Arthur "Art" Bell, III

 UPDATE!

See the Art Bell alleged Filipino hate letter here

Art Bell’s New Wife

Just three months after losing wife Ramona to complications from asthma, “Coast- to- Coast AM” host Art Bell has moved to the Philippines and remarried.

Death of Ramona Bell

Ramona Bell, his wife of fifteen years, died unexpectedly of what appeared to be an acute asthma attack on January 5, 2006 in Laughlin, Nevada, where the couple was taking a short vacation. She was 47 years old. The events surrounding her death were described, in great detail, by Art Bell during the January 22 broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. For weeks thereafter, callers would express their sadness and sympathy for Art Bell to George Noory who had taken Art Bell’s place weekdays in 2002

Change in schedule

On January 21, 2006, just days after the unexpected death of his wife Ramona, Bell announced he would host Coast to Coast AM every Saturday and Sunday evening, announcing at the same time that former weekend host Ian Punnett would work a new live prefeed program for the four hours preceding Bell’s slot on Saturday nights (21:00 – 01:00 ET). Punnett’s new show is titled Coast to Coast Live with Ian Punnett.The next day when Bell returned to the show, he spent the first hour reliving the death of his wife

Remarriage

The grieving process quickly over, by the end of January Bell began hinting that he was making a significant life decision but would keep it a secret for at least one year, asking listeners to remind him in 2007 to let them in on it. By March he was saying that he would soon be taking a “huge risk” and “do something rash.” On April 15, 2006, he ended the mystery and, to the mild surprise of listeners, revealed that, after several weeks of mourning, he had recently gone to the Philippines and married Airyn Ruiz, a recent college graduate. Ruiz — given Bell’s private e-mail address by a ham radio friend — had contacted Bell to offer condolences shortly after Ramona’s death. After “dating” via internet video conferencing for “hundreds of hours,” the two married one week after Bell arrived in the Philippines to actually meet her in person. Bell also paid for his friend — who was courting Airyn’s sister — to accompany him to the Philippines and marry her. The two couples wed in a double marriage ceremony on April 8, 2006.

Relocation to the Philippines

At the same time, Bell announced he would be leaving his longtime homestead in Nevada and relocating to the Philippines, near Makati, Metro Manila, intending to continue hosting Coast to Coast AM weekend editions via an ISDN connection. He departed the United States on April 29, 2006, stating an intention to remain abroad for at least a year, while maintaining ownership of his property in Nevada and of the radio station KNYE. Bell resumed hosting on June 18, 2006 but has since reportedly encountered technical problems that have kept him off air.

After a prolonged hiatus, Bell resumed his regular broadcasts from Manila on July 23, 2006, when the ISDN line was finally installed.

Books

Bell has written, or co-written, several books. They include The Quickening: Today’s Trends, Tomorrow’s World, The Art of Talk (an autobiography), The Source, The Edge: Man’s Mysterious Past & Incredible Future, and The Coming Global Superstorm, which became the basis for the popular movie, The Day After Tomorrow.

Art Bell shared the story of how he met, fell in love with, and married a very special Filipina woman, Airyn Ruiz. Art also announced that he will be moving to the Philippines on April 29th to be with Airyn, but will continue doing weekend Coast to Coast AM programs from that location.

Arthur “Art” Bell, III (born June 17, 1945) is an American broadcaster and author, known primarily as the founder and a longtime host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM. He also created and at one time hosted its companion show, Dreamland.

Semi-retired from Coast to Coast AM, he returned from his hiatus from hosting the weekend broadcasts but then took another leave while technical problems are worked out. Bell also owns oldies station: KNYE 95.1 FM (“The Kingdom of Nye … Things That Go Pahrump In The Night”) in Pahrump, Nevada.

As of August 2006, Bell is the regular weekend host on Coast to Coast AM, broadcasting from Metro Manila in the Philippines. Currently his interviews are focused on scientific topics rather than on his former paranormal interests.

Early years

Bell was born to Arthur Bell, Jr II, a United States Marine Corps Captain, and Jane Bell, a Marine drill instructor. He was always interested in radio and at the age of 13 he became a licensed amateur radio operator. Bell served in the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, and in his free time operated a pirate radio station at Amarillo Air Force Base. He would go out of his way to play anti-war music (like Eve of Destruction and Fortunate Son) that was not being played on the American Forces Network.

