September 9, 1996: TWA 800, Arts Parts, Crop Circles - Open Lines
The conversation shifts to a sensational Canadian newspaper article that Art ridicules on air, its tabloid-style headlines screaming about feds ready to swoop on his alleged Roswell fragments. New electron scanning microscope photographs of the layered metallic samples are now posted on his website for public scrutiny. Callers weigh in on topics ranging from Hurricane Hortense battering the Virgin Islands to the gender gap in presidential polling, the proposed Harry Brown debate alternative, and a caller from Jacksonville who earnestly identifies himself as a werewolf sworn enemy of vampires.
The episode is a quintessential open lines night, veering from geopolitics and conspiracy to the deeply personal and absurd. Art navigates compass deviation reports from a Southern California boater, anti-gravity research from Finland, and a listener's telescopic observation of a moving object on the lunar surface, all while maintaining the spontaneous energy that defines his unscreened format.
Key Moments
AA pilot reportedly saw a missile pass his jetliner - TWA 800 echo: Art reads a wire report: weeks after TWA Flight 800 exploded, an American Airlines pilot claims he saw a missile pass his jetliner mid-flight while the cases were being investigated separately, dovetailing with one of the leading TWA 800 theories.
Hawaii listener - Bonneville Power woman, crystal mountain inscriptions in Palm Desert: Art reads a letter from a TV news employee in Hawaii relaying his friend Anita's account of a Native American woman now at Bonneville Power, with a top-secret clearance, who was taken to a crystal mountain near Palm Desert and asked to translate laser-etched holographic inscriptions that read: 'We came to this planet. We seeded this planet. We will return.'