Art Bell is best known for his radio show Coast to Coast AM. Image Credit: CC 2.0 Curtis Kennington
The former Coast to Coast AM radio host reportedly died on Friday at his home in Pahrump, Nevada.
Born in 1945, Bell developed an interest in radio from a young age and became a fully licensed amateur radio operator at just 13. He served as a medic during the Vietnam War and operated a pirate radio station at Amarillo Air Force Base during his spare time.
After leaving the military, he moved to the Japanese island of Okinawa where he worked as a DJ for KSBK - a non-military english-speaking station. During this time he earned a Guinness World Record and raised money to help Vietnamese orphans by staying on air for 116 hours and 15 minutes.
After returning to the United States, he studied engineering at the University of Maryland for a time before dropping out and returning to radio.
In 1978 he started a new political call-in show known as West Coast AM. In 1988, he and Alan Corberth rebranded the show Coast to Coast AM and the rest, as they say, is history.
The show itself focused on numerous alternative topics including the paranormal, UFOs, conspiracy theories, psychic readings, cryptozoology, psychic readings and many more.
Over the years, Bell talked to numerous controversial guests including alleged Area 51 worker Bob Lazar, conspiracy theoriest David Icke and UFO abductee Stan Romanek.
He semi-retired from Coast to Coast AM in 2003 however he continued to host the show at weekends for four years and later returned to guest host on numerous occasions after that.
He returned to radio in 2015 with a new show Midnight in the Desert but stepped down after only a few months citing concerns about his family's safety.
No one could do it like Art did. I used to love listening to his show and its entertaining brand of odd. In that subject matter he had no equal as he brought an intelligent reasoning and analysis to the topics he covered even if he didn't always believe in what his guests were saying. I regret that he was never able to beat his big business radio industry masters as they continued to bring him down through non-compete contracts and, in the end, nefarious threats, IMO. I guess he now knows if any of those spiritual theories he pondered on-air were correct. RIP Art!
I was wondering about that too. It says in wikipedia that he suffered from COPD, which makes sense. Because Bell was a heavy smoker for a number of years. My grandfather had the same thing and it was caused by heavy smoking. Eventually it caused my grandfather to have a heart attack and pass away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Bell [scroll down to subtitle Death and read under that]
My thoughts exactly! I listened to his very entertaining show when working late because he did a great job entertaining his audience which is job number one. I have no idea how much he actually believed (0% for me) but enjoyed the "show" he put on and no one should mistake his skill at providing a show. I agree with a post from above that said "No one will ever do it better." I am sad he has passed as the world has lost a unique talent.
Art Bell enabled the wide dissemination of many fantastic tales. I like the way he refrained from attacking the people who told these stories, while still asking and allowing others to ask pointed questions. He obviously didn't believe everything he was told, yet he didn't feel the need to defend an already powerful orthodoxy against these lone eccentrics, or build himself up by knocking others down.
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