Coast to Coast AM



Coast to Coast AM is a U.S. talk radio show that runs in the wee hours of the late night and early morning. It was created and hosted by the late Art Bell. Since 2003 the main host has been George Noory, with George Knapp hosting on Sundays. Other guest hosts include Ian Punnett, Jimmy Church, Dave Schrader, Richard Syrett, Connie Willis and Lisa Garr.

The show focuses on a wide variety of conspiracy theories, paranormal and occult topics, typically presented in a credulous manner intended to mask the overwhelming odor of bullshit; occasionally, Noory will address some political news of the day, always by repeating the standard right wing talking point. The show generally consists of two two-hour interviews with a specific guest, the end of which is opened up to callers with questions. Many would argue, however, that the show is at its best on Fridays, when the second half (or sometimes the last three hours, or the entire episode) is left open to callers' personal stories.

It is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. Local affiliates exist in nearly every major U.S. city though the show has been removed from some markets in recent years due to decline in audience. The program generally runs seven days a week, from 10 PM to 2 AM Pacific time, although local affiliates may repeat, delay or abridge the program. Many stations that carry Coast to Coast also carry other Premiere Radio shows, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, hosts not known for their firm grip on reality.

History
The original host, Art Bell, got his start in 1984 with a local talk show in Las Vegas. When he took Coast to Coast AM national in 1992, it was briefly a political talk show &mdash; Bell was one of the talk radio hosts talking up Ross Perot's candidacy and criticism of the Waco siege &mdash; before he found his calling covering paranormal topics.

One could literally trace every woo claim, urban myth, and conspiracy theory of the 21st century to its appearance on Coast to Coast AM. The notion that comet Hale Bopp was being shadowed by a UFO (which inspired the Heaven's Gate cult suicides in 1997) was given no small amount of credibility on the show, as was Remote viewing, EVP, Mel's Hole, and End Times predictions too numerous to count. Bell created an art form out of giving the craziest of the crazy their individual 15 minutes of fame. According to The Washington Post in its February 23, 1997 edition, Bell was at the time America's highest-rated late-night radio talk show host, broadcast on 328 stations. In 1999, Bell co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm, upon which the movie The Day After Tomorrow was based.

Bell retired from the show briefly in 2000-2001, during which Coast to Coast AM was hosted by Mike Siegal of Seattle. He returned in 2001 and went into "semi-retirement" again in 2003, with George Noory taking over regular hosting.

In September 2013, Art Bell returned to the airwaves, somewhat, on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. His new show, "Art Bell's Dark Matter" was broadcast nightly on "Indie", Channel 104, direct from his home studio in Pahrump, Nevada, but abruptly ended in November over web streaming issues. On July 20th, 2015, Art Bell debuted his new show, "Midnight in the Desert", that aired Monday through Friday on the Dark Matter Digital Network from 12 AM to 3 AM EST. This show ended in December 2015, after Bell claimed that he received a string of violent threats to himself and his family. Bell's local sheriff's department opened an investigation, but closed it "due to a lack of evidence".

Guests
Coast to Coast AM features a regular lineup of guests from a wide range of fields, often pseudoscientific. Frequent topics discussed on the show are such things as UFOs, alien abductions, cryptozoology, ghosts, exorcisms, astrology, pseudoarcheology, topics such as the alleged mystical powers of "ancient crystal skulls", and various forms of science woo. A frequent guest on Coast to Coast is remote viewer and doomsayer Ed Dames, who makes predictions of impending worldwide destruction. Another is Gerald Celente, whose economic forecasts would have had the USA back to the Stone Age by now if they had only been accurate.

Signalling a gradual shift of the show's material in a political direction, a frequent news-segment guest in 2020 was Jerome Corsi, a blowhard from the right wing of the Republican party.

Robert Zimmerman
This Robert Zimmerman is no relation to the Robert Zimmerman who sang of brass bedsteads and changing times. A space historian with four books and a master's degree to his credit, Zimmerman was appointed science adviser to the radio show in July 2015, replacing the completely unqualified Richard Hoagland.

He had previously had many spots on the show, especially commenting on spaceflight news but also interpreting science and technology more generally.

Steve Kates "Dr. Sky"
A radio/TV journalist based in Phoenix, Arizona, "Dr. Sky" is a Monday night regular in the program's News segment, offering updates in astronomy.

Peter Davenport
Director of the National UFO Reporting Center. Another News segment regular, summarizing the latest UFO sightings.

Steve Quayle
Steve Quayle spews an endless stream of overlapping nonsense involving the entire grab-bag ranging from UFOs to the end of the world with plenty of pseudoscience like chemtrails. He supports far-right political views and hatred: during a recent radio appearance he took a page out of the basic xenophobic playbook and called immigrants coming into the US "infectons", claiming they could be "intentionally exposed to some of the most deadly pathogens with the goal of spreading disease" as Coast to Coast put it. Nobody thought to tell him that perfectly legit businessmen returning from exotic foreign locations are every bit as much of a potential threat.

During the same show, Quayle uttered the dread words "quantum frequencies." According to him, the bombardment of the US embassy in Moscow with microwaves (1953-76) was not, as reported at the time, a form of radio jamming electronic eavesdropping using items built into the embassy as resonant chambers, but a successful scheme to project viruses through thin air. Amazing what quantum frequencies can achieve.

Whitley Strieber
Science fiction author and close friend of Art Bell who took over Art's other show Dreamland. Dreamland is still airing new episodes but is now on a podcast-only format. Whitley claims to have had experiences with what he terms "the visitors" and is a prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction with one of his books having been adapted into a major motion picture starring Christopher Walken.

Michio Kaku
One of the few relatively sane folks that appear on the show. Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist who specializes in trans-humanist and future technology topics.

Alex Jones
Conspiracy posterboy Alex Jones used to occasionally show up to sponsor worthless survival products, but Noory distanced himself and stopped inviting Jones due to his highly controversial claims denying the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Joel Wallach
A pseudo-physician who hands out worse-than-useless advice such as that all diseases are due to mineral deficiency. Also flogs pseudo-medical products such as colloidal mineral supplements using the brand name Youngevity. Wallach makes genuine doctors and dieticians cringe by telling us all to eat ten eggs a day. Wallach and Alex Jones are partners in "Infowarshealth," a web site that sells pseudo-medical supplements.