4 ms·

I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow). I can't count how many times I was driving alone down the dese

I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow). I can't count how many times I was driving alone down the desert highways at night, not a single other car on the road, and Art Bell was the only thing on the radio. And he'd be interviewing people or talking about UFOs, aliens, ghosts, government conspiracies, or whatever else he thought would be great to spook people with at the time. He made those lonely, dark night road trips into amazing experiences. No matter how rational you are, his show really could creep you out when you were driving alone at night on a long stretch of road. And not in a bad way. It felt like watching a really scary movie, one that cut kinda close to reality. And I like to think that's exactly what he was going for. His show was amazing. George Noory is great too, but I've since moved from the desert and don't take long night road trips anymore.

_JamesA_ 9y ago
Listening to Art and playing LoK all night with you guys were great times.
warent 9y ago
I never heard Art Bell before, but this post makes me feel like, in a small way, I got a little slice of it. The imagery of your comment really invokes the imagination and feelings. Thanks for sharing this experience!
rjkennedy98 9y ago
Art Bell is a completely difference experience when you are driving through the middle of the Nevada or California desert. Its hard to explain to people who have never done it, but somehow on those long desolate drives, his radio show just made sense somehow.
- dnautics 9y ago
  I agree with this assessment and have had this experience a lot myself.
- ben174 9y ago
  I am so grateful I got to experience this exact thing. And your description of the experience is spot on.
- JeremyNT 9y ago
  Art Bell's show was a bizarrely formative experience for me in my early teens. I lived in rural NC where we got very poor FM reception, but one AM station carried Coast to Coast AM, rebroadcasting the previous night before moving on to the live one (due to the time zone difference). Some nights I would listen through until dawn. There was such a striking sense of place he invoked in the show, and I would fall asleep dreaming of those roads I'd never seen. I've still never been to the high desert, but one of my favorite things to do recently has been to play American Truck Simulator in Nevada or California while streaming his archives. I know Art left and returned to radio several times over his career, and I held out hope he might do so yet again. I'm not one to really mourn the loss of celebrities, but the world is a little less mysterious and interesting without Art Bell.
serf 9y ago
>I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow). I used to live in Hesperia. I'm glad you escaped, too. If some sub-culture doesn't do you in, the contaminated well water will. (a literal skin-head nazi race riot broke out in my High School during my time there -- I didn't even realize that h.s. riots existed until I found myself in the middle of one -- I felt I needed to qualify the sub-culture comment before it was taken offensively.) With that said : You're absolutely right that the atmosphere/ambience of the High Desert is conducive to making Coast to Coast that much more believable -- and it simultaneously answers why no aliens have stuck around; i'd have turned around too if I landed somewhere in the middle of the Mojave.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  That makes me sad because I loved Victorville while passing through. Seemed like a cute, if struggling, town with a lot to recommend it (like the best burgers in SoCal at... Atlas I want to say it was..?).
xbkingx 9y ago
The experience sounds similar to my regular trips out to No-Wheres-ville central Illinois. I loved me a good ghost story episode on those nights driving through towns with double and triple digit populations. Well, not exactly the towns, which were a block with a gas station, post office, and maybe a diner, but the dilapidated structures 1/4 mile past the towns. It was haunting to cruise down tree lined roads over rickety bridges, past rotting houses, and, my favorite, skirting places where infrastructure was easier to bypass than repair. If the road curved more than 20 degrees you could bet that it used to go straight, and if you looked off in that direction you'd see the shell of an old train station or supply store. Art Bell and George Noory turned the most boring road trips into adventures. One night I'd be watching where my headlights hit the trees, expecting a chupacabra to leap onto the road, while others I'd have to 'play it cool' to avoid detection by the secret government testing facilities disguised as grain silos. I think those haunting jaunts into the suspension of disbelief actually made me more tolerant of people with (harmless) strange beliefs. I got to feel the allure of bizarre, irrational beliefs for a few hours per week in an unfamiliar setting and then return to being a city-boy scientist in my everyday life. I'd be sad, but I'm sure he's still around. He just had to go deep underground to avoid detection by the Illuminati or combat the Shadow People. Give em Hell, Art.
8bitsrule 9y ago
Art was the best thing to come out AM stations going talkie. And some of the stories, like the bottomless hole in central Washington, were hella fun.

