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From the High Desert book cover

From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for July 27, 1999: Space Travel - Robert Bigelow | Madalyn Murray O'Hare - James Napier

July 27, 1999: Space Travel - Robert Bigelow | Madalyn Murray O'Hare - James Napier

Jul 27, 1999
2h 35m
0:00 / 0:00
James Napier reveals a private Madalyn Murray O'Hare conversation, and Robert Bigelow makes his radio debut to discuss space travel and private aerospace after Father Malachi Martin's death. Art opens with the news of Father Malachi Martin's passing, honoring the exorcist and papal advisor as a singular figure who enriched the program over many years. Napier, a veteran television journalist, reveals a private conversation with O'Hare that challenges her public identity. After persistent questioning about meaning and purpose, O'Hare reportedly acknowledged an organizing intelligence beyond the scope of human knowing, a striking admission from the woman who removed prayer from American public schools.

The second half features the radio debut of billionaire Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Development Corporation and longtime patron of the National Institute for Discovery Science. Bigelow describes his lifelong fascination with the UFO phenomenon, sparked by family sightings in the 1950s, and shares findings from the NIDS ranch where a newborn calf was stripped of flesh and bone within 45 minutes in broad daylight with no blood on the ground. He confirms his personal conviction that the phenomenon is not connected to government black projects.

Bigelow then unveils his plan to build a privately funded orbital cruise ship, a half-mile-wide rotating habitat accommodating 100 passengers on six-day voyages around the Moon. He argues that reducing launch costs from the shuttle's $10,000 per pound to roughly $550 would make commercial space tourism viable, breaking NASA's monopoly on human spaceflight.

Key Moments

  1. Father Malachi Martin has died: Art opens the show with the news that his close friend, exorcist and papal advisor Father Malachi Martin, died at 6:15 PM Eastern after a massive stroke produced severe brain stem damage following an earlier fall.

  2. Madalyn Murray O'Hare: only fools need meaning: James Napier recounts asking Madalyn Murray O'Hare on his first-ever Austin talk show what she thought the purpose of life was; her answer - 'only fools need meaning' - captured her atheism cleanly and on the record.

  3. Bigelow's remote viewers hit 30-35% accuracy: On his first-ever radio interview, Robert Bigelow says he has personally engaged remote viewers experimentally and watched one gentleman describe specific things at given coordinates with about 30 to 35 percent accuracy.

  4. Night vision camera caught a portal opening: Art recaps and Bigelow confirms: a night vision camera at the ranch caught what witnesses describe as a circular opening - possibly a portal to another dimension - through which something came before the opening disappeared.

  5. Bigelow announces the space cruise ship plan: Bigelow reveals on Coast to Coast for the first time that his ultimate fantasy and active plan is to build a space cruise-ship hotel facility in orbit - seeded by his investments on the launch side and now pivoting to the destination side because nobody is filling that vacuum.