Arthur W. "Art" Bell, III (born June 17, 1945) is an American broadcaster and author, known primarily as one of the founders and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM.^[2] He also created and formerly hosted its companion show, Dreamland. Semi-retired from Coast to Coast AM since 2003, he hosted the show many weekends for the following four years. He announced his retirement from weekend hosting on July 1, 2007 but occasionally serves as a guest host. He attributed the reason for this latest retirement to a desire to spend time with his new wife and daughter, born May 30, 2007. He added that unlike his previous "retirements," this one will stand, while leaving open the option to return. Classic Bell-hosted episodes of Coast to Coast AM can be heard in some markets on Saturday nights under the name Somewhere in Time.

Bell founded and was the original owner of Pahrump, Nevada-based radio station, KNYE 95.1 FM. His broadcast studio and transmitter were located near his home in Pahrump while he hosted Coast to Coast AM except from June to December 2006, when he lived in the Philippines. He returned to the Philippines March 10, 2009 with his family after having significant difficulties obtaining a U.S. visa for his wife Airyn.^[3]

Early life[link]

Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina to Arthur Bell, Jr., a United States Marine Corps Captain, and Jane Gumaer Bell, a Marine drill instructor. Arthur Bell, Jr. died in 2000 and Jane Bell died December 23, 2008.

Art Bell III was always interested in radio and at the age of 13 became a licensed amateur radio operator. Bell now holds an Extra Class license, which is in the top U.S. Federal Communications Commission license class. His call sign is W6OBB.

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 aired on the American Forces Network.^[4]

After leaving military service he stayed in Asia, living 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 there, he set a Guinness record by staying on the air for 116 hours and 15 minutes. 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 brought to the United States and adopted by American families.^[5]

Bell returned to the United States and studied engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He dropped out and returned to radio as a board operator and chief engineer, and had opportunity to be on the air a few times. For several years he worked 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. Syndication of his program to other radio stations began in 1993.

Broadcasting career[link]

Art Bell was living in Watsonville, California and worked for KIDD 630 AM in Monterey, California during the early 70s.^{[citation needed]} He also owned a dating service^{[citation needed]} and worked for KMST channel 46.^{[citation needed]}

First a rock music jockey before moving into talk radio, Bell's original 1978 late-night Las Vegas program on KDWN was a political call-in show under the name West Coast AM.^[1] In 1988, Bell and Alan Corberth renamed the show Coast to Coast AM and moved its broadcast from the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas to Bell's home in Pahrump.^[1]

Bell abandoned conventional political talk in favor of topics such as gun control and conspiracy theories, leading to a significant bump in his overnight ratings. The show's focus again shifted significantly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Many in the media did not want to be blamed for inciting anti-government or militia actions like the bombing. Subsequently, Bell discussed off-beat topics like the paranormal, the occult, UFOs, protoscience and pseudo-science. During his tenure at KDWN Bell met and married his second wife, Ramona, who later handled production and management duties for the program.

According to The Washington Post in its February 23, 1997 edition: Art Bell was at the time America's highest-rated late-night radio talk show host, broadcast on 328 stations. According to The Oregonian in its June 22, 1997 edition, Coast To Coast AM with Art Bell was on 460 stations. At its initial peak in popularity, Coast To Coast AM was syndicated on more than 500 radio stations and claimed 15 million listeners nightly. Bell's studios were located in his home in the town of Pahrump, located in Nye County, Nevada; hence the voiceover catchphrase, "from the Kingdom of Nye."

Critical reputation[link]

Fans regard Bell as a master showman, noting that he calls his show "absolute entertainment"^[6] and expressly says he does not necessarily accept every guest or caller's claims but only offers a forum where they will not be openly ridiculed. Bell was one of only a few talk show hosts who did not screen incoming calls, but this changed in 2006. On the October 31, 2006 edition of Coast to Coast AM, (renamed for the night to Ghost to Ghost AM), Bell was asked why he was now using call screeners. The explanation given was that for him to use unscreened open phone lines while in the Philippines would require listeners to call there directly at enormous cost to them. Art admitted that he should have chosen New Zealand instead of the Philippines as an alternative to the USA. He said, "It was a bad choice, and I'll regret it, one day, in the near future." He subsequently stopped screening calls upon his return to the United States.

