1997 Episodes | Art Bell Archive

1996 1998

Era context · 1997-1999

UFO / Y2K Boom

The archive at full cultural heat: Roswell aftershocks, Hale-Bopp, remote viewing, prophecy, Y2K, and internet-age paranoia.

435 era episodes

3 years

1999 · 117 1998 · 140 1997 · 178

January 1, 1997: Open Lines

Jan 12h 47m

Art Bell rings in 1997 with a New Year's Day open lines show that quickly becomes a sprawling exploration of politics, prophecy, and the strange. With catastrophic flooding devastating the Pacific Northwest and Nevada, callers report from the front lines of what many are calling a hundred-year flood. Art weighs in on the federal government's push to override state marijuana legalization in Arizona and California, calling it an arrogant dismissal of the voters' will.The night takes unexpected turns as callers debate the biblical and legal origins of laws against polygamy, with theories ranging from Mormon persecution to a banker conspiracy. A CBS radio report about asteroids breaking out of their orbits and potentially crossing Earth's path adds a note of cosmic unease. Meanwhile, the mysterious countdown signal on 940 AM in central California fuels Hale-Bopp companion speculation, and Art shares his prediction that the government will try to seize control of the internet by planting classified data online.From flood-ravaged listeners sandbagging through the night to philosophical musings on royalty and mortality, this episode captures the restless energy of a nation stepping into an uncertain new year, with Art Bell as its late-night guide through the unknown.

#0186

January 3, 1997: Near Death Experiences - Dannion Brinkley

Jan 33h 22mDannion Brinkley

Dannion Brinkley, the man who was clinically dead for 28 minutes after being struck by lightning while talking on the telephone, joins Art Bell fresh from a trip to Egypt with revelations about both the afterlife and the ancient world. Brinkley recounts his two near-death experiences and the panoramic life review that forced him to feel the impact of every interaction he ever had, transforming him from a self-described violent man into a devoted hospice volunteer now in his 18th year of service.The conversation moves from the deeply personal to the geopolitical as Brinkley describes his meetings with Zahi Hawass on the Giza Plateau. He flatly contradicts Richard C. Hoagland's claims of a secret chamber opening, stating he was present and nothing of the sort occurred. Yet Brinkley expresses absolute certainty that a Hall of Records exists beneath the plateau, one that will rewrite human history and challenge every major institution. He positions himself as a mediator between warring Egyptological factions.Brinkley's central message is both simple and radical: human beings do not die, religious institutions have built empires on fear, and the baby boomer generation must prepare to care for aging loved ones as government safety nets collapse. Callers push back with biblical challenges, but Brinkley holds firm, offering his scars as evidence.

#0187

January 7, 1997: Paranormal - Dr. Barbie Taylor

Jan 73h 24mDr. Barbie Taylor

Dr. Barbie Taylor, a clinical psychologist with deep ties to the Bigelow Foundation and Dr. Steven M. Greer's CSETI organization, joins Art Bell from Las Vegas to discuss a career that spans human sexuality research, parapsychology, and direct UFO encounters. Commissioned by Robert Bigelow to find the world's greatest mediums, Taylor spent five months networking globally and sitting with extraordinary practitioners, including George Anderson, emerging convinced that the veil between the living and the dead is remarkably thin.Taylor recounts a dramatic 1993 CSETI expedition east of Mexico City where her team witnessed a silent, triangular craft the size of a 747 respond to their light signals, approach within a mile, and shut down all their electronic equipment. She also describes afternoon sightings of reflective disc-shaped objects near the volcano, reinforcing her belief that multiple types of extraterrestrial beings are interacting with Earth. Her work with a retired FAA psychic associate on the TWA Flight 800 crash produced detailed material supporting the missile theory, which was sent to the FBI.The episode weaves together remote viewing, interdimensional theory, and contact with deceased loved ones into a picture of reality far broader than conventional science acknowledges. A caller who was shot four times describes living in an alternate reality during his three-week coma, adding visceral testimony to the night's themes.

#0188

January 8, 1997: Gulf War Syndrome - Joyce Riley

Jan 82h 48mJoyce Riley

Nurse and Gulf War veteran Joyce Riley returns with devastating new evidence that the federal government is actively covering up a communicable illness devastating hundreds of thousands of troops and their families. Just one day after a presidential advisory commission blamed Gulf War illness on stress, Riley presents confidential VA data showing a 600% increase in tumor rates among active-duty military and reports that 67% of sick veterans are producing children with birth defects, a figure far beyond any normal baseline.Riley details the mycoplasma incognitus organism identified by Dr. Garth Nicholson, which contains 40% of the HIV envelope gene and produces AIDS-like symptoms without being AIDS itself. She describes how Nicholson was forced out of MD Anderson Cancer Center for researching the disease, how VA doctors who speak out face termination, and how roughly 50% of tested Gulf War veterans are positive for the organism. A Marine Corps caller confirms seeing chemical detection tape turn pink during the ground offensive into Kuwait.The episode reaches its most sobering moment when Riley reveals that Gulf War veterans have filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Commission, accusing the U.S. Department of Defense of crimes against humanity. American soldiers forced to seek justice from a foreign body against their own government represents a profoundly disturbing state of affairs.

#0189

January 10, 1997: The Entity - Dr. Barry Taff

Jan 102h 23mDr. Barry Taff

Dr. Barry Taff, the UCLA parapsychology researcher who served as principal investigator on the case that became the film The Entity, joins Art Bell to recount the real events behind one of the most documented paranormal investigations in history. Beginning in 1974, Taff and his team witnessed luminous balls of light flying through a Culver City bedroom, a full-bodied male apparition materializing in a corner, and a Geiger counter reading that dropped to zero as phenomena intensified.The photographs Taff sent to Art Bell's website show arcs of light hovering in free space above the terrified woman, confirmed as three-dimensional by their failure to bend with the walls behind them. Taff describes how the phenomena followed the woman through multiple moves across California and into Texas, and how neighbors who knew nothing of her history experienced poltergeist outbreaks after she moved in next door. The later San Pedro case proved even more violent, with photographer Jeff Wheatcraft nearly hanged by an unseen force and physically hurled across rooms.Taff's clinical perspective grounds the extraordinary testimony. He links poltergeist activity to epileptic seizure patterns and repressed psychological conflict, while acknowledging that no current technology can explain how emotional distress translates into a force capable of snapping keys, throwing bodies, or producing human blood plasma from inside wooden cupboards.

#0190

January 13, 1997: Time Machine Inventor - Steven Gibbs

Jan 133h 6mSteven Gibbs

Steven Gibbs, a self-taught inventor from rural Nebraska, joins Art Bell to describe his Hyper Dimensional Resonator, a device he claims enables physical time travel. Gibbs explains that the machine works by capturing the soul's energy at 7.8 hertz, stepping it through a diode circuit and zero vector field, then transmitting it via an electromagnet placed over the stomach. He says the device must be activated over an Earth grid point during a full moon to achieve results.Gibbs reveals he has sold over 100 machines since 1985, and estimates that 36 or more buyers have simply vanished, presumably traveling to other time periods. He recounts stories of customers journeying to the 1500s, the 1960s, and even the future. He describes his own trip to September 1997, where he claims to have witnessed aerial warfare and an intercontinental ballistic missile launch. He also discusses a mysterious barrier at the year 2012 that time travelers and remote viewers alike cannot penetrate.Art presses Gibbs on the practical dangers and paradoxes of time travel, from encountering your past self to arriving in an era without electrical outlets. Gibbs addresses each with surprising specificity, describing time laws that prevent disruption of the space-time continuum and a built-in return mechanism that brings travelers back within six to nine hours.

#0191

January 14, 1997: Disaster Preparedness - Philip Hoag

Jan 142h 43mPhilip Hoag

Philip Hoag, a Montana-based preparedness expert and author of No Such Thing as Doomsday, joins Art Bell to make the case that civilian shelter building is not paranoia but practical necessity. Hoag draws on over a decade of hands-on experience, including organizing the construction of a 7,000-square-foot underground shelter equipped with diesel generators, running water, and air filtration systems capable of sustaining 150 people for up to a year and a half.The conversation covers a wide spectrum of threats, from nuclear attack and biological warfare to economic collapse and totalitarian government overreach. Hoag explains that anthrax could be deployed from a single van or aircraft with virtually no detection, killing millions before symptoms appear. He details how the Soviet Union violated arms treaties to build shelters for 70% of its population while the U.S. dismantled its own civil defense programs. He also addresses the vulnerability of America's centralized food, water, and power infrastructure.Art and Hoag discuss the moral dilemmas of shelter life, including security against desperate outsiders and the agonizing decision of when to seal the door. Hoag emphasizes community cooperation over lone survivalism, arguing that self-sufficiency and preparedness are acts of responsibility, not fear.

