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From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for November 19, 1997: UFOs - Whitley Strieber

November 19, 1997: UFOs - Whitley Strieber

Nov 19, 1997
3h 32m
0:00 / 0:00
Art Bell welcomes author Whitley Strieber for an evening of extraordinary reports from the world of UFOs and close encounters. The program opens with Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center providing a detailed update on the mysterious lights seen streaking across Pacific Northwest skies the previous week. Davenport reveals that witness accounts and trajectory data contradict the official explanation of Russian space debris, noting that objects appeared to maintain formation and travel in the opposite direction from what NORAD reported.

Strieber then shares the remarkable story of Glenrock, Wyoming, a small town with an astonishing concentration of UFO sightings and unexplained phenomena. Residents describe sequences of three powerful knocks heard throughout town in 1988, matching an identical experience Strieber documented at his New York cabin in 1986. Witnesses Jamie Eager and Marla Hendrix recount their own encounters, including a strange amber-colored fog that blanketed the town and an episode of missing time during which they unknowingly videotaped a UFO emerging from a rainbow-colored cloud.

The program also features discussion of alien implants, with Strieber recounting how a surgeon attempting to remove an object from his ear reported that the implant physically moved away from the scalpel. Dr. Roger Lear, a pioneering implant researcher, joins to discuss his work recovering anomalous objects from experiencers. Chile's announcement of an official government committee to study UFOs provides an ironic contrast to American reluctance on the subject.

Key Moments

  1. NORAD said the debris went east-to-west - Davenport says it went the opposite way: Davenport tells Art the Air Force/NORAD line that the SL-12 (Proton) Russian booster reentered, fell into the Pacific, and traveled east-to-west. His witnesses across Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia have the formation moving the precise opposite direction, southwest to northeast - and a NORAD public-information officer admitted he was uncomfortable sharing routine launch data with a civilian.

  2. Formation made a 90-degree turn over Vancouver and held identical angular velocity: Davenport reconstructs the ground track: the lights came in from the Pacific over Queets/Moclips, crossed Olympic National Park, passed north of Lummi Island toward Vancouver, then turned and ran the U.S.-Canadian border east through Leavenworth, Concrete, Tonasket, Methow and Nine Mile Falls - all moving at the same angular velocity in a fixed formation, behavior inconsistent with random space debris.

  3. Seven hovering disks, four-over-three formation, in northern Washington: Davenport relays a witness call: a woman driving home with her nine-year-old son, between 9:15-9:20 pm, stopped on a highway and stared at seven disk-shaped objects hovering motionless in a crystal-clear sky - four in a row on top, three on the bottom - each about 20 times the diameter of Venus at peak brightness. A 911 facility in Okanogan County independently corroborated red lights skulking over the area.