His calm attitude, patient questions, and ability to tease substance from nebulous statements of callers and guests gave his show a relaxed yet serious atmosphere. This earned him praise from those who declare the paranormal deserves a mature outlet of discussion in the media as well as the approval of those simply amused by the nightly parade of bizarre, typically fringe topics. Ed Dames, Richard C. Hoagland, Terence McKenna, Dannion Brinkley, David John Oates, and Robert Bigelow have all been regular guests. Some of Bell’s regular guests, particularly Hoagland, continue to be regular guests on Coast to Coast AM now hosted by George Noory.

Bell's own interests, however, extend beyond the paranormal. He has interviewed singers Crystal Gayle, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Eric Burdon and Gordon Lightfoot, comedian George Carlin, writer Dean Koontz, hard science fiction writer Greg Bear, X-Files Writer/Creator Chris Carter, TV talk host Regis Philbin, Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, actor Dan Aykroyd, former Luftwaffe pilot Bruno Stolle, actress Jane Seymour, actress Ellen Muth, actor and TV host Robert Stack, human rights lawyer John Loftus, legendary disc jockey Casey Kasem and frequent guests physicist Michio Kaku and SETI astronomers Seth Shostak and H. Paul Shuch.

Beginning in late 1996, Bell was criticized for reporting rumors that Comet Hale-Bopp was being trailed by a UFO. It was speculated that members of the Heaven's Gate group committed mass suicide based on rumors Bell aired, but others dismissed the idea, noting that the Heaven's Gate website stated: "Whether Hale-Bopp has a "companion" or not is irrelevant from our perspective."^[7] Susan Wright notes, however, that Bell was also "one of the first to publicize expert opinions refuting the 'alien companion'" said to have been shadowing Hale-Bopp.^[8]

Political views[link]

Bell chooses not to discuss his political views on Coast to Coast AM though occasionally he has brought them up. He has expressed support for the right to bear arms and same-sex marriage. He also used to be, in his own words, a "staunch" supporter of the death penalty, though has changed his mind at least to some extent, due to innocent people being put to death.

Bell has completely dismissed the 9/11 conspiracy theories, having uploaded an image stating "God Bless George W. Bush and the U.S.A." to his website following the September 11 attacks. ^[9]

Bell is a member of the U.S. Libertarian Party. Originally, Coast to Coast AM was a conservative political talk show, but in recent years Bell has expressed both conservative and liberal views on the air. On air, Bell has shown support for immigration reform and decriminalizing marijuana. He has also criticized humankind's role in facilitating the onset of global warming. Bell has also stated that he opposes abortion, believes the U.S. should finish the job in the war in Iraq and supports a free market economy.

Callers and guests[link]