#0192

January 16, 1997: Whitley Strieber & Courtney Brown

Jan 162h 4mWhitley Strieber, Courtney Brown

Art Bell hosts a tense and historic confrontation between author Whitley Strieber and Professor Courtney Brown of Emory University over a photograph that was presented as evidence of an anomalous object traveling alongside Comet Hale-Bopp. After holding the image for two months at Brown's urging, Art and Whitley released it on January 15th. Within 24 hours, astronomers at the University of Hawaii confirmed it was a manipulated version of their own September 1995 image of the comet.Dr. Oliver Hainaut of the University of Hawaii presents devastating forensic evidence, matching the star positions, pixel sizes, filter combinations, and limiting magnitudes of both images. He concludes there is absolutely no doubt the released photograph was derived from their original. Art replays key audio from the November 14th broadcast in which Prudence Calabrese described the alleged astronomer's credentials and the hours of conversation she had with him, making the depth of the deception painfully clear.The episode becomes a gripping debate as Art and Whitley press Brown to name the astronomer who supplied the photograph or at least submit the claimed negatives and film rolls for independent examination. Brown refuses on both counts, citing legal concerns and a desire not to ruin a potentially innocent career.

#0193

January 20, 1997: Open Lines

Jan 203h 27m

Art Bell opens the phones on Inauguration Day 1997, as callers weigh in on President Clinton's second term, Newt Gingrich's $300,000 ethics fine, and the lingering fallout from the Courtney Brown Hale-Bopp photograph scandal. Art shares his weekend of deep reflection on the human toll of the fraud, revealing that Prudence Calabrese has resigned from the Farsight Institute and that Brown has posted a public statement refusing to release any physical evidence or name the astronomer who supplied the fraudulent image.Callers debate whether Brown was a willing participant or a victim of disinformation designed to discredit remote viewing. Art reaffirms that while the photograph is undeniably fraudulent, other unexplained images of a Hale-Bopp companion still exist and the comet itself remains real. He also floats an ambitious proposal for micro-broadcasting, suggesting the FCC create new AM and FM bands where citizens could operate low-power neighborhood stations without heavy regulation, sparking a new industry of transmitters, receivers, and grassroots media.The episode captures a pivotal moment in the show's history, with Art candidly discussing the power and responsibility of mass media broadcasting. He concludes that honesty at every juncture is the only protection against the inevitable controversies that come with exploring the unknown.

#0194

January 21, 1997: Open Lines

Jan 213h 15m

Art Bell continues open lines with callers still processing the Courtney Brown Hale-Bopp controversy while branching into a wide range of topics. A caller from Mission Viejo announces plans to purchase Steven Gibbs' time machine and test it on video near a Sedona grid point. Another caller phones in claiming to be from 1998, reporting that the time machine works and that Art's ratings go up. The time travel segment from the previous week clearly captured the audience's imagination, and Art declares he will pursue anyone else building a time machine.The conversation shifts as callers share earthquake reports from Northern California, Colorado, and the Pahrump Valley. A woman from Illinois describes recurring visions of a catastrophic New Madrid fault event, pinpointing July 10th and October 7th of 1997 as dates of major tremors. Art also discusses Gulf War syndrome survey results showing alarmingly high rates of symptom transmission to veterans' spouses and children, suggesting the illness may be contagious rather than stress-related.Throughout the night, Art reflects on the quickening, his term for the accelerating convergence of social decay, earth changes, political dysfunction, and ecological disruption heading toward some unknown resolution. A Canadian caller confirms that people across the political spectrum sense something is coming.

#0195

January 22, 1997: Ham Radio & Other Topics - Wayne Green

Jan 223h 23mWayne Green

Wayne Green, legendary publisher of 73 Magazine and lifelong ham radio operator, joins Art Bell for a wide-ranging conversation that spans decades of adventure and unconventional thinking. From his World War II submarine service to his views on the decline of amateur radio, Green brings a rebellious spirit to every topic he touches.The discussion moves from ham radio's uncertain future and the rise of the Internet to Green's passionate advocacy for cold fusion research, colloidal silver, and a bioelectric blood purification device he claims has produced hundreds of positive anecdotal reports. Green also shares his controversial theories on education reform, entrepreneurship, and a firsthand account connecting Amelia Earhart to a secret spy mission over Japanese naval installations at Truk Island, sourced from her own airplane mechanic.Art and Wayne find common ground as fellow hams mourning the hobby's fading relevance while celebrating its legacy of producing generations of engineers and scientists. Green's irrepressible curiosity and willingness to challenge scientific orthodoxy make this a spirited exploration of ideas most would consider far ahead of their time.

#0196

January 23, 1997: Hemp & Marijuana Advocate - Chris Conrad

Jan 232h 33mChris Conrad

Chris Conrad, founder of the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp and an acknowledged expert on cannabis policy, joins Art Bell to separate fact from myth surrounding marijuana and industrial hemp. Conrad traces the history of hemp prohibition back to 1937, revealing how corporate interests from DuPont and the Hearst newspaper empire conspired to outlaw a crop that once formed the backbone of American agriculture.The conversation examines hemp's staggering industrial potential, from paper production that could save 240 trees per cultivated acre over four years to biomass fuel that could reduce dependence on foreign oil. Conrad also addresses the medical marijuana debate head-on, detailing how California's Proposition 215 passed with 4.8 million votes despite opposition from the federal drug czar, and why the synthetic THC pill Marinol falls short of the natural plant's 60 medically active compounds.Art challenges Conrad on the real downsides of marijuana use while highlighting a critical point about drug education. When authorities equate cannabis with hard drugs, young people who discover the lie may lose trust in all warnings, potentially opening the door to genuinely dangerous substances.

#0197

January 24, 1997: Non-Lethal Weapons - Col. John Alexander

Jan 242h 46mColonel John Alexander

Col. John Alexander, widely known as the father of non-lethal weapons, joins Art Bell from Las Vegas to discuss the emerging field of warfare designed to incapacitate rather than kill. Alexander, a retired Army colonel who rose from private to full colonel across a career spanning Special Forces command in Vietnam, Los Alamos National Laboratory research, and NATO advisory roles, explains how technologies from rubber bullets to electromagnetic pulse systems are reshaping military strategy.Alexander describes how laser targeting was used effectively against snipers in Somalia, how psychological operations led to mass surrenders in Desert Storm, and why the United States remains dangerously vulnerable to information warfare attacks on its own financial and communications infrastructure. He candidly assesses the limitations of directed energy weapons through the atmosphere while confirming that lateral laser strikes against ICBMs from space have already been demonstrated.The discussion takes unexpected turns into remote viewing, psychokinesis witnessed by senior military officers, and Alexander's involvement with the Council on Foreign Relations. His assessment that terrorism will increasingly target America's technology-dependent society carries a chilling prescience that resonates well beyond 1997.

#0198

January 27, 1997: Open Lines

Jan 272h 46m

Art Bell opens the lines on a night dominated by a remarkable discovery: a long-lost 1907 medical study by Dr. Duncan MacDougall documenting measurable weight loss at the precise instant of human death. Art reads portions of the study aloud, detailing how patients on precision beam scales lost three-quarters of an ounce instantaneously upon dying, with all other explanations methodically ruled out. The study found no such weight change in 70 dogs at the moment of death.The first hour features Timothy O'Reilly discussing his documentary Round Trip, which profiles five people who experienced clinical death and returned with strikingly similar accounts of unconditional love, transparency of form, and a complete absence of fear. Their experiences transcended religious boundaries, with none finding deeper meaning in organized religion afterward. Art connects O'Reilly's work to the MacDougall study as potential evidence for the existence of the soul.Callers weigh in on a mysterious metallic sphere recovered in Seguin, Texas, a bright flash tracked on radar over Kansas and Nebraska, the missing Telstar 401 satellite that vanished from orbit near an unidentified object, and the looming return of Hong Kong to China. The evening captures Art at his most animated, electrified by a piece of lost science finally rediscovered.

#0199

January 28, 1997: Three Mile Island Disaster - Scott Portzline

Jan 282h 37mScott Portzline

Scott Portzline, a researcher who spent 13 years investigating the Three Mile Island nuclear incident and reviewed over 30,000 pages of documents, joins Art Bell to present evidence suggesting the 1979 disaster may not have been an accident. Portzline details how emergency feedwater valves were found inexplicably closed, critical paperwork went missing, and a local cult had warned members to leave Harrisburg before April 1979, with a newspaper editorial specifically urging Three Mile Island to increase security.The technical chronology of the disaster reveals how close Pennsylvania came to catastrophe. Fuel melted twice inside the reactor, temperatures exceeded 5,000 degrees, and the Rogovin Commission concluded the state was within 30 minutes of a release that could have killed 130,000 people and rendered an area the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable. Portzline describes how the FBI opened and then denied a sabotage investigation within 24 hours.The conversation shifts to present-day vulnerabilities at nuclear plants nationwide, including vehicle barriers that remain open half the day, spent fuel pools accessible to truck bombs, and 149 of 150 known sabotage incidents committed by insiders. Portzline's testimony before Congress and the NRC exposed security gaps that remain deeply unsettling nearly two decades after the original disaster.

