Here’s a famous moment from Art Bell: the Area 51 Shoot Down. Pure theater of the mind – the guy is supposed to be ‘shot down’ during the call – take a listen:
Bell ran the ‘Coast to Coast AM’ show from 1988 until 2015 and was known for conspiracy theory topics. Most of it was ‘absolute entertainment,’ but some callers and guests took him seriously. Then you had clips like the one above that sounded legitimate but no one could verify the story.
What is Area 51? It’s a highly classified USAF facility inside the Nevada Test and Training Range. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before, so I won’t waste your time re-counting its history and/or the theories about the facility. One of it’s famous air crashes featuers the A-12 – pre-cursor to the SR-71 Blackbird. You can read more about locating it on PopSci, and you can spend days diving down different rabbit holes related to Area 51. Fun fact: a guy flew over Area 51 about three months ago and nothing seemed to happen.
Art Bell knew and understood that radio is “theater of the mind.” Radio uses ‘words, music, sound effects and emotion to create imagery in the mind of the listener which transports the listener to another place or to [visualize] something you want them to see.’ C2C exercised that concept in this clip. For a while, we forgot that cell phones had terrible reception when used from an airplane (they still do). We didn’t stop to ask how the pilot could hear the air raid sirens.
None of that mattered. Coast to Coast AM took you to a different place in every broadcast. For example, Bell took a call from a ‘frantic man’ in 1997 that led one one of the greatest radio you never heard. Podcasters and storytellers (Like me!) do the same thing with their projects – although most of us go out of our way to remind you that we aren’t reporting real events. We don’t need a visit from the FBI.
I hope you enjoyed this little Sci-Friday adventure with Art Bell and the Area 51 Shoot Down. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!