• In April 1996, Bell received a package of what would be known as "Art's Parts." These parts were allegedly pieces of debris from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash. Extensive analysis of the metals indicated they were made of an odd bismuth material.^{[citation needed]}
• One of Art Bell's Coast to Coast interviews occurred in 1997 with Mel Waters who discussed what is known as "Mel's Hole" in rural Washington State. The mysterious opening is said to be a fantastically deep vertical shaft which possesses extremely bizarre properties. No such hole has ever been physically located by anyone attempting to verify this story.
• On May 23, 1997, Bell interviewed a man who called himself "Victor", who claimed to have been at S-4 (near Area 51) and was responsible for the release to the public of a nearly three-minute video commonly called the "alien interview." For almost two hours, Victor described the ebe (extraterrestrial biological entities) program at S-4, verifying most of Bob Lazar's claims.
• On September 11, 1997, Bell took a call from a frantic man claiming to be an ex-Area 51 employee who grew progressively more upset as the call wore on, culminating in the show's going temporarily off the air because of "satellite failure."
  • This incident formed the basis of the song "Faaip de Oiad" by the rock band Tool, which features said interview (with Art Bell's part cut out), over frantic drumming and buzzing static.
  • The interview was also sampled in Konkhra's track "Religion is a Whore" and The Faceless's "Planetary Duality." It was also featured as a hidden track on the Agent 51 album "Red Alert" released in 1998.
    • Yet another song featuring the call was "It's Out There and It's Gonna Get You" by experimental Texas quartet The Paper Chase on their 2006 album Now You Are One Of Us.
• J.C. Webster the Third, or "J.C." – J.C. began calling in 1996, and has since been on the air over 50 times. He purports to be a Baptist Revival preacher, and believes Art to be "the Devil's Mouthpiece." He has continued to call George Noory and guest hosts. Although some listeners have expressed a disbelief that someone like J.C. could exist, Art Bell and George Noory have repeated their beliefs that J.C. is real, and is neither a "put-on" nor a "plant."
• On the night of October 23, 1997, Art interviewed Harlot the Witch (Patsy).
• In 1997 Cusco's Michael Holm, the group's leader, revealed that a song on Apurimac III - Nature Spirit Pride - "Pahrump-Big Water" was titled in recognition of Art Bell and Coast to coast.^{[10][not in citation given]}
• In 1998, Bell spoke with John Titor, a self-proclaimed time traveler from 2036 who made all kinds of fantastic predictions and discussed time travel.
• In the mid to late 1990s, a regular caller named "Fritz" would call in and give his view on various matters.
• In the mid to late 1990s, another regular caller known only as "Charlie Liberal" used to call with his perspectives on current events.
• "Bugs" – An aging farmer who has repeatedly told of his account of shooting and burying two Bigfoot creatures back in the 1970s in the Texas Panhandle, initially thinking they were bears. Bugs has mailed a map of the location of this "burial" to Art Bell, to be released to the public upon Bugs' death. During his first appearance in 1996, Bugs said he had taken a dozen Polaroid photos of the creatures he would be willing to send to Bell. None of the alleged photos have yet been made available.
• A caller in 2000 named "Daniel Murray" claimed he was a Majestic agent from Downey, California.^{[citation needed]}
  • This call served as the inspiration for the alternate reality game Majestic.^[11]
• In 2003, Chris Clements, a freelance writer with the Washington Post, called Art Bell to tell him he had evidence of a financial connection between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. Clements went on further to tell of how his research showed that 9/11 may have been orchestrated by the Bush family and hinted at proof of a coming police state with secret prisons and the chipping of citizens. Clements promised to forward all of his information to Bell but it was reported^{[by whom?]} that Clements died in a suspicious car crash in the weeks after his call.
• In October 2003, Bell interviewed Temple of the Vampire founder George "Nemo" Smith. Smith spoke about the Temple of the Vampire's beliefs and practices.
• In February 2005, Bell received a call from a person calling himself "Oscar", proclaiming to be "the Son of Satan." Oscar had since also called George Noory, but disappeared after a June 2007 on-air confrontation with J.C.
• In March 2005 a man also called about disturbing events on Kwajalein and Johnston Atoll about a weapon that only targeted certain people and could leave others unhurt. He indicated he had been on both islands (that are US military only) and that these weapons had been tested in 1993. Art lost the call after another voice came on the line with a click saying "Shelton, terminate the call from A-6." Art tried to call the man back but was unsuccessful.
• In 2009, David Van Dyke, a photojournalist with Metro News Canada, called into Coast-to-Coast (guest hosted by Art Bell that night) and warned listeners that Toronto would become a testing ground for police tactics and subverting citizens at a soon to be announced global summit. Weeks after the call Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Toronto would play host to the G20 summit. Van Dyke, also a Toronto citizen, returned to the show after the announcement and declared that Toronto's downtown would be "stripped of everything not bolted down. Even trees and sticks will be removed, so that the oligarchy could not be touched." Van Dyke went missing shortly after the second call. Van Dyke resurfaced in mid-2010 following the G20 Summit in Toronto and was interviewed on local news channel CP24 while protesting outside a court hearing for G20 detainees. Van Dyke claimed he was held against his will in a stone-block room for "what felt like years" while being subjected to various psychological stress tactics. "German industrial metal music blasted frequently. A bright strobe light came on intermittently, and when it wasn't on a TV constantly played a loop of interracial porn", Van Dyke told CP24. He also claimed he was only fed raw steak and agents "dressed in pink bunny costumes" shouted anti-Marxist slogans at him. At this point the interview was abruptly ended by the reporter.^{[citation needed]}