_JamesA_ 9y ago

Listening to Art and playing LoK all night with you guys were great times.

warent 9y ago

I never heard Art Bell before, but this post makes me feel like, in a small way, I got a little slice of it. The imagery of your comment really invokes the imagination and feelings. Thanks for sharing this experience!

rjkennedy98 9y ago

Art Bell is a completely difference experience when you are driving through the middle of the Nevada or California desert. Its hard to explain to people who have never done it, but somehow on those long desolate drives, his radio show just made sense somehow.

dnautics 9y ago
I agree with this assessment and have had this experience a lot myself.
ben174 9y ago
I am so grateful I got to experience this exact thing. And your description of the experience is spot on.
JeremyNT 9y ago
Art Bell's show was a bizarrely formative experience for me in my early teens. I lived in rural NC where we got very poor FM reception, but one AM station carried Coast to Coast AM, rebroadcasting the previous night before moving on to the live one (due to the time zone difference). Some nights I would listen through until dawn. There was such a striking sense of place he invoked in the show, and I would fall asleep dreaming of those roads I'd never seen. I've still never been to the high desert, but one of my favorite things to do recently has been to play American Truck Simulator in Nevada or California while streaming his archives. I know Art left and returned to radio several times over his career, and I held out hope he might do so yet again. I'm not one to really mourn the loss of celebrities, but the world is a little less mysterious and interesting without Art Bell.

serf 9y ago

>I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow). I used to live in Hesperia. I'm glad you escaped, too. If some sub-culture doesn't do you in, the contaminated well water will. (a literal skin-head nazi race riot broke out in my High School during my time there -- I didn't even realize that h.s. riots existed until I found myself in the middle of one -- I felt I needed to qualify the sub-culture comment before it was taken offensively.) With that said : You're absolutely right that the atmosphere/ambience of the High Desert is conducive to making Coast to Coast that much more believable -- and it simultaneously answers why no aliens have stuck around; i'd have turned around too if I landed somewhere in the middle of the Mojave.

abritinthebay 9y ago
That makes me sad because I loved Victorville while passing through. Seemed like a cute, if struggling, town with a lot to recommend it (like the best burgers in SoCal at... Atlas I want to say it was..?).

xbkingx 9y ago

The experience sounds similar to my regular trips out to No-Wheres-ville central Illinois. I loved me a good ghost story episode on those nights driving through towns with double and triple digit populations. Well, not exactly the towns, which were a block with a gas station, post office, and maybe a diner, but the dilapidated structures 1/4 mile past the towns. It was haunting to cruise down tree lined roads over rickety bridges, past rotting houses, and, my favorite, skirting places where infrastructure was easier to bypass than repair. If the road curved more than 20 degrees you could bet that it used to go straight, and if you looked off in that direction you'd see the shell of an old train station or supply store. Art Bell and George Noory turned the most boring road trips into adventures. One night I'd be watching where my headlights hit the trees, expecting a chupacabra to leap onto the road, while others I'd have to 'play it cool' to avoid detection by the secret government testing facilities disguised as grain silos. I think those haunting jaunts into the suspension of disbelief actually made me more tolerant of people with (harmless) strange beliefs. I got to feel the allure of bizarre, irrational beliefs for a few hours per week in an unfamiliar setting and then return to being a city-boy scientist in my everyday life. I'd be sad, but I'm sure he's still around. He just had to go deep underground to avoid detection by the Illuminati or combat the Shadow People. Give em Hell, Art.

8bitsrule 9y ago

Art was the best thing to come out AM stations going talkie. And some of the stories, like the bottomless hole in central Washington, were hella fun.