#0200

January 30, 1997: Remote Viewing - Ed Dames

Jan 303h 23mEd Dames

Major Ed Dames, former military intelligence officer and head of PSI Tech, returns to discuss the frontiers of technical remote viewing, including his company's startling findings on Telstar 401 and the alien autopsy hoax. Dames reveals plans to release a home study course that would bring remote viewing skills to the general public for the first time, a move he acknowledges will eventually put his own company out of business.The conversation takes a dark turn when Dames presents his most alarming prediction yet. He describes a cylindrical structure attached to Comet Hale-Bopp containing engineered plant pathogens that, once released into Earth's atmosphere, will systematically destroy all terrestrial plant life beginning in equatorial Africa. He projects a global economic collapse by mid-1998 driven by catastrophic food shortages, with an estimated 80 to 85 percent reduction in the world's population over several years.Art Bell presses Dames on the Courtney Brown controversy, the ethics of remote viewing, and the spiritual implications of what Dames calls the discontinuity, a future event where all timelines appear to shift simultaneously. The episode captures a pivotal moment in 1990s paranormal culture, blending classified military history with apocalyptic prophecy.

#0201

February 3, 1997: Crime Scene Investigation - Alexander Jason

Feb 32h 46mAlexander Jason

Alexander Jason, a certified senior crime scene analyst and former San Francisco police detective, joins Art Bell for an in-depth exploration of firearms, self-defense law, and the realities of deadly force in America. With over 100 million guns in American homes, Jason breaks down when citizens can and cannot legally use a firearm, dispelling dangerous myths perpetuated by Hollywood and gun store folklore.Through vivid real-world cases, Jason illustrates how good intentions can lead to criminal charges. A convenience store owner who chased down a shoplifter with a gun ended up convicted of kidnapping and manslaughter. Jason explains that the central legal principle is simple but widely misunderstood: deadly force is justified only when your life or someone else's life faces imminent threat, and it must be a last resort. He also details what to say and what not to say when police arrive at a shooting scene.The discussion ranges from carjacking scenarios and concealed carry permits to the O.J. Simpson civil trial verdict, which had just been handed down. Jason offers his forensic perspective on the case while sharing interviews with imprisoned burglars who admitted their greatest fear was an armed homeowner.

#0202

February 4, 1997: Open Lines

Feb 43h 33m

Art Bell opens the phone lines on the night the O.J. Simpson civil trial verdict arrives, as a jury unanimously finds Simpson liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, ordering $8.5 million in compensatory damages. Art questions whether a monetary judgment truly constitutes justice for two murders, and callers from across the country weigh in with reactions ranging from relief to frustration.The evening takes an unexpected turn when Art puts his mother, Jane Bell, on the air for an extended segment. Listeners quiz Ma Bell about her son's childhood mischief, including his habit of electrifying doorknobs, blowing things up with fireworks, and once escaping his crib to wander the neighborhood naked at age two. She reveals that Art's fascination with the unknown runs in the family and traces his radio career back to ham radio at age twelve.Between family stories and Simpson commentary, Art shares a bizarre report from Wilmington, California, where UFO sightings were allegedly followed by a 1950s vintage automobile falling from the sky. He also replays a revealing 30-minute interview with presidential candidate Steve Forbes on flat tax reform and the future of Social Security.

#0203

February 11, 1997: Mysterious Infections - Joyce Murphy

Feb 113h 25mJoyce Murphy

Joyce Murphy, president of Beyond Boundaries UFO research newsletter, joins Art Bell to investigate a disturbing incident in Jasper, Arkansas, where 45 elementary school children collapsed on a playground with severe headaches, rashes, breathing difficulties, and fatigue. Seven students were hospitalized in intensive care, and emergency workers who treated the children also fell ill, as did hospital laundry workers who handled their contaminated clothing two days later.A caller from Jasper confirms the essential details, reporting that an unknown compound was detected in the children's blood and urine samples but officials claim they cannot identify it. The school was temporarily closed, and a state health department meeting left parents with no answers, only assurances that the threat had passed. Art reads from U.S. Code Title 50, which permits the Department of Defense to conduct chemical and biological testing on human subjects with minimal oversight, raising uncomfortable questions about what really occurred.A self-described military-connected caller phones in to suggest the incident was part of a civilian control experiment, a claim that infuriates Art. The episode also features Murphy discussing her UFO expeditions to Mexico, where she has filmed anomalous craft near the active Popocatepetl volcano, and reports of the chupacabra appearing in the California high desert.

#0204

February 12, 1997: Asteroids & Global Warming - Whitley Strieber

Feb 122h 42mWhitley Strieber

Whitley Strieber, bestselling author of Communion and The Secret School, joins Art Bell for a sweeping discussion of two existential threats converging on humanity: asteroid impacts and the accelerating collapse of Antarctic ice. Strieber details how near-Earth objects have gone from a non-threat in 1992 to a weekly concern, citing the 1996 passage of asteroid JA-1, an object large enough to end civilization, discovered only four days before it narrowly missed Earth.The conversation shifts to the Larson Ice Shelf, which leading glaciologists predict will completely disintegrate within two years. Strieber explains how the resulting freshwater dilution of the Antarctic Ocean could alter the Gulf Stream and transform northern Europe's climate into something resembling Greenland within decades. He connects this to a mysterious catastrophic event 12,000 years ago that flash-froze mammoths with food still in their mouths, suggesting Earth may be approaching a similar inflection point.Art and Whitley engage in a memorable thought experiment about how humanity would behave given advance warning of a planet-killing asteroid, from credit card companies to Las Vegas casinos. The discussion weaves together ancient prophecy, the Fatima letter, population pressures, and the possibility that the zodiac itself may be a calendar warning of cyclical catastrophe.

#0205

February 21, 1997: Contact & Disclosure - Steven M. Greer | Mel's Hole - Mel Waters

Feb 212h 50mDr. Steven M. Greer, Mel Waters

Dr. Steven M. Greer, emergency physician and founder of CSETI, joins Art Bell to unveil his ambitious Project Starlight Initiative, a plan to bring together dozens of government, military, and intelligence witnesses for a definitive public disclosure on extraterrestrial intelligence. Greer reveals he has assembled roughly 70 to 80 firsthand witnesses willing to testify under oath before Congress, including individuals who have worked on retrieval operations, tracked craft on radar, and encountered extraterrestrial technologies in classified facilities. He describes briefings with senior CIA officials, members of Congress, and White House staff, while detailing efforts by covert programs to suppress disclosure through the United Nations.The conversation shifts when Art reads a stunning listener fax from a man named Mel Waters in rural eastern Washington, who describes a mysterious hole on his property near Manastash Ridge. The hole measures nine feet across, has never filled despite decades of dumped trash, and has swallowed 80,000 feet of fishing line without reaching bottom. Dogs refuse to approach it, birds avoid it, and nothing tossed inside produces an echo or impact sound.This landmark episode introduces two of the most enduring mysteries in the show's history. Greer's disclosure crusade would reshape the UFO conversation for decades, while Mel's Hole instantly captivated listeners and became one of Art Bell's most legendary segments.

#0206

February 24, 1997: Flying Sickness - Diana Fairchild | Mel's Hole Update - Mel Waters

Feb 242h 47mDiana Fairchild, Mel Waters

Diana Fairchild, a retired flight attendant with 21 years and 10 million miles of service for Pan Am and United Airlines, reveals the hidden health hazards of commercial air travel. She explains how airlines reduce fresh air circulation to save roughly $80 per hour on fuel costs, leaving passengers breathing recycled air with dangerously low oxygen and humidity levels drier than the Sahara Desert. Fairchild discloses that pilots breathe separate, higher quality air, receive up to ten times more ventilation than economy passengers, and are still permitted to smoke in the cockpit on certain carriers.Art Bell, still recovering from severe illness contracted on a recent flight, presses Fairchild on practical defenses. She recommends passengers request full utilization of air from the cockpit and demand portable oxygen bottles, which airlines are required to provide free of charge in flight. She also reveals that several countries spray pesticide directly on passengers before landing, a practice she blames for her own debilitating chemical sensitivity illness.The episode concludes with a dramatic Mel's Hole update. Mel Waters returns to describe finding his property blockaded by armed military personnel claiming a plane crash, a non-uniformed man warning him the land might not be his, and a neighbor's account of witnessing a beam of solid black light shooting skyward from the uncovered hole.