Amateur radio[link]

Bell became a licensed amateur radio operator at the age of 13. His first call sign was KN3JOX, first listed in the Winter 1959 edition of the Radio Amateur Callbook. He soon upgraded to K3JOX, and he later held W2CKS, first listed in the Spring 1967 Callbook. Bell holds an Amateur Extra Class license, which is in the top U.S. Federal Communications Commission license class. His call sign is W6OBB.

Bell is well known in the world of amateur radio. He and many of his ham friends could be heard nightly on the 80 meter amateur radio band at a frequency of 3840 kHz (before he moved to the Philippines). While there he could occasionally be heard on 3678 kHz via EchoLink. When Bell resides in the USA, he can be heard on 3830 kHz. Bell has also run a nightly online amateur radio stream at Smeter.Net from 7:00 PM Pacific time until 3:00 am.

According to QRZ.Com,^[12] Bell took and passed the Philippines amateur radio exams and became a Philippine Class A amateur radio operator with the call sign of 4F1AB. While in the Philippines, Bell is active on 40-10 Meters, as well as 144.600 MHz simplex in Manila.

Honors[link]

In 1998, Bell was named as recipient of the less-than-prestigious Snuffed Candle Award. The CSICOP Council for Media Integrity cited Bell "for encouraging credulity, presenting pseudoscience as genuine, and contributing to the public's lack of understanding of the methods of scientific inquiry."

In 2005, the City of Las Vegas renamed a portion of 11th Street in the downtown area "Art Bell Drive."

On March 10, 2007, Bell received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the trade publication Radio & Records in Los Angeles.

In July 2008, it was announced that Art Bell would be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. The ceremony took place on November 8, 2008, in Chicago.

Marriages[link]

• Airyn Ruiz, April 11, 2006 – present. Children: Asia Rayne Bell
• Ramona Lee Hayes, August 4, 1991  – January 5, 2006 † (see below)
• Vickie L. Baker, married March 1, 1981, divorced, July 3, 1991. Children: Arthur William Bell^{[citation needed]}
• Sachiko Toguchi Bell Pontius, married 1965, divorced 1968. Children: Vincent Pontius,^[13] Lisa Pontius Minei.^{[citation needed]}

Retirements and comebacks[link]

Bell has retired and returned to Coast to Coast AM several times.

Retirement: His first retirement, highly unexpected, was announced on October 13, 1998. Bell: I told you that there was an event, a threatening terrible event occurred to my family, which I could not tell you about. Because of that event, and a succession of other events, what you're listening to right now is my final broadcast on the air. Coast To Coast AM is broadcast on more than 400 stations and is the country's most listened to overnight radio show, heard by some 15 million listeners. (That from "The Seattle Times" 10-13-98.) Hilly Rose filled in after Bell's departure.

Return: He returned on October 28, 1998. Bell asserted that the brief departure was brought on by threats made against his family. On May 29, 1999, Art Bell explained that this retirement was due to an allegation made by hosts of WWCR shortwave radio that Bell had paid to cover up a criminal indictment. (Announcement date from "The Washington Post" 5-29-99, where Bell's show was said to be on 460 stations.)

The facts of the matter became public knowledge with Art Bell's second retirement in 2000, when it was revealed that an actual criminal indictment was filed against a person who had assaulted a member of Bell's family. Because of the nature of the crime, Bell had wanted to keep the matter private. The hosts at WWCR shortwave radio had accused Bell of the crime. (Bell took legal action against the hosts and stations, which was settled in 2000.^[14])

