertainment" [2] and further noting his statements that he does not necessarily accept every guest or caller's claims but only offers a forum where they will not be openly ridiculed. Bell is one of only a few talk show hosts who do not screen calls. His calm attitude, patient questions, and ability to tease substance from the sometimes nebulous statements of callers and guests gave his show a relaxed and serious atmosphere earning him much praise from those who contend the paranormal deserves a mature outlet of discussion in the media, as well as others who are simply amused by the nightly parade of the bizarre. Ed Dames, Richard C. Hoagland, Terence McKenna, Dannion Brinkley, and Robert Bigelow were all regular guests who typically discussed fringe topics.

Bell's interests, however, extended beyond the paranormal. Sometimes his topics venture into more 'normal' areas, such as interviewing singers Crystal Gayle, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, comedian George Carlin, writer Dean Koontz, "hard" science fiction writer Greg Bear, and frequent guests physicist Michio Kaku and SETI astronomer Seth Shostak.

There are three annual features on Bell's program: On April Fool's Day, Art always winds up having at least one gag story that's presented in such a way that the listeners are left guessing as to whether or not their legs are really being pulled hard, such as the time when Bell took a cellphone call from a pilot who was claiming to be flying his Cessna airplane over Area 51 and winded up getting shot down while still on the line. On Halloween, his show is renamed "Ghost to Ghost A.M.", and is devoted to callers relating their allegedly real-life encounters with ghosts. Every New Year's Eve, Bell invites callers to make a prediction for the coming year; the predictions are then reviewed at the close of the next year and given a verbal "Ding" if they are deemed to have been correct, or a "Bonk" if the prediction did not come true.

Beginning in late 1996, Bell was criticized for reporting rumors that comet Hale-Bopp was being closely followed by an UFO. It was speculated that members of the Heaven's Gate group committed mass suicide based on rumors Bell aired, but others discounted this, noting that the Heaven's Gate website stated that: "Whether Hale-Bopp has a 'companion' or not is irrelevant from our perspective." [3] Susan Wright notes, however, that Bell was also "one of the first to publicise expert opinions debunking the 'alien companion'" said to have been shadowing Hale-Bopp (Wright, 187).

Bell is well known in the world of amateur radio, and holds an Advanced Class License issued by the Federal Communications Commission. He is also well known by his callsign, W6OBB, and he and many of his fans can be heard nightly on the 80-meter amateur radio band at a frequency of 3840 kHz. Although the FCC revised the licensing scheme when it began to de-emphasize knowledge of Morse Code and no longer issues "Advanced Class" licenses, Bell, in a kind of reverse snobbery, has not upgraded to the higher "Extra Class" license because the Advanced Class license demonstrates a proficiency in morse telegraphy no longer required by the new Extra Class license.

In 2005, the City of Las Vegas renamed a portion of 11th Street in the downtown area "Art Bell Drive".

Art has also had several amusing arguments with a regular caller who calls himself "JC Webster the 3rd", a far-right-wing Christian who believes that Art is "the Devil's mouthpiece".

In March 2006, Bell received a call from a person or entity calling itself "Oscar" who is allegedly "the Son of Satan". Bell reacted toward Oscar in a similar manner as he has reacted toward JC.

Marriages

• Airyn Ruiz, April 8, 2006 - present
• Ramona Bell, 1990 - January 5, 2006 (see below)
• Sukiyaki Sakamoto Kyo Bell, divorced. Children: Art "Scooter" Bell IV.

Retirements and comebacks

Bell has retired and returned to Coast to Coast AM several times.

Retirement: His first retirement, highly unexpected, was announced on October 13, 1998.

Return: He returned two weeks later, leading many to believe it was merely a publicity stunt. Bell asserted that the brief departure was brought on by threats made against his family.

Retirement: In April of 2000, Bell again retired, but offered no details other than stating he intended to "resolve a family crisis". Mike Siegel was left in charge of the program. It was later explained he had left to deal with the aftermath of his son's rape. Unbeknownst to listeners, on May 16th, 1997 his only son (16 at the time) had been kidnapped and raped by a substitute teacher from his high school. Consequently the younger Bell suffered psychological trauma. The rapist was convicted, charged with attempting to transmit the AIDS virus to the younger Bell. Later, Bell filed a civil lawsuit against the school district on behalf of his son.

Return: Nearly a year later, in February of 2001, Bell again returned. He noted that since his departure the show had lost a number of affiliates, commercial content had risen to an unbearable level, and that Siegel had taken the program in a "different direction", one which Bell disapproved of. He retained some authority over the program as its creator, and thus felt his return was necessary.

