Art Bell

Lore & Background

Bell's interest in radio began early; at 13 he became a licensed amateur radio operator. After serving four years in the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, including a short stint at a hospital in Da Nang, he operated a pirate radio station at Amarillo Air Force Base with friends. The station played music for the base and was strong enough to reach Amarillo, but shut down after a year when local stations learned of its popularity. After military service in 1966, Bell worked at several U.S. radio stations before moving to Okinawa, where he was a disc jockey for six years at KSBK, the only non-military English-language station in Japan. There he claimed two world records: staying on air without sleep for 115 hours and 15 minutes, and the longest continuous broadcast while seesawing for 57 hours.

Bell returned to the U.S. and spent 20 years in rock music radio. While at a rock station in Anchorage, Alaska, he learned about Amerasian children stranded in Saigon before the U.S. withdrawal in 1975; his on-air appeals raised donations that chartered a DC-8 to rescue approximately 120 orphans, who were adopted by American families. In 1978 he launched a late-night political call-in show on KDWN in Las Vegas called West Coast AM. In 1988, with Alan Corbeth, he renamed it Coast to Coast AM and moved the broadcast from the Plaza Hotel to his home in Pahrump. He shifted from political talk to topics like gun control and conspiracy theories, then after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 focused on the paranormal, UFOs, the occult, and pseudoscience. At its peak, Coast to Coast AM was syndicated on more than 500 stations and claimed 15 million listeners nightly.

Reader's Guide

Bell's significance lies in creating a long-running, nationally syndicated platform for paranormal and fringe topics that reached millions of overnight listeners. He called his show 'absolute entertainment' and did not necessarily endorse guests' claims, but offered a forum where they were not openly ridiculed. For years he did not screen incoming calls, a practice he changed in 2006. His regular guests included Ed Dames, Richard C. Hoagland, Terence McKenna, and Robert Bigelow, many of whom continued appearing on Coast to Coast AM after Bell's departure. Bell also interviewed musicians, comedians, authors, and scientists, reflecting wide-ranging interests beyond the paranormal. He partially retired in 2003, hosted weekends through 2007, and occasionally guest-hosted until 2010. In 2013 he launched Art Bell's Dark Matter on Sirius XM Radio for six weeks, and in 2015 returned with Midnight in the Desert online and on terrestrial stations, retiring December 11, 2015 citing security concerns at his Pahrump home. His past shows from 1994 to 2002 are rebroadcast as Somewhere in Time with Art Bell. Bell's legacy includes founding Pahrump station KNYE 95.1 FM and influencing the late-night talk radio landscape.

Did You Know?

• Bell held an Amateur Extra Class license, the top U.S. FCC license class, with call sign W6OBB.
• He helped rescue approximately 120 orphans from Vietnam in 1975 by raising donations on his radio show.
• Bell's broadcast studio and transmitter were located near his home in Pahrump, Nevada.