After leaving military service he stayed in the Far East, residing on the Japanese island of Okinawa where he worked as a disc jockey for KSBK, the only non-military English-language station in Japan.

While in Anchorage, Alaska at radio station KENI he set a Guinness record for staying on the air for 116 hours 15 minutes^{[citation needed]}. He also set the world record for seesawing while broadcasting for 57 hours. The money raised there allowed Bell to charter a DC-8, fly to Vietnam and rescue 130 Vietnamese Orphans stranded in Saigon at the war’s end. They were eventually all brought to the United States and adopted by American families.

Bell returned to the United States and studied engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He dropped out and went back to radio, this time as a board operator and chief engineer. Being around the stations he got a few opportunities to be on the air. For several years he worked back and forth behind and in front of the microphone. After a period of working in cable television, in 1989 the 50,000-watt KDWN in Las Vegas, Nevada offered Bell a five-hour time slot in the middle of the night.

Broadcasting career

Bell’s original program in Las Vegas was a political call-in talk radio show, but he tired of the format, believing there were too many such programs, especially in the wake of Rush Limbaugh‘s massive success.

Thus, Bell abandoned conventional political talk and began highlighting topics such as gun control, conspiracy theories, and other topics that appealed to a segment of the populace that thrived on such discussion. This led to a significant success in his overnight ratings. However the main focus of his show shifted significantly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Many in the media did not want to be blamed for inciting the militia/anti-government actions like the bombing. Afterwards, Bell discussed offbeat topics like the paranormal, occult knowledge, Unidentified Flying Objects, protoscience, and pseudo-science. If one were to read a transcript of Bell’s early 1990s shows (and not hear the voice), they might not recognize it as the same show with which he later found widespread success. Gone is the militia talk, replaced with UFOs and ghosts.

At his peak popularity, Coast To Coast AM was syndicated on over 500 radio stations, and it claimed 15 million listeners nightly. In its current form, the show receives upwards of 30 million listeners when Bell is actually hosting the show. [1] Bell formerly broadcast from his home in the town of Pahrump, located in Nye County, Nevada, hence, the catchphrase “from the Kingdom of Nye”. Art Bell was also featured in the video game Prey by Human Head Studios.

Critical reputation

Some critics see Bell as a charlatan, and some guests have been criticized as cranks or quacks; Coast-to-Coast is subject to frequent ridicule and criticism on the usenet group alt.fan.art-bell, in the AOL chatroom “Beyond Belief”, and on some blogs. Radio host Phil Hendrie occasionally lampoons Bell (using the bumper Dancing Queen by the pop group ABBA), his guests (“General Johnson Jameson” is a combination of Coast regulars Ed Dames and Richard Hoagland), and the unusual products offered by advertisers.

Others regard Bell as simply a master showman, noting that he calls his show “absolute entertainment” and further noting his statements that he does not necessarily accept every guest or caller’s claims but only offers a forum where they will not be openly ridiculed. Bell is one of only a few talk show hosts who do not screen calls. His calm attitude, patient questions, and ability to tease substance from the sometimes nebulous statements of callers and guests gave his show a relaxed and serious atmosphere earning him much praise from those who contend the paranormal deserves a mature outlet of discussion in the media, as well as others who are simply amused by the nightly parade of the bizarre. Ed Dames, Richard C. Hoagland, Terence McKenna, Dannion Brinkley, and Robert Bigelow were all regular guests who typically discussed fringe topics.

Bell’s interests, however, extended beyond the paranormal. Sometimes his topics venture into more ‘normal’ areas, such as interviewing singers Crystal Gayle, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, comedian George Carlin, writer Dean Koontz, “hard” science fiction writer Greg Bear, TV talk host Regis Philbin, Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, actress Jane Seymour and frequent guests physicist Michio Kaku and SETI astronomer Seth Shostak.

Beginning in late 1996, Bell was criticized for reporting rumors that comet Hale-Bopp was being closely followed by a UFO. It was speculated that members of the Heaven’s Gate group committed mass suicide based on rumors Bell aired, but others discounted this, noting that the Heaven’s Gate website stated that: “Whether Hale-Bopp has a ‘companion’ or not is irrelevant from our perspective.” Susan Wright notes, however, that Bell was also “one of the first to publicise expert opinions debunking the ‘alien companion’” said to have been shadowing Hale-Bopp

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