#0207

February 25, 1997: Hong Kong - Emily Lau

Feb 252h 55mEmily Lau

Emily Lau, an elected member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and outspoken pro-democracy advocate known as the Iron Lady of Hong Kong, speaks with Art Bell just months before the July 1997 handover to China. Lau describes the National People's Congress decision to repeal Hong Kong's civil liberties protections, including freedoms of demonstration, association, and assembly, and warns that all 26 pro-democracy legislators will be thrown out of office when China's handpicked provisional legislature takes power.Lau paints a sobering picture of mounting self-censorship across Hong Kong's press, business community, and academia. She recounts her own arrest by Hong Kong police during a peaceful demonstration in December 1996, and acknowledges she is likely a marked person facing dire consequences for continuing to speak out. Despite this, she refuses to be silenced. She challenges the Clinton administration's prioritization of trade over human rights, calling American diplomatic support little more than lip service.Art Bell draws parallels between Hong Kong's complacency and American civic apathy, asking listeners to consider what happens when freedoms are taken gradually rather than all at once. Lau's courage and candor make this a rare and powerful episode of geopolitical journalism, capturing a historic moment as one of the world's most vibrant cities faced an uncertain future.

#0208

February 26, 1997: Project S.T.R.A.T. UFO's - John Shepherd | Mel's Hole Update

Feb 263h 27mJohn Shepherd, Mel Waters

John Shepherd, a self-taught electronics enthusiast from rural Michigan, has spent his entire adult life converting his grandparents' home into a massive ultra-low-frequency transmitter designed to attract UFOs. Art Bell walks listeners through astonishing photographs on his website showing an 18-foot-tall resonator array, high-voltage coupling stations reaching 150,000 volts, and rooms overtaken by floor-to-ceiling racks of hand-built equipment. Shepherd explains he chose extremely low frequencies after observing that UFOs are drawn to 60-hertz power lines, and he broadcasts music and tonal sequences at up to 1,000 watts in the 40-hertz range.Shepherd recounts the childhood sighting that set him on this path, his grandmother's willing investment of her life savings into the project, and early experiments that appeared to attract unexplained aerial objects. He describes building custom capacitor banks from glass plates and hand-wound magnetic coils, blowing up equipment in spectacular high-voltage failures, and the constant struggle to fund his obsession.The episode opens with a stunning final fax from Mel Waters announcing he has leased his property to an unnamed party in exchange for monthly payments, immigration funds for Australia, and the promise that his remains will someday be disposed of in the hole. Art reads the farewell message as Mel's Hole passes into what Mel himself calls urban mythology.

#0209

February 27, 1997: Open Lines

Feb 273h 39m

Art Bell opens the night by teasing tomorrow's guest on cloning, a Loyola University professor who is simultaneously a geneticist, Jesuit priest, and bioethicist. He dives into a flood of strange news, including over 50 UFO encounters across Australia since February 1st, a captured chupacabra near San Antonio with video footage on the way, and a sheep in Spain found with a fully jointed leg growing from its head.Callers range across wildly diverse territory. A Gulf War veteran from Maine reveals he was told never to give blood again after service and has spent five years unable to obtain his medical records. A Seattle caller describes her roommate's uncanny ability to predict earthquakes weeks in advance. Art reads a Washington Post article on scientists discovering that intuition plays a measurable role in decision-making. A Peoria listener reports severe Illinois River flooding while another recounts a ghost encounter complete with an audible boo.Art addresses the persistent internet rumor of his own death, fielding panicked calls from affiliates and reading bewildered emails from fans. He caps the night with an audience game, asking listeners to finish the sentence "If I were a dictator, I would..." with answers ranging from eliminating animal cruelty to commanding an army of chupacabras.

#0210

February 28, 1997: The Implications of Cloning - Dr. Kevin FitzGerald

Feb 282h 55mDr. Kevin Fitzgerald

Dr. Kevin FitzGerald of Loyola University, a geneticist, Jesuit priest, and bioethicist, joins Art Bell to dissect the stunning news of Dolly the cloned sheep and what it means for the future of humanity. His rare combination of disciplines makes him uniquely suited to address the science, ethics, and theology colliding in this breakthrough moment.The conversation dives deep into the mechanics of cloning, from the mammary cell technique used at the Roslyn Institute to the prospect of growing replacement organs and its unsettling implications. FitzGerald explains why cloning armies would be genetically vulnerable, how cancer cells hold paradoxical clues to immortality, and why insurance companies gaining access to genetic data poses a serious societal threat. Art pushes hard on whether a clone would possess a soul, drawing FitzGerald into profound territory.This episode captures a pivotal moment in scientific history as the world grapples with a discovery Art compares to splitting the atom. FitzGerald brings measured wisdom to a debate already spiraling into panic, offering listeners both intellectual grounding and spiritual perspective on the dawn of genetic manipulation.

#0211

March 4, 1997: Open Lines

Mar 43h 30m

Art Bell opens the phone lines on a night thick with strange news, from catastrophic flooding along the Ohio River and deadly tornadoes in Arkansas to the doubling of pre-teen marijuana use in America. He muses on what is driving so many people, especially the young, toward escape through drugs, pointing to a loss of national purpose and the erosion of innocence as possible culprits.Callers deliver a wild range of stories. A man in San Diego claims a meteorite cracked the bottom of his swimming pool and offers to trade it for a Tickle Me Elmo doll. A long-haul trucker describes stretches of Interstate 94 where time seems to compress, covering 25 miles while a single song plays. A woman from Jacksonville describes her voluntary encounter with extraterrestrial beings and the implant she has carried for 20 years. Meanwhile, Art urges listeners to witness Comet Hale-Bopp, now blazing in the predawn sky.The episode is a quintessential open lines night, weaving together the absurd and the profound. Art navigates talk of cloning ethics, 666 conspiracies, Mel's Hole, and the speed of light encoded in the Bible with his signature mix of skepticism and genuine curiosity.

#0212

March 6, 1997: Deadly Pathogens & Solar Rays - Ed Dames

Mar 62h 43mEd Dames

Major Ed Dames of PsyTech returns with remote viewing results on two fronts: the disappearance of Iron Butterfly bassist Philip Taylor Kramer, and a chilling prediction about a plant pathogen heading toward Earth. Joined first by Kramer's sister Kathy, Dames delivers the grim conclusion that her brother was murdered, shot in his own vehicle by people he knew, with his body transported to a burial site near a small river in Montana.After the Kramer segment, Dames expands on his forecast of ecological collapse. He describes a cylindrical object that has detached from Comet Hale-Bopp and is heading toward Earth, carrying a pathogen that will begin killing plant life starting in Africa by summer 1998. He predicts cascading food shortages, economic collapse, and widespread disease. As a survival measure, his team has identified chlorella, a green algae, as the food source that future survivors will depend on. He also addresses James Randi's million-dollar challenge, accepting it and proposing the program as a forum for terms.This episode is classic Ed Dames, blending actionable remote viewing casework with sweeping apocalyptic predictions. Art presses him on timelines, mechanisms, and credibility, giving listeners a thorough examination of both the promise and the controversy surrounding technical remote viewing.

#0213

March 7, 1997: Comet Hale-Bopp - Alan Hale

Mar 71h 50mDr. Alan Hale

Dr. Alan Hale, co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp, joins Art Bell for an in-depth conversation about the most spectacular comet in a generation. Hale recounts the July 1995 night he spotted a fuzzy object near a star cluster in Sagittarius, the rush to confirm it was not a cataloged object, and the moment he knew he had found a comet. He and Tom Bopp discovered it within minutes of each other, though Hale's proximity to his home computer gave him the edge in reporting first.The discussion covers the comet's unprecedented brightness at great distance, its carbon monoxide-driven outgassing, the dual tail structure of ionized gas and dust particles, and Hale's forecast that peak viewing will come in early to mid-April. Art asks pointed questions about the Chuck Shramek companion object controversy, which Hale dispatches as a bright overexposed star with diffraction artifacts. They also explore near-Earth asteroid threats, the Cretaceous extinction impact, and the disappointing retreat from manned space exploration since Apollo.Hale brings scientific rigor and genuine enthusiasm to a subject swirling with conspiracy and myth. His firsthand account of discovery, combined with accessible explanations of cometary physics, makes this an essential episode for anyone watching the once-in-a-lifetime visitor blazing across the predawn sky.

