From the High Desert

A cultural history of Art Bell and the world he broadcast into being.

Available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle.

Episode Archive

1993 Episodes

Direct links to every Art Bell Archive episode from 1993, inside the High Desert Origins (1992-1996) stretch of the archive.

3 episodes

High Desert Origins

All years

1992 1994

Era context · 1992-1996

High Desert Origins

The early national Coast era: open phones, militia anxiety, UFO witnesses, and the shape of the late-night archive taking form.

185 era episodes

5 years

1996 · 83 1995 · 69 1994 · 29 1993 · 3 1992 · 1

June 20, 1993: The Philadelphia Experiment - Al Bielek

Jun 204h 53mAl Bielek

Al Bielek joins Art Bell for a riveting three-hour interview in which the self-described electronic engineer and alleged participant claims firsthand involvement in the Philadelphia Experiment, the Navy's classified World War II project to render a warship invisible.Bielek traces the project back to 1931 and the work of Nikola Tesla, Dr. John Hutchinson, and Dr. Emil Curtinow at the University of Chicago. He describes how rotating electromagnetic and electric fields, driven by massive generators and Tesla coils, were designed to bend light and radar around the USS Eldridge. The first test on July 22, 1943, achieved radar and visual invisibility for twenty minutes. Bielek explains in remarkable technical detail the ship's quadraphase antenna, the 160 megahertz RF transmitters, and the 8-megawatt diesel generator that powered the system. The catastrophic second test on August 12, 1943, allegedly caused the ship to physically vanish from Philadelphia harbor for four hours. Bielek claims crew members were found fused into the ship's steel, others went insane, and he and his brother Duncan were transported through time to 1983 Montauk, Long Island.A deep dive into one of the most controversial military legends ever told on late-night radio.

#0002

September 3, 1993: UFO's + Art & Ramona's Black Triangle Sighting - John Lear

Sep 338mJohn Lear

John Lear returns to the program as Art Bell opens with a detailed account of his own UFO sighting near Pahrump, Nevada, describing a massive, silent, black triangular craft that floated just 150 feet above his car at impossibly slow speed.Lear, drawing on his record-setting aviation career and intelligence contacts, suggests the object may have been a classified A-12 Avenger prototype, though the craft's silent operation and lack of aerodynamic lift remain unexplained. The conversation expands into the Fox television special on UFOs that aired the previous night, featuring Linda Moulton Howe, George Knapp, and Bob Lazar. Lear recounts how his public advocacy for UFO research cost him a senior captain position at a major airline after a decade of service. He describes the government's multi-layered security clearance system, with 28 levels of top secret crypto above standard top secret, and claims the president holds only a mid-level clearance. The discussion covers the alleged Mars Observer cover-up, the Face on Mars at Cydonia, and NASA's suppression of high-resolution imagery from the Martian surface.A vivid, personal broadcast that blends Art Bell's own encounter with Lear's insider perspective on government secrecy.

#0003

October 30, 1993: Ghost to Ghost

Oct 302h 53m

Art Bell hosts the inaugural Ghost to Ghost broadcast on the eve of Halloween 1993, opening the phone lines for callers across North America to share their real-life encounters with ghosts, spirits, and the unexplained.Art Bell sets the tone with a newspaper account of spectral sightings at the U.S. Capitol Building and the haunted Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada, where a murdered woman known as the Lady in Red reportedly activates disconnected Keno boards and appears to guests as a headless apparition. Callers deliver a remarkable procession of stories: a Victorian house in Provincetown, Massachusetts, built from shipwreck lumber that harbors restless poltergeist activity; a Marine sniper in Grenada visited by his Civil War-era ancestor who mysteriously freezes his shattered leg on the battlefield; a woman in Alameda, California, whose household discovers a shared haunting tied to a deceased brother no one knew had died. Art Bell reflects on each account as potential evidence of life after death and warns against Ouija board experimentation after multiple callers describe disturbing consequences.A foundational episode that launched one of the most beloved annual traditions in late-night radio history.

#0004