Retirement: On April 1, 2000, Bell once again announced to his audience his retirement, which would occur on April 26, 2000 (that from "The Washington Post" 4-1-00), but he offered no details other than expressing intentions to "resolve a family crisis." On April 11, 2000, Mike Siegel was introduced as the new host of Coast To Coast AM. On April 27, 2000, Siegel took over the program which at this time had an estimated 22 million listeners. (That from "The Seattle Times" 4-12-00.) It was later explained he had left to deal with the aftermath of a sexual assault against his son. Brian Lepley, a substitute teacher, was convicted of sexual assault and attempted transmission of HIV and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years.^[15]

Return: On January 24, 2001, it was announced (in Vancouver, Washington's "The Columbian" newspaper), Art Bell would return to Coast To Coast AM on February 5, 2001. Bell noted that since his departure the show had lost a number of affiliates, commercial content had risen to an unbearable level, and Siegel had taken the program in a "different direction" of which Bell disapproved. He retained some authority over the program as its creator and thus felt his return was necessary.

Retirement: On October 23, 2002, Bell announced he would be retiring because recurring back pain (the result of a fall from a telephone pole during his youth) forced yet another departure, and Bell was permanently replaced by George Noory as weekday host of Coast to Coast AM on January 1, 2003. It was also said that Barbara Simpson would host weekends and that Bell planned to be an occasional guest host for Noory. (Most information from "The Seattle Times" 10-26-02.)

Return: Bell again on September 23, 2003, announced (in Vancouver, Washington's "The Columbian" newspaper) would return as a weekend host on September 27, 2003, having missed the microphone, this time replacing Barbara Simpson and Ian Punnett as host of the Saturday and Sunday evening broadcasts. In June 2005, he scaled this schedule back a bit (a "semiretirement"), deciding to host only the last two Sundays of every month. Bell went back to hosting every weekend show as his schedule permitted after his wife Ramona’s death a few months later.

Retirement: on July 1, 2007, Bell announced his retirement again, stating that he wished to spend more time with his new wife and daughter. He made it explicitly clear that, unlike the circumstances surrounding previous retirements, this one was an entirely positive and joyful decision and that he would not disappear completely—he would occasionally substitute for other hosts and host "special" shows. According to George Noory, Bell is on board to do 15 shows per year. Art Bell confirmed this fact in a post on the Fantastic Forum fan site.

Events of 2006[link]

Bell's life took some dramatic twists in the beginning of 2006:

Death of Ramona Bell[link]

Ramona Bell, his wife of 15 years, died unexpectedly,^[16] at the age of 47, of what appeared to be an acute asthma attack on January 5, 2006 in Laughlin, Nevada, where the couple was taking a short vacation.

The events surrounding Ramona's 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.^[17]

Change in schedule[link]

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, and that former weekend host Ian Punnett would work a new live prefeed program for the four hours preceding Bell's slot on Saturday nights (9:00pm – 1:00am ET). Punnett's show was titled Coast to Coast Live with Ian Punnett. When returning to the show the following day, Bell spent the first hour recounting the death of his wife.

Remarriage[link]

By the end of January, Bell began hinting that he was making a significant life decision, but that he 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 take 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,^[18] whose name is pronounced like the name "Irene," but Art likes to pronounce her name as "Arin." This is because during their Internet dating Art imprinted the spelling of her name with that pronunciation. Airyn Ruiz Bell is a recent college graduate. Ruiz — given Bell's private e-mail address by an amateur radio friend — had contacted Bell to offer condolences shortly after Ramona's death. After "dating" via Internet videoconferencing 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 11, 2006.

On October 7, 2006, Bell announced on Coast to Coast that Ruiz was pregnant with the couple's first child. Art told listeners that the couple's child was indeed a girl as many listeners suspected. He noted that they had been hoping for a girl and had announced only a girl's name for their unborn child in hopes of receiving a girl.

Art and Airyn's baby girl, Asia Rayne Bell, was born by caesarean section on May 30, 2007.

Relocation to the Philippines[link]

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 then encountered technical problems that kept him off air until July 23, 2006, when the ISDN line was finally installed.

In July 2001, the Philippine Daily Inquirer printed an email letter purportedly from Bell that made derogatory statements about Filipinos. This letter was subsequently demonstrated to be a hoax perpetrated upon Bell, who in fact had a publicly loving relationship with his Filipina wife and his previous wife Ramona, who was also Filipina, and who often spoke openly about his admiration for the Filipino people on his radio show. Subsequently, the Philippine Daily Inquirer printed a retraction and apologized for printing the statement upon their verification of the hoax.