Retirement: In late 2002, recurring back pain (the result of a fall from a telephone pole during his youth) forced yet another departure, and Bell was permanently replaced by George Noory as weekday host of Coast to Coast AM.

Return: Bell again returned in September 2003, having missed the microphone, this time replacing Barbara Simpson and Pia Zadora as host of the Saturday and Sunday evening broadcasts. In June 2005, he scaled this schedule back a bit (a 'semi-retirement'), deciding to host only the last two Sundays of every month.

Current Involvement

On January 21, 2006, just days after the unexpected death of his wife Ramona, Bell announced he would host Coast to Coast AM every Saturday and Sunday evening, announcing at the same time that former weekend host Ian Punnett would work a new live prefeed program for the four hours preceding Bell's slot on Saturday nights (21:00 - 01:00 ET). Punnett's new show is titled Coast to Coast Live with Ian Punnett.

Events of 2006

Bell's life took some dramatic twists in the beginning of 2006:

Death of Ramona Bell

Ramona Bell, his wife of fifteen years, died unexpectedly of what appeared to be an acute asthma attack on January 5, 2006 in Laughlin, Nevada, where the couple was taking a short vacation. She was 47 years old. The events surrounding her death were described, in great detail, by Art Bell during the January 22 broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. For weeks thereafter, callers would express their sadness and sympathy for Art Bell to George Noury who has, effectively, taken Art Bell's place. [4]

Remarriage, Relocation

By the end of January, that same month, Bell began hinting that he was making a significant life decision but would be keeping it a secret for at least one year, asking listeners to remind him in 2007 to let them in on it. He hinted even further in March, saying that he would soon be taking a "huge risk" and "do something rash". On April 15, 2006, he did away with the mystery and shocked listeners by revealing that he had recently gone to the Philippines and had married Airyn Ruiz, a 21-year-old recent college graduate. Ruiz had contacted Bell through his personal e-mail address, offering condolences shortly after Ramona's death. Ruiz was given Bell's private contact information from a ham radio friend who was courting Airyn's sister. After dating via internet video conferencing for "hundreds of hours," the two married one week after Bell arrived in the Philippines to meet her in person. Bell also paid for his friend's expenses to accompany him to the Philippines and marry Airyn's sister; the two couples wed in a double marriage ceremony on April 8, 2006.

At the same time, it was announced Bell would be leaving his longtime homestead in Nevada and relocating to the Philippines, near Makita Manila, where he will continue to host Coast to Coast AM weekend editions via an ISDN connection (as of late-May, 2006, he has not returned to his hosting duties). He left on April 29, 2006 and is expected to remain there for at least a year, while maintaining ownership of his property in the United States and of the radio station KNYE.

Books

Bell has written, or co-written, several books. They include The Quickening: Today's Trends, Tomorrow's World, The Art of Talk (an autobiography), The Source, The Edge: Man's Mysterious Past & Incredible Future, and The Coming Global Superstorm, which became the basis for the popular movie, The Day After Tomorrow.

See also

• Coast to Coast Topics: Chemtrail theory, Classified information in the United States, SETI, Time travel, Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, Albert Einstein, Ufology, paranormal, string theory, near-death experience, ghosts, electronic voice phenomena, Dannion Brinkley, Carl Sagan, solar system, Peak Oil, biodiesel, Global Warming
• Coast to Coast personalities: Richard C. Hoagland, Ed Dames, Jonathan Christian Webster, Linda Moulton Howe
• Radio: Coast-to-Coast AM, List of radio programs, George Noory
• Other: United States Libertarian Party, Pahrump, Nevada
• Art Bell's Scientific Interests: String Theory, Nikola Tesla, Radio, Mysterious Ice
• List of relationships with age disparity

Sources

• Wright, Susan: UFO Headquarters : Investigations On Current Extraterrestrial Activity In Area 51St. Martin's Press, 1999 ISBN 0312971818

External links

• Art Bell Retires
• Coast to Coast AM
• KNYE 95.1 FM, Pahrump's only locally based radio station
• Molestation of son may have led to Bell absence, By Jerry Fink and Jace Radke
• "Art Bell -- Libertarian". Advocates for Self-Government
• Art Bell gets a Frantic Call from an Ex-worker of Area 51
• "Art Bell Back, George Noory Stays, Barbara Simpson Out"
• Official NASA letter to Art Bell, Re: 'missing' Hale-Bopp/Hubble observations -- with hoagland annotated response (Enterprisemission.com)
• Archived edition of his page explaining the Filipino e-mail hoax
• Peddling the Paranormal: Late-Night Radio's Art Bell from Skeptical Briefs newsletter of March 1998
• Art Bell, Heaven's Gate, and Journalistic Integrity from Skeptical Inquirer magazine of July/August 1997