Image: via Las Vegas Reviews Journal
If you’ve ever heard anyone riffing on a weird radio show full of wild conspiracy theories, you’ve heard of Art Bell.
The radio personality, born in 1945 in North Carolina, was the pioneering host of Coast to Coast AM, a heavily syndicated late-night radio show themed around the paranormal—ghost stories, alien abductions, and all manners of wild conspiracy theories. Founded in 1988, the show ran under Bell’s direction until he retired completely in 2007. It still runs today under a different host, though it reads a bit differently in the age of Alex Jones than it did in its heyday.
Bell’s voice, and the mood of his show, which heavily featured call-in stories about all sorts of unexplained happenings and pseudo-scientific theories, defined a certain segment of paranoid Americana, one that went on to heavily influence science fiction and paranormal storytelling. You can see Bell’s influence in Twin Peaks, the X-Files, and everything in that ilk that came after.
Bell’s death was confirmed on Friday, when he was reported to have died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada. No cause of death was announced, and an autopsy will be done in the upcoming week to learn more.
[Radio Ink]
(Reuters) - U.S. radio host Art Bell, known for his discussions of conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena during his popular syndicated show “Coast to Coast AM”, has died at his home in Nevada aged 72, the local sheriff’s office said.
The show developed a cult following after he created it in 1993 and was touted as the country’s most listened to overnight radio program. It featured Bell expounding on topics as diverse as UFO sightings, Bigfoot and crop circles.
Bell retired in 2015 citing safety concerns for his family. His studios were located in his hometown of Pahrump, in Nye County, Nevada.
Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly announced the death of the “longtime resident” in a brief video statement. She said he died on Friday, and that an autopsy was scheduled for later this week to determine the cause of death.
Radio host Art Bell, whose nationally syndicated paranormal, supernatural and conspiracy themed show Coast to Coast AM kept many awake at night – for good reasons and bad – died at his Pahrump, Nevada home on Friday the 13th. Bell was 72.
During its peak in the 1990s, Bell’s show was broadcast on approximately 500 North American radio stations, airing from his isolated hometown of Pahrump on KNYE 95.1 FM, a station he founded.
According to the Coast to Coast AM website, Bell became an FCC-licensed radio technician at age 13 and once set a Guinness World Record for broadcasting solo for 116 straight hours while working as a DJ at KSBK in Okinawa, Japan.
Bell retired several times in his career, which included a short-lived show on SiriusXM satellite radio in 2013. His leaves always sparked rumors as to the “true cause” of his departures among the conspiracy minded.
Still, he could never stay away for long, as he told the Pahrump Valley Times in a 2013 interview. “It’s my life, and that’s all I have ever done,” he said. “I went through a lot of family problems, so that interrupted things, and I was overseas four years, and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.”
That love was returned by his peers. Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008.