In October 2006, Bell threatened Rogers Cadenhead with a lawsuit for some allegedly libelous comments posted on Cadenhead's blog, which Cadenhead has said he will defend himself against under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.^[19]

Return to "the High Desert and the Great American Southwest"[link]

Bell opened his December 28 program by disclosing to his stunned listeners that he had just relocated back to Pahrump, Nevada, with Ruiz, who had obtained the necessary paperwork for immigrating to the United States. Bell had not disclosed on any previous show his plans to return to the High Desert. Despite feeling jet-lagged after a 15-hour flight from the Philippines via Vancouver, British Columbia, he did the full show. Bell was aloft returning to the States when an earthquake cut off undersea cables that would have prevented his broadcasts from the Philippines.^{[clarification needed]} Bell indicated on his December 30, 2006 show that among the reasons for his return were a recent recirculation of the infamous fake anti-Filipino email,^[20] and his homesickness for his elaborate stateside Amateur Radio station.

Events of 2007[link]

On May 30, 2007, at 12:51 p.m. PDT, daughter Asia Rayne Bell was born by planned caesarean section.

On July 1, 2007 at 10:10 p.m. PDT, Art Bell announced his retirement from regular hosting effective that day, expressing a desire to spend more time with his family. Bell stated that he will only host occasionally on Coast to Coast.

Events of 2008[link]

On May 23, 2008, Bell, while hosting Coast to Coast AM, stated that there would be a change in the artbell.com Web site in July 2008. Within a few weeks the Web site was no longer responding to requests and has even dropped from DNS.

On May 29, 2008 Bell sold KNYE to Station Manager Karen Jackson.^[21]

On September 8, 2008, Noory stated that he would be hosting the annual Ghost to Ghost AM Halloween call-in show rather than Bell, who normally returns to the Coast to Coast to host it (along with the New Year's prediction shows). On September 19, Noory explained that Bell would be unavailable because he was on a cruise during that time this year.

On November 30, 2008, Bell hosted Coast to Coast AM. Michio Kaku was the guest. This was the first time Bell had hosted the show since May 23, 2008.^[22] On December 23, Bell's mother, Jane, died. George Noory informed Coast to Coast listeners of her death during that night's show, with a number of callers offering Bell their condolences regarding the death of Bell's mother.

On December 30 and 31, 2008, Bell once again hosted his annual New Year's predictions special of Coast to Coast. Bell remarked on his mother's death and stated that he was very happy that she got to spend time with his daughter, Asia, before she died.

Events of 2009[link]

Art Bell Returned to Coast to Coast AM on February 20, 2009, for a discussion on the global financial crisis with Wall St. insider Michael J. Panzner. Bell and Panzer agreed the United States was headed for an economic depression.

Art Bell was scheduled to return to Coast to Coast AM on April 24, 2009, to host an evening of open lines, but because of engineering problems in Manila, Art was rescheduled to a later date.^[23]

On May 17, 2009, Bell returned to host Coast to Coast AM live from Manila. His guest was Professor Peter Ward. Topics of discussion were mass extinctions, earth's "self-destructive" phenomena, and life beyond planet earth. While on the air, Art answered an email question from a listener who asked why he was in the Philippines again and how long he'd be there. Art replied that he'd address it on "Friday" and hinted that his move might be permanent.

As of May 20, 2009, the Coast to Coast website listed that Art Bell would be filling in for George Noory on Friday, May 22, 2009 to interview Dr. Bob Koontz. However, Art Bell did not do that show. The Coast to Coast website, again, cited technical difficulties in Manila and that his interview would be postponed. Bell interviewed Koontz on Saturday, June 6, 2009.

Friday June 26, 2009 Art Bell hosted Coast to Coast AM from Manila with guest Dr. Dean Radin. He also commented on the death of Michael Jackson and how he had lived in Pahrump, Nevada not too far away from where Art lived.

