January 3, 2004: Wacky 911 Calls - Leland Gregory

Former Saturday Night Live writer Leland Gregory joins Art Bell for wacky 911 calls, stupid-crook audio, and emergency-dispatch oddities after NASA's Spirit rover lands on Mars. Art opens the program with breaking news that NASA's Spirit rover has successfully landed on Mars, discussing the implications with Richard C. Hoagland before turning to the lighter side of the evening. Hoagland explains the rover's autonomous six-minute descent through the Martian atmosphere into Gusev Crater, where sedimentary deposits may hold evidence of ancient water, and shares his hope that the unfiltered live images could reveal unexpected artifacts in the landscape.

Gregory has built a career collecting audio of real 911 calls and police encounters from across the country. Art and Leland play a series of recordings, including an Australian radio caller who cannot spell ACDC despite being a devoted fan, a woman who calls 911 for help inserting batteries into a small fan, and a man in Maine who unleashes a spectacular profanity-laced tirade at a traffic officer over a speeding ticket, a recording now used in police training.

Among the most memorable clips is dashboard camera audio of a man who consented to a trunk search during a routine traffic stop, only to remember the fifteen pounds of marijuana inside. Left alone in the patrol car, his anguished cries to a higher power provide an unforgettable portrait of instant regret. Gregory notes that roughly 65 to 70 percent of all 911 calls are frivolous or non-emergency, including one from a teenager alarmed by his own belly button lint.