#0214

March 11, 1997: Time Travel - Fred Bell

Mar 113h 25mDr. Fred Bell

Dr. Fred Bell, a former NASA spacecraft checkout engineer and physicist, joins Art Bell to discuss time travel, the Philadelphia Experiment, and exotic propulsion technologies. Bell describes building an octahedral time machine in his Laguna Beach backyard, a 20-foot structure using Wimhurst-style electrostatic generators, capacitor arrays creating Bifield-Brown effects, a caduceus cancel coil, and a high-powered laser, all aimed at warping local spacetime through field collapse.Bell claims his device achieved brief forward displacement in time, during which he observed a car's headlight photons as discrete speckled points rather than a continuous beam. A deeper activation produced total blackness outside the porthole, which he interprets as confirmation that no physical future exists until consciousness creates it. He connects his work to the Philadelphia Experiment, describing his involvement at the University of Michigan's Randolph Laboratory in the 1950s where researchers used billion-electron-volt power supplies to vaporize coil arrangements in sealed rooms.The conversation ranges from human aura fields and endocrine gland consciousness to Element 115 propulsion, Pleiadian contact, and the Great Pyramid's true age. Art oscillates between fascination and skepticism, ultimately unable to fully categorize his guest. Bell emerges as equal parts rocket scientist and mystic, a compelling figure operating at the far edge of experimental physics.

#0215

March 13, 1997: Phoenix Lights - Peter Davenport | UFO's - Sean David Morton

Mar 133h 6mPeter Davenport, Sean David Morton

Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center joins Art Bell with a breaking report on one of the most significant UFO events in American history. Dozens of witnesses across Arizona are calling in frantic accounts of massive formations of lights traversing the sky from Paulden to Prescott to Phoenix, covering over a hundred miles in mere minutes. Military jets from Luke Air Force Base reportedly pursued the objects before they vanished.Sean David Morton follows with an examination of stunning new UFO photographs from a Pleiadian contactee in Miami named Audrain, whose images rival the famous Billy Meyer case. Morton details the contactee's extraordinary claims about his relationship with tall Nordic beings and shares insights from his recent expedition to Egypt's Giza Plateau, where he investigated rumors about hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx and debunks several widely circulated conspiracy theories about scheduled openings.The episode captures a pivotal night in UFO history as real sightings unfold during the broadcast itself. Art navigates between hard evidence and fantastic claims, pressing Morton on prophecy, earth changes, and the potential for a coming global shift in consciousness around the turn of the millennium.

#0216

March 14, 1997: Phoenix Lights

Mar 143m

Art Bell devotes the program to the extraordinary Phoenix Lights event that unfolded just hours earlier on March 13, 1997. Thousands of Arizona residents witnessed a massive formation of lights traversing the state, and the phone lines are flooded with firsthand accounts from stunned observers across the Phoenix metropolitan area and beyond.A remarkable piece of audio dominates the broadcast. A recording purportedly from a military source at Luke Air Force Base describes F-15 fighter jets scrambled to intercept the unknown craft. The source details how pilots observed five distinct lights in a triangular pattern descending near Sky Harbor Airport, encountering commercial aircraft in the flight path. The witness describes gun camera footage captured by shaken pilots, radar returns replaced by white noise, and a complete base lockdown following the encounter.Callers share vivid descriptions of the objects, from enormous silent triangles blocking out the stars to shimmering formations that moved in perfect unison. The episode serves as a real-time historical document of one of the most witnessed UFO events in American history, recorded while the experience was still raw and unfiltered.

#0217

March 19, 1997: NASA's New Face - Richard C. Hoagland

Mar 193h 30mRichard C. Hoagland

Richard C. Hoagland returns to discuss what he sees as NASA's deliberate suppression of space imagery, the deteriorating state of the Mir space station, and a startling claim that Comet Hale-Bopp may have been intentionally sent to Earth. The conversation opens with a detailed examination of environmental crises including ozone depletion and Hoagland's proposal to deploy sun-pumped ultraviolet lasers in orbit to repair the damage.Hoagland presents evidence that NASA is deliberately degrading Galileo images of Jupiter's moons through lossy JPEG compression, preventing independent analysis. He connects this to a broader pattern of concealment stretching back to the Viking missions and the Face on Mars. A mysterious personal story involving stolen NASA materials recovered by practitioners of lunar magic rituals leads Hoagland toward secret societies as the hidden hand behind space program secrecy.The discussion builds toward Hoagland's most provocative assertion, that Hale-Bopp's orbital characteristics suggest deliberate placement rather than random cosmic chance. He ties together Finnish anti-gravity experiments, shuttle video anomalies, and the concept of a trans-governmental group operating advanced technology far beyond what the public has been shown.

#0218

March 20, 1997: The Philadelphia Experiment - Al Bielek

Mar 202h 2mAl Bielek

Al Bielek, self-described survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment, delivers a meticulous technical account of the Navy's alleged 1943 attempt to render the USS Eldridge invisible. Beginning with the project's origins in 1931 under Nikola Tesla, Bielek details the interplay of rotating RF fields at 160 megahertz, pulsed magnetic fields driven by massive alternators, and their interaction with gravity and time fields.Bielek describes a successful 1940 test on a small tender at Brooklyn Navy Yard that achieved full optical invisibility, then traces Tesla's departure after he sabotaged a battleship test to protect the crew from lethal biological effects. Under John von Neumann's direction, the project shifted to pulsed systems with dramatically increased power. The August 12, 1943 test produced catastrophic results, with sailors fused into the ship's steel decking and the vessel allegedly displaced through time.The account reaches its most extraordinary claim when Bielek describes jumping overboard with his brother Duncan and landing at Montauk, Long Island in 1983, where an aged von Neumann tasked them with returning to destroy the equipment. At 70 years old, Bielek presents himself as one of the last living witnesses to an experiment that merged physics with nightmare.

#0219

March 21, 1997: Earth Changes - Lori Toye

Mar 212h 54mLori Toye

Lori Toye, creator of the prophetic I Am America map, shares visions received from Ascended Masters that depict catastrophic transformation of North America. A former farm wife and advertising saleswoman, Toye describes how a 1983 visitation from Master St. Germain launched her on a path from single mother of three to reluctant prophet, eventually selling her home to fund publication of her now-famous map.The prophecies unfold in devastating sequence. An asteroid strikes the Nevada desert, triggering the Ring of Fire and years of volcanic ash and rain. The polar ice caps melt, destabilizing Earth's rotation. California sinks beneath the waves, the East Coast is battered into islands by hurricane winds, and the Great Lakes merge into one enormous body of water. Five protected Golden City Vortex areas in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois-Indiana, Georgia-South Carolina, and Montana-Idaho are identified as zones of spiritual acceleration and survival.Art Bell draws striking parallels between Toye's visions and those of Edgar Cayce, Hopi elders, and military remote viewers. Broadcasting as Comet Hale-Bopp blazes overhead on the eve of a lunar eclipse, the conversation captures a moment when ancient prophecy, modern observation, and growing unease about the planet's trajectory converge with unsettling clarity.

#0220

March 24, 1997: The Terra Papers - Robert Morning Sky

Mar 243h 17mRobert Morning Sky

Robert Morning Sky, a Hopi and Apache researcher, joins Art Bell to unveil his decades-long investigation into what he calls the hidden history of Planet Earth. Morning Sky explains how his college research into the world's oldest religions led him to a common origin story connecting ancient Egypt, Native American traditions, and biblical prophecy, all converging on the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp.The conversation dives deep into Hopi prophecy surrounding the Nangasohu, or Chasing Star Kachina, which Morning Sky controversially renamed the Blue Star Kachina. He reveals that the comet's rare dual blue and white tails may fulfill twin prophecies, and predicts a seven-year timeline before the arrival of a purifier who will judge humanity. Morning Sky also draws a provocative connection between crop circles and ancient petroglyphs, suggesting they contain survival instructions from returning star ancestors.This episode captures the peak of Hale-Bopp fever in 1997, blending indigenous cosmology with astronomical observation in a way that remains deeply compelling. Morning Sky's willingness to challenge both mainstream science and the UFO speaking circuit makes for an unforgettable evening of prophecy and revelation.

#0221

March 25, 1997: Remote Viewing Program: Stargate - Lyn Buchanan, Paul H. Smith, & Joseph McMoneagle

Mar 252h 55mLyn Buchanan, Paul H. Smith, Joseph McMoneagle

Three former operatives from the U.S. military's classified Project Stargate gather for a rare joint appearance to discuss their experiences as government remote viewers. Lyn Buchanan, Paul H. Smith, and Joseph McMoneagle each served in the program during its two-decade run, and they describe the protocols, accuracy rates, and real-world intelligence applications of psychic espionage.The three men detail how remote viewing was used to profile Saddam Hussein's plans and intentions, discuss the controversial topic of remote influencing, and explain why the CIA's 1995 report declaring the program a failure was based on a review of less than five percent of the actual case files. They also address the contentious figure of Ed Dames, alleging he disclosed classified information and exaggerated his role. Among the most striking moments, Buchanan recounts remote viewing Jesus Christ during a session and describes the encounter as life-changing.Art Bell presses all three on whether aliens exist, whether the government truly shut down psychic operations, and whether remote viewing can pierce the veil of time. Their carefully worded answers suggest far more remains hidden than has ever been revealed.