Friday November 20, 2009 Art Bell hosted Coast to Coast AM from Manila with guest Starfire Tor, psi researcher and experiencer who discussed time shifts and time slips, and other strange occurrences of time. During the first 90 minutes, they were joined by Whitley Strieber, who shared his take on Tor's research.^[24]

On Wednesday, December 30 and Thursday, December 31, 2009, Bell once again hosted his annual New Year's predictions special of Coast to Coast, noting that a number of the predictions this year were of an unusual and interesting nature and not mere repeats of many that had come before, though he also took several callers to task for seemingly veiling their obvious political agendas or wishes in the form of predictions, rather than offering up something from their "psychic center," which is what he repeatedly asks for during the prediction show. He also suggested that maybe Coast To Coast AM should institute some sort of prize or acknowledgment for listeners whose predictions are particularly accurate or astute.

Immigration Controversy[link]

In late 2008, Bell filed an I-751 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in order to get his wife a green card. In early 2009 the USCIS responded that they would need additional evidence to prove that Bell's marriage to a Filipina national and subsequent green card application therefore was in good faith. Bell responded with evidence including their marriage license, their daughter's birth certificate, Bell's last will and testament, bank records, family photos, and Social Security forms. Bell sent the package to the USCIS by return receipt mail, and he subsequently received the return receipt stamped "USCIS RECEIVED JAN-15-09."^[25]

On March 10, 2009, Bell and his wife and daughter left Nevada for Manila to deal with some family business including the disposition of a condo they owned. Shortly thereafter, the USCIS denied the application on the grounds that the documentary evidence was never received, and further stipulated that Airyn Bell is not permitted to re-enter the United States, which is why Bell remains in the Philippines. Moreover, since the Bells were out of the country when the application was denied, they must start the process all over again.^[26]

On his June 6 broadcast, Bell explained the situation and asked his listeners to send emails on his behalf to the White House.

Recently, George Noory announced that he has heard from Art, that the immigration controversy is over, and that Airyn has been granted permanent residency.^{[citation needed]}

Events of 2010-12[link]

Art Bell hosted 10 episodes in 2010, 5 short of his publicly-announced, contractually-specified quota of 15 shows per year. His last hosting gig was his annual Ghost To Ghost show on Halloween night (this was the first show ever wherein Art used call screeners). At the end of that broadcast, Bell said "When they next call my name we'll come back and we'll do this one more time."

As of December 2010 Art Bell was no longer listed as a host on the Coast to Coast website; his shows were no longer searchable under his name; and the only references to Bell on the site were of an historical/archival nature. However, the weekly "Somewhere In Time with Art Bell" broadcasts of classic Bell-hosted episodes (which have aired before the live show on Saturday nights since 2006) were not discontinued.

On 12/21/10 the "HamCam" on Art's ham radio website^[27] featured an image with the following cryptic wording: "The Wind No Longer Blows, in the End it was Without Direction. Long Live the Hot Air. 30"^[28] "-30-" is journalistic shorthand for "end of story."

It was announced in late December 2010 that Ian Punnett would host Art's annual two-part New Year's Eve prediction shows. Initially, Noory had said that Art was unable to host them because he would be traveling, but on 12/24/10 Noory said: "We had asked Art to do his predictions show; he's going to spend time with his family. He's winding down, folks, he's winding down....I don't anticipate he'll do any more shows." On the first of the two nights (12/30/10), Punnett made a brief, oblique reference to his having the honor of "picking up (Art's) fallen mantle." On the 01/01/11 show, Punnett stated he was "looking forward to doing the follow-up a year from now."

In email interactions with fans who have written in to inquire about Bell's absence, Coast personnel have confirmed that Art Bell has retired. According to Coast webmaster Lex Lonehood: "Art Bell decided he no longer wished to do live C2C shows, and asked that his name be removed from the host listings accordingly. Classics and Somewhere in Time shows will continue as is."^[29] Coast producer Lisa Lyon told another fan that Bell "has chosen to retire," but that "Art Bell will always be associated with our show, and he is welcome back to the mic whenever he feels the need."^[30]

Despite the above remarks from Punnett, Noory, Lyon, Lonehood and Bell, as of 01/06/11, an official public statement formally confirming Bell's departure from Coast to Coast AM has yet to be made via press release, website announcement or on-air, by any party with the authority to do so--the show's producers, Premier Radio Networks, Clear Channel Communications, or Art Bell himself. This lack of information has led to rampant speculation among Bell's fanbase as to the motivations and circumstances behind Bell's sudden absence; whether he has given his last live broadcast; and what--if anything--he may decide to do next.

