July 24, 2015: Open Lines

Art Bell launches a dedicated time traveler phone line routed through Roswell, New Mexico on the fifth night of Midnight in the Desert, producing one of the most memorable open lines broadcasts of his career. Before the calls begin, an Anonymous contact describes the collective as "an emergent phenomenon of the first generation born and raised on the internet," detailing its hive-mind structure and encryption training.

The time traveler line delivers callers ranging from entertaining to chilling. A man born in 2078 describes being moved backward through time in five-year increments by a mysterious agency. A caller from 2085 reports three percent of humanity has vanished and a fascist global state requires citizens to be physically tagged. A motorcyclist claims he rides through a projected doorway into the past, losing his bike to Confederate soldiers who melted it for gun metal. Most unsettling, a man says the black-eyed children have enslaved him, each forced trip erasing more of his identity. Between calls, a New Mexico listener recounts witnessing a full Native American ceremony on an Anasazi ruin that left no trace by morning.

A night that captures exactly why Art Bell's open lines format remains unlike anything else in broadcasting.