#0222

April 4, 1997: Exorcism - Father Malachi Martin

Apr 43h 9mFather Malachi Martin

Father Malachi Martin, an Irish-born Jesuit who advised two popes and performed exorcisms for three decades, delivers one of the most harrowing accounts of spiritual warfare ever broadcast. Speaking from his Manhattan apartment, Martin describes his rigorous Jesuit training, his path to the Vatican, and the terrifying reality of confronting demonic entities face to face.Martin reveals that the need for exorcisms in America has increased by 800 percent since 1970, driven in part by a new phenomenon of young professionals who deliberately made pacts with dark forces in exchange for career success. He recounts a year-and-a-half exorcism involving a powerful demon whose function was the desecration of human love, describing how exorcists probe for weaknesses while the entity probes theirs. Martin explains that losing an exorcism destroys the priest permanently, and admits he possesses a second sight that allows him to sense demonic presence in ordinary people on the street.The conversation extends into the crisis of faith within the Catholic Church, the nature of the soul, and Martin's cryptic warning to watch the skies for an abnormal sign that spring. His calm authority transforms every revelation into something genuinely unsettling.

#0223

April 7, 1997: & the Waters Turned to Blood - Rodney Barker

Apr 71h 52mRodney Barker

Investigative author Rodney Barker joins Art Bell to discuss his alarming book about Pfiesteria piscicida, a shape-shifting microorganism discovered in the coastal waters of North Carolina that has killed tens of millions of fish and poses a growing threat to human health. Barker details how aquatic botanist Dr. JoAnn Burkholder identified this ancient organism, dormant for possibly millions of years in river sediment, now activated by agricultural runoff and industrial pollution.The organism releases a powerful neurotoxin that becomes airborne, causing open sores, cognitive impairment, immune suppression, and memory loss in exposed humans. In laboratory experiments, it was observed swarming around human blood cells and consuming their contents. Barker reveals that 110 North Carolina physicians wrote to Vice President Gore pleading for federal intervention, while state bureaucrats continued to downplay the crisis to protect the tourism and fishing industries.Callers from North Carolina and surrounding states confirm encounters with mysterious fish kills, unexplained illness, and official silence. Art Bell connects the ecological disaster to the broader theme of environmental reckoning explored in his own book, The Quickening, painting a picture of a coastline in quiet crisis.

#0224

April 8, 1997: Solar Flares - Richard C. Hoagland

Apr 838mRichard C. Hoagland

Richard C. Hoagland reports on a massive solar plasma ejection that occurred days earlier at 19.5 degrees south latitude on the sun's surface, a location he considers significant to his hyperdimensional physics model. Hoagland walks listeners through the science of solar activity, explaining how a blob of electrified hydrogen gas racing through space at thousands of miles per second is on a collision course with Earth's magnetosphere.The potential consequences range from spectacular aurora borealis visible as far south as New York to billions of dollars in satellite damage. Hoagland argues that NASA brought the shuttle home early under the false pretense of a fuel cell problem, claiming the agency secretly predicted the event using planetary geometry models derived from the work of RCA engineer John Nelson. He suggests the government cannot reveal its predictive capability without exposing the reality of hyperdimensional physics and its implications for free energy.The discussion also touches on a Time magazine article linking Art Bell to the Heaven's Gate tragedy, which Hoagland calls libelous. This episode captures the intersection of solar science, government secrecy, and Hoagland's relentless pursuit of what he believes mainstream institutions refuse to acknowledge.

#0225

April 9, 1997: Europa Images - Richard C. Hoagland | Strange Universe - Renee Barnett & Whitley Strieber

Apr 91h 23mRichard C. Hoagland, Renee Barnett, Whitley Strieber

Richard C. Hoagland joins Art Bell to celebrate a rare moment of vindication as Ted Koppel's Nightline gives him long-overdue credit for predicting oceans on Jupiter's moon Europa 17 years earlier. Hoagland breaks down the stunning new Galileo images showing cracked ice fields, subsurface water, and volcanic potential that could harbor life.The show takes a dramatic turn when Strange Universe producer Renee Barnett reveals a smuggled videotape allegedly showing an alien being under interrogation at Area 51. Whitley Strieber, who viewed the footage firsthand, describes a disturbing scene of a large-eyed creature in visible distress while military personnel handle it with cold indifference. Strieber weighs both the compelling and suspect elements of the footage. The conversation then shifts to chilling reports of arson and threats targeting UFO witnesses preparing to testify in Washington, including retired pilot Guy Kirkwood.Art Bell navigates a sprawling evening that moves from planetary discovery to alleged extraterrestrial contact to the dangerous politics of disclosure, capturing a moment when the boundaries between science, secrecy, and the unknown felt razor thin.

#0226

April 10, 1997: Reincarnation - Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Apr 102h 48mElizabeth Clare Prophet

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, mystic, author, and spiritual teacher, joins Art Bell for a rare and wide-ranging interview about reincarnation as Christianity's missing doctrine. Prophet recounts her childhood soul travel experience to ancient Egypt at age four, an awakening that set her on a lifelong mission to recover what she believes the early church deliberately stripped from the teachings of Jesus Christ.Prophet explains how the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. removed reincarnation to maintain control over believers, replacing personal spiritual accountability with the promise of instant absolution. She discusses karma, the violet flame of the Holy Spirit, and the role of Ascended Masters in guiding humanity through a pivotal transition between the Piscean and Aquarian Ages. The conversation also addresses the Heaven's Gate tragedy, with Prophet offering a striking perspective on why suicide traps souls rather than liberating them.Art challenges Prophet on cult accusations, weapons stockpiling, and her Montana community while listeners call in with personal questions about soulmates, spiritual growth, and the nature of the soul itself. Prophet emerges as a passionate advocate for individual spiritual empowerment over institutional religion.

#0227

April 17, 1997: Comet Hale-Bopp - Richard C. Hoagland

Apr 173h 14mRichard C. Hoagland

Richard C. Hoagland returns with explosive claims spanning NASA's suspicious lockdown at Cheyenne Mountain, the mysterious disappearance of an A-10 attack aircraft in Colorado, and newly obtained shuttle footage from STS-80 that he says shows intelligently controlled objects performing maneuvers impossible under Newtonian physics. Hoagland describes objects that stop, reverse direction, and station-keep with the shuttle before accelerating away at extraordinary speeds.The conversation takes a provocative turn when Hoagland suggests the Heaven's Gate deaths may not have been voluntary suicides but a staged operation designed to poison public interest in extraterrestrial phenomena at a critical moment. He points to contradictions in the official narrative, the group's consistent belief in physical spacecraft pickup, and the political utility of the tragedy in discrediting serious UFO research. Hoagland also revisits the Old Navy store mystery, presenting new reports of fiber optic cable installations and communications equipment hidden above retail floors.Art Bell celebrates record-breaking ratings in Los Angeles and Chicago while navigating one of the most densely layered episodes in the archive. Hoagland weaves together secret societies, media manipulation, and suppressed space footage into a portrait of deliberate concealment at the highest levels.

#0228

April 23, 1997: Nanotechnology - Charles Ostman

Apr 233h 18mCharles Ostman

Charles Ostman, senior fellow of the Foresight Institute and nanotechnology researcher, takes Art Bell on a breathtaking journey through the convergence of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and molecular engineering. Ostman describes a near future where sentient autonomous agents roam the Internet, experiential conveyance replaces passive media, and the boundary between human cognition and machine intelligence dissolves entirely.The discussion builds methodically from the Internet as a self-modifying organism to virtual environments capable of breaking through the human belief barrier. Ostman details experiments where subjects became so immersed in virtual worlds they needed recovery time upon disconnection. He warns that the same technology enabling spectacular educational breakthroughs could become a tool of unprecedented manipulation and control, creating a techno-elite class separated from the rest of humanity.When the conversation finally reaches nanotechnology itself, Ostman explains how molecular-scale assembly will allow engineers to design materials atom by atom, potentially solving superconductivity, curing all disease, reversing aging, and even contriving artificial gravity. Art presses him on the dangers, and Ostman frames the entire trajectory as an evolutionary test that civilizations across the universe either pass or fail.

#0229

April 25, 1997: Richard C. Hoagland | Sacred Amulets - Robert Ghost Wolf

Apr 253h 27mRichard C. Hoagland, Robert Ghost Wolf

Richard C. Hoagland opens the program with stunning news that NASA has quietly ruled out sending a probe to Europa, just two weeks after celebrating its potential as the most likely harbor for extraterrestrial life. Hoagland calls it proof that the space program is politically rigged, urging listeners to flood ABC Nightline and CNN with faxes demanding answers about why the most promising discovery in decades simply did not make the cut.Native American researcher Robert Ghost Wolf then joins with a remarkable presentation of 10,000-year-old stone amulets recovered from a burial chamber inside an Illinois pyramid. The carved stones depict winged beings wearing helmets, figures that Ghost Wolf connects to petroglyphs found across North America, South America, and beyond. He describes the amulets as memory holders carrying healing energy, linking them to a vast network of pyramids and sacred sites spanning continents and millennia.Ghost Wolf weaves together Hopi, Mayan, Iroquois, and Navajo prophecies into a unified tapestry suggesting humanity has been visited before and is now approaching a threshold of transformation. The combination of NASA's suppression and ancient evidence of contact creates one of the archive's most compelling arguments that we are not, and have never been, alone.