During a chat on February 8, 2011, events became even more confusing for Bell's fans as George Noory, during a public chat responding to a question on Art Bell, stated that Art Bell isn't responding to his emails. The questioner, "Coalspeaker," asked "Have you spoken to Art Bell lately? And if so is he and his family doing well?" Noory responded by saying, "No I haven't. Art has decided to retire for good this time. I assume all is well for him and his family. He has gone through many ups and downs. I sent him a very lengthy email a few months ago, and he never responded. Though he normally would." ^[31] There was no further explanation beyond that point on why Art Bell did not respond to Mr. Noory's email, although it only led Bell's fanbase to speculate further.

In March 2011 a Facebook profile appeared claiming to be the legitimate page of "Arthur W. Bell III," who posted hints that there would be a "big announcement" at the end of April 2011. After much speculation and debate among fans and friends on that page and various Bell forums, and finally after direct intervention from a verified Art Bell account, the "Arthur W. Bell III" page was proven to be a hoax, with no "big announcement" imminent.^[32]

On July 20, 2011, Art Bell announced via his Facebook page that he had relocated with his family to Pahrump, Nevada. Subsequent posts indicate Art and his family initially focusing on resettling his house and making it "fit for human habitation" again, giving no indication about his radio plans, if any (beyond maintaining his HAM activity). However, on July 30, Bell posted the following: "There is so much to do and only so many hours in the day. There are things going on in the background that I will talk about at the proper time. The move was a big one and we need time to adjust."

On August 19, 2011 Art Bell announced via Facebook "Phrase for the day......Stay tuned!", followed on August 31 by the message "Sorry for so few posts but we are working on this house every day like dogs, much more soon." Some Bell fans voiced speculation that the phrase "stay tuned" may have been meant to indicate Art's return to broadcasting in some form, but 2011 ended with no such announcement forthcoming, though shortly before Christmas he did report that a malfunctioning fire extinguisher in his radio room caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to his equipment and house.

Finally, on February 2, 2012, Bell commented on the subject via a post on the Coastgab forum: "Hi there, I thought it would be ok to stop in here and say hi from the High Desert! I have had so many people send me links in email that refer to a post on this site. All is well with the Bell Family and we are doing just fine in Pahrump. As far as retirement is concerned it has been great having time with my family and my hobby. I have learned to 'never say never' but I am enjoying life."^[33] The following day he elaborated: "As for Coast, the show has changed, which from my point of view is a shame, but it is the right of the host doing the show to take it in the direction they see fit. I have had many offers to join other networks to compete if I wished BUT I have decided that I do not wish to destroy what I built, or what is left of it. I really am enjoying being retired, I can be part of my daughter's life as she grows, and it is a blast. I do miss all of you though. I am not saying I will not pick up a mic one day, just not this day. I learned long ago, never say never.--Art"^[34] Finally, when asked directly by a fan on his Facebook page if he would be returning to Coast, he stated definitively: "No I will not be on Coast."^[35]

Books[link]

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: Journey Through the Unexplained; 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.

Other work[link]

In 1996 Bell appeared in an episode of the NBC science fiction series Dark Skies as William S. Paley, head of CBS.

On September 30, 1998 NBC's Today Show aired a taped segment of reporter Fred Francis interviewing Bell. Francis questioned Bell about Hale-Bopp, Area-51, eccentric callers claiming to be "six-fingered alien hybrids" as well as the UFO sighting experienced by Bell and his wife Ramona. The segment also featured members of Bell's audience reacting to topics being discussed.

In 1999 Bell appeared as himself on the Chris Carter-created series Millennium. The episode, called "Collateral Damage," aired in the third season