Project Grillflame File #2323: SIGINT
The following is a transcript of a radio signal received from a remote viewing session held at a Grillflame location in Mishwaka, Indiana. Origin is believed to be Reality-2 or Reality-3, but location is undetermined due to interference from viewer’s fillings.
Intro music:Coast to Coast AM Intro
Announcer:From somewhere high in the Appalachians, next to a gateway to the Kingdom of Nye, here’s your host, Trevor Curtis.
Trevor: Hello out there, my listeners. Tonight’s guests, Peter Levenda and Stanton Friedman, have been postponed to a later date. I’m sure everyone here has heard the news by now of Art Bell’s passing. We’ll be taking callers all night, but I’m going to talk first.
Other news outlets can go on about Art’s lengthy broadcast career. Naysayers will talk about his unfortunate role in the events surrounding the Heaven’s Gate cult mass suicide. Some will go on about his profound influence on the UFO, conspiracy theory, and NDE communities. The fact there’d be no X-Files without his show.We’ll get to all that,and to some of my favorite moments, like this one:
Clip:Caller flying over Area 51
I’m going to talk first, however, about Art’s profound effect on my life, long before I was chosen as the fourth host of Coast to Coast. I’ve been so grateful for this gig, coming after Jimmy Church’s unfortunate spontaneous combustion at a 2014 NAMM show. Jimmy had taken over from George Noory, who was unfortunately murdered by a grief stricken fan after Noory bored his wife to death.
I first encountered Art in 1996, while helping my roommate Jason deliver newspapers, Yes, the same Jason who is now Arch Pope of the First Church of Gaia. But back then, we were fresh out of college,trying to survive, living on booze,fast food, and Jolt. Jason was tuning the radio in his mini-van when a smooth, deep voice came out of the speakers.
“Who’s that?” I asked Jason.
“Art Bell. The dude’s crazy.”
Jason liked Art, but I was hooked. That first time, his guest was Father Malachi Martin, the Catholic exorcist, who I’d hear many times over the years. He was just the first of many people I’d discover and come to love over the next years.
Malachi Martin. Terrance McKenna Linda Moulton Howe. Jim Marrs. Celebrities from Merle Haggard to John Voight. My personal favorite was always Stanton Friedman, the best UFOlogist on the planet, period. No disrespect to Tom Delonge, but Stanton was so much fun and so smart.
But as much fun as the guests were, the real meat of Art’s show were the callers. From first timers to Mel from Mel’s Hole, Everyone was welcome to call in. Art didn’t screen calls, and he themed them. Antichrists and Time Travellers.Vampires and UFO Abductees.
The big daddy of them all for me was Area 51 caller night. Art lived and broadcast from Pahrump, Nevada, darn near the place’s front door. In addition to the previous clip, my all time favorite moment happened during one of those Area 51 nights. Imagine you’re in a small apartment in the Chicago suburb. You’re listening to this in a dark living room, lit only by your computer monitor. You’re listening while typing stuff in Yahoo Chat. Go google it if you don’t know what that means. And then this happens.
After that, Art’s entire radio network went dead. Yahoo Chat’s room exploded with folks wondering what had happened. I went out on my balcony, which opened on to a view of a nearby radio tower, it’s light blinking in the silent dark. I’ve never been more thrilled by a broadcast before or since. People have questioned the truth level of a lot of Art’s callers, but that one scares even me.
Through my bumbling late twenties and thirties,Art was a constant companion. Retail destroys your ability to sleep, so he was something familiar in the dark. No matter how bad the day, no matter the place, if I could find Art, then I could get through to dawn.
And he got me through some very, very dark nights. For every night where I drifted off to peaceful sleep listening to him snuggled in a warm bed in Minnesota, there were also the tense ones in places like St. Louis, where I listened while I debated taking that knife sitting by the bed and going in the bathroom and ending it all.
But my life improved. I met the best woman I’ve ever known. Unfortunately, right about that time, Tragedy entered Art’s life, and he stopped broadcasting. I won’t go into the details, but I hope Art, Art Junior, and Ramona are in a better place. I know this place is lesser without Art, and I will miss him (Pause, with audible crying) You’re going to have to excuse me folks, We’ll be right back after this. Rest in Power, Art.
Music:Cusco-Ghost Dance