#0230

April 30, 1997: UFO Crashes - Kevin Randle & Renee Barnett

Apr 302h 18mKevin Randle, Renee Barnett

UFO researcher Kevin Randle and Strange Universe correspondent Renee Barnett join Art Bell to preview an upcoming TV special ranking the top ten UFO incidents of all time. Randle, an Army helicopter pilot turned Air Force intelligence officer, reveals that of roughly 125 documented crash reports dating back to 1886, only four stand as solid, credible cases.The conversation moves from the Kenneth Arnold sighting that launched modern ufology to the Roswell crash and its aftermath, including the military's deliberate suppression of sighting reports. Randle recounts testimony from Edwin Easley, the provost marshal at the 509th Bomb Group, who confirmed the craft was extraterrestrial but was sworn to secrecy. The discussion also touches on Art's mysterious bismuth-magnesium sample that no laboratory has been able to replicate, and the frustrating refusal of mainstream science to engage with physical evidence.Art and Randle explore why Jimmy Carter broke his promise to disclose UFO information, the inadequacy of every official government investigation from Blue Book to the Condon Committee, and the global nature of the phenomenon stretching from France to Mexico City. The episode paints a picture of a field struggling to achieve scientific legitimacy against entrenched institutional resistance.

#0231

May 1, 1997: NASA - Ray Villard & Don Savage

May 12h 51mRay Villard, Don Savage

NASA public affairs officers Don Savage and Ray Villard appear on the program after the agency sends Art Bell a two-page letter defending its Hubble Space Telescope observations of Comet Hale-Bopp. The letter was prompted by listener faxes flooding NASA headquarters following claims by Richard C. Hoagland that Hubble images were being withheld or deliberately degraded.Art presses both men on Hubble's proprietary data policies, the decision not to risk the telescope for shadow-zone observations of the departing comet, and the controversial rejection of two Europa mission proposals despite NASA scientists publicly expressing excitement about possible oceans beneath its ice. Savage explains the Discovery program's competitive selection process while acknowledging the agency plans eight additional Galileo flybys of Europa. The conversation also covers the Brookings Report's relevance to modern disclosure policy, the face on Mars, and whether NASA would immediately reveal an extraordinary discovery.Both officials insist shuttle video feeds are transmitted without delay and that NASA operates with full transparency. The exchange provides a rare, extended opportunity for listeners to hear NASA directly address accusations of secrecy, data manipulation, and institutional reluctance to pursue evidence of extraterrestrial life.

#0232

May 2, 1997: NASA - Richard C. Hoagland & Dr. Tom Van Flandern

May 23h 13mRichard C. Hoagland, Dr. Tom Van Flandern

Richard C. Hoagland and astronomer Dr. Tom Van Flandern return to respond point by point to the previous night's appearance by NASA officials. Van Flandern presents his exploded planet hypothesis, arguing that comets are not pristine dirty snowballs but fragments of a planet that detonated approximately 3.2 million years ago, a date strikingly close to the emergence of hominid species on Earth.Hoagland details his extensive survey of global observatory data on Comet Hale-Bopp, noting that the recent discovery of a sodium tail supports Van Flandern's model by suggesting the comet's water was once salty ocean water. The pair challenges NASA's claim that risking Hubble for shadow-zone observations was unjustified, arguing that the real risk was to the agency's decades-long commitment to the Whipple comet model. Hoagland also alleges that outside shuttle cameras carry a roughly one-minute video delay, contradicting what NASA officials stated the night before.The episode builds into a sweeping discussion connecting Europa mission politics, Cydonia on Mars, proprietary data policies, and the possibility that secret military programs already possess anti-gravity craft derived from recovered technology. Van Flandern and Hoagland present a unified case that NASA's institutional culture has become hostile to paradigm-shifting discoveries.

#0233

May 4, 1997: The Tampa Triangle - Capt. Bill Miller

May 41h 29mCaptain Bill Miller

Captain Bill Miller, a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain and author of Tampa Triangle Dead Zone, takes listeners on a journey through one of Florida's most paranormally active regions. The episode opens with sailor Robert Bodell recounting how he lost three days from his meticulous ship's log during a delivery trip from Tampa to Long Island, a case of missing time he has never been able to explain.Miller details the deadly four-mile stretch of Tampa Bay shipping channel where three major maritime disasters claimed over 58 lives, including the 1980 collision that sank the Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn and the 1980 freighter strike that toppled the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. He describes the ghost of a Greyhound bus that plunged from the broken bridge, still seen by fishermen in early morning fog with passengers staring forward and a woman in the last window waving mechanically. Other apparitions include a vanishing blonde hitchhiker on the rebuilt Skyway and a romantic ghost fisherman visible only to women.The conversation spans spontaneous human combustion, the scientifically unexplained immolation of Mary Harder Reeser in 1951, a sunken Nazi U-boat with tanned corpses preserved in petroleum fumes, chupacabra sightings near Tampa Bay, and a massive Virgin Mary apparition on a Clearwater glass building that drew over a million visitors.

#0234

May 8, 1997: Disclosure - Steven M. Greer

May 81h 22mDr. Steven M. Greer

Dr. Steven M. Greer, founder of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, delivers a detailed account of the historic April 9th closed briefing he organized for nearly 30 congressional offices in Washington. Over a dozen military and intelligence witnesses with top-secret clearances presented firsthand testimony, and all signed statements agreeing to testify under oath before Congress with penalty of perjury.Greer reveals that an astronomer formerly associated with Harvard's observatory confirmed receiving approximately three dozen signals of apparent extraterrestrial origin through the beta system, signals ruled out as Earth-based, satellite, or naturally occurring. A former Space Command officer described tracking a massive metallic disc off the eastern seaboard in October 1981 that moved from Newfoundland to Norfolk in a single radar sweep. Perhaps most strikingly, Greer claims witnesses described alien reproduction vehicles, human-built craft using recovered extraterrestrial technology, demonstrated at a secret 1988 air show at Edwards Air Force Base.The conversation turns to the architecture of secrecy itself, from black budget funding that even Senate appropriations staff cannot penetrate to alleged threats against a UN Secretary General. Greer urges listeners to contact their representatives and calls on military witnesses to join a growing coalition of over 115 individuals prepared to force public disclosure of what he calls the most important issue in human history.

#0235

May 9, 1997: Willie Nelson

May 92h 13mWillie Nelson

Country music legend Willie Nelson joins Art Bell for a wide-ranging late-night conversation from his tour bus in Atlantic City. Nelson reflects on his early days playing with a Bohemian polka band at age nine, the devastating $32 million IRS battle, and his tireless advocacy for American family farmers through Farm Aid.The discussion moves through the crisis facing small agriculture, with Nelson detailing how corporate interests and predatory lending have reduced family farms from eight million to fewer than two million. He makes an impassioned case for hemp legalization, explaining how petrochemical lobbyists engineered its prohibition to eliminate competition. Nelson also shares his views on reincarnation, his four marriages, life on the road, and what it takes to perform 200 shows a year.Callers from across the country phone in with personal stories about Nelson's concerts, his charitable prison performances, and his impact on their lives. From songwriting advice to his thoughts on world government, Nelson reveals himself as both a deeply philosophical thinker and a man who found freedom by simply letting go of expectations.

#0236

May 12, 1997: Dark Skies - Bryce Zabel

May 1242mBryce Zabel

Television producer Bryce Zabel joins Art Bell on the night NBC officially cancels his critically acclaimed alien conspiracy series Dark Skies. Zabel explains how the show was undermined by a deadly Saturday night time slot, repeated multi-week preemptions, and the network's refusal to give the ambitious program time to build an audience despite strong international ratings, including a 21 share in Great Britain.Rather than accepting defeat, Zabel outlines a grassroots rescue plan powered by the internet. He urges fans to send physical letters to UPN, the Sci-Fi Channel, and other networks willing to pick up the series. Art immediately posts Zabel's open letter on his website, and the two discuss how the changing media landscape offers new possibilities for shows abandoned by major networks. Zabel reveals the five-year creative plan that would have traced the alien conspiracy from the 1960s through the millennium.The conversation becomes a broader meditation on fan power in the emerging digital age, drawing parallels to how Star Trek was saved by viewer campaigns decades earlier. Listeners flood the phone lines with support, demonstrating the passionate community Dark Skies had built.

#0237

May 15, 1997: NASA Coverup - Richard C. Hoagland

May 152h 40mRichard C. Hoagland

Richard C. Hoagland returns to confront an Associated Press article by Harry Rosenthal that painted him as a fringe conspiracy theorist linked to the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Art Bell and Hoagland systematically dismantle the piece, revealing that Rosenthal specifically requested the most hostile faxes NASA could provide and refused to speak with scientist Tom Van Flandern about the actual science behind the Hale-Bopp imaging questions.A 20-year-old listener named Lindsay Tackett delivers a bombshell account of his half-hour phone conversation with Rosenthal, in which the reporter allegedly called astronaut Edgar Mitchell a nutcase, dismissed all of Hoagland's work as worthless, and admitted he printed only the most inflammatory correspondence. Tackett describes AP colleagues laughing in the background at the mention of decorated astronauts. Hoagland draws on his own experience inside CBS News to illustrate how producers and reporters routinely manage public perception rather than pursue truth.The episode evolves into a searing examination of journalistic integrity in America, with Art reading historical quotes from former New York Times chief John Swinton about the press being tools of wealthy interests. Listeners are urged to fax Rosenthal directly, not with vitriol, but with demands for fair reporting.

#0238

May 16, 1997: Open Lines

May 162h 48m

Art Bell opens the Friday night phone lines with several tantalizing announcements, including a world-exclusive second photograph from the alleged Area 51 alien interrogation video and the upcoming interview with the mysterious Victor who claims to have smuggled the footage out. He also reports that AP reporter Harry Rosenthal became furious and trashed all listener faxes sent after the previous night's broadcast.The night takes a philosophical turn when Art describes a 2020 segment about a woman in her fifties who received a heart-lung transplant from a teenage boy and suddenly developed his cravings and even dreamt his name. Callers explore whether the soul might be distributed throughout the body's cells, with one listener citing rat experiments where injected blood transferred maze-running knowledge between animals. Art poses the provocative ethical question of whether organ transplants are morally acceptable if they transfer elements of identity.Other callers weigh in on President Clinton's Tuskegee apology and what atrocities future presidents might apologize for, Russian nuclear missiles automatically switching to combat mode, and a vivid UFO sighting over middle Tennessee. The evening captures Art Bell at his most curious, weaving science, philosophy, and the unexplained into a single sweeping broadcast.

#0239

May 20, 1997: Pet Food - Ann N. Martin

May 202h 45mAnn N. Martin

Canadian author Ann N. Martin delivers a deeply disturbing investigation into the commercial pet food industry, revealing that euthanized dogs and cats from veterinary clinics and animal shelters are routinely sent to rendering plants where they are ground up, fur, tags, plastic bags, and lethal injection drugs included, and processed into pet food and livestock feed. Her seven years of research for the forthcoming book Food Pets Die For traces the journey of dead companion animals from London, Ontario, to rendering facilities in Quebec.Martin explains that veterinarians themselves were unaware their euthanized patients were being recycled rather than cremated. A former rendering plant worker calls in to confirm that cats and dogs went through with their fur intact, contradicting industry claims. The conversation turns to the terrifying parallel with Britain's mad cow disease crisis, where feeding cattle to cattle spawned a brain-wasting illness that jumped to humans. Martin notes that over 100 cats in England have already died from the feline variant.The broadcast provokes an overwhelming emotional response from listeners, many of whom are pet owners confronting the possibility that their beloved animals were unknowingly fed back into the very system that consumed their predecessors. Art urges the press to investigate the billion-dollar industry.

#0240

May 21, 1997: The Phoenix Lights

May 212h 45mCouncilwoman Frances Barwood

Art Bell dives into one of the most extraordinary mass UFO sightings in American history as Phoenix City Councilwoman Frances Barwood joins the program to discuss the mysterious lights that appeared over the Phoenix metropolitan area on March 13, 1997. Barwood, who dared to formally request a city investigation into the event, found herself ridiculed by the mayor's office, mocked by the state attorney general, and stonewalled by Luke Air Force Base, all for simply asking what flew over a valley of two million people.Callers from across the Phoenix area flood the phone lines with remarkably consistent eyewitness accounts. They describe a massive, silent, V-shaped or boomerang formation of lights attached to a single enormous craft, estimated at up to a mile wide, gliding at extremely low altitude. Witnesses include a 27-year pilot, families at a putt-putt course, and residents who watched it pass directly over Sky Harbor Airport, yet air traffic controllers reported nothing on radar despite seeing it visually.The episode captures a pivotal moment in UFO history, revealing how one elected official's simple question exposed a deep institutional reluctance to acknowledge what thousands of citizens witnessed with their own eyes.

#0241

May 22, 1997: Time Wave Zero - Terence McKenna

May 223h 0mTerence McKenna

Terence McKenna, calling from his remote home on the slopes of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, presents his radical theory of novelty and time to Art Bell in a conversation that leaves the host stunned by its alignment with his own book, The Quickening. McKenna argues that the universe has an inherent preference for novelty over habit, accelerating exponentially toward a singular moment he calculates will arrive on December 21, 2012, a date derived mathematically from the ancient Chinese I Ching that independently matches the Mayan calendar.The discussion ranges across the fractal nature of time, the inadequacy of Western probability theory, and the role of psychedelic plants in accessing other dimensions of consciousness. McKenna proposes that alien beings reported in UFO encounters may reach us through the human mind rather than physical spacecraft, with the naturally occurring compound DMT serving as a key to these experiences.Art and Terence find remarkable common ground on the acceleration of change in human affairs, with McKenna providing mathematical structure for what Art had documented anecdotally. Their exchange on time travel, the nature of souls, and the transcendental object at the end of time makes this one of the most intellectually ambitious episodes in the archive.

#0242

May 23, 1997: Area 51 - Sean David Morton & Victor

May 233h 19mSean David Morton, Victor

Sean David Morton and the mysterious whistleblower known only as Victor join Art Bell for an extraordinary evening centered on Area 51 and a smuggled video allegedly showing the interrogation of a live extraterrestrial being. Victor, speaking through a voice-changing device to protect his identity, claims to have extracted digital footage from the S4 facility at Papoose Lake during a period of institutional chaos as operations were being shut down.Victor describes a small, bulbous-headed creature with enormous dark eyes seated at a table in a darkened room, monitored by medical equipment, that suffers a seizure during the interview. He reveals that S4 has four underground levels, that the beings breathe oxygen but appear only symbolically biological, and that all aliens in government custody are now believed dead. His most provocative claim is that these beings engineer their own captivity as a kind of test for humanity, drawing a parallel to the story of Christ.Morton opens the program with his own predictions and theories about artificially induced earthquakes before the conversation shifts entirely to Victor's account. The episode captures a singular moment in Area 51 lore, with Victor declaring this his final public statement as the secret facility transitions its operations to new locations in Utah.

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May 26, 1997: Open Lines | Art & Ramona's UFO Sighting #2

May 262h 49m

Art Bell and his wife Ramona take to the airwaves together on Memorial Day to describe a dramatic daytime UFO sighting they witnessed that morning at approximately 11:40 AM near their Pahrump, Nevada home. While closing a gate, they noticed a military jet leaving a double contrail at extreme altitude, and just below it, a brilliant, glowing, cylindrical silver object tracking alongside the aircraft before stopping dead in the sky.Art details his frantic attempts to report the sighting to Nellis Air Force Base, Edwards Air Force Base, and McCarran Airport, all of which deny any knowledge. Callers quickly corroborate the sighting, including a deputy sheriff in southern New Mexico, a woman in Arizona's Verde Valley who watched five such objects cluster together, and a man in Henderson, Nevada who observed the same craft from Black Mountain. The consistency of the independent accounts is striking.The second half of the program features the remarkable story of John McKinnon, a television station manager in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, who was fired and had police confiscate his tapes after producing programs modeled on Art's format covering UFO witnesses and unconventional guests.

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May 27, 1997: Rosalie Osias

May 272h 43mRosalie Osias

Attorney and foundation president Rosalie Osias joins Art Bell with a message that women love to hate and men quietly applaud. On the same day the Supreme Court unanimously allows Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton to proceed, Osias argues that women should embrace their femininity and sexuality as powerful tools for career advancement rather than suppressing them in the name of corporate conformity.Osias, who represents 40 banks and built her legal empire through provocative advertisements in banking trade publications, contends that the feminist movement's push for gender-blind workplaces has stripped women of their greatest natural advantage. She argues that sexuality, properly combined with competence and strategy, can shatter the glass ceiling far more effectively than conforming to male standards of dress and conduct. Her position generates a surprising wave of support from female callers across the country.The conversation covers the Paula Jones case, the failures of corporate feminism, and the double standard that celebrates sexuality in entertainment while condemning it in the boardroom. Art's website crashes under the traffic as listeners rush to see photographs of his guest, inadvertently proving her central thesis about the power of attraction in generating attention and opportunity.

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Book companion

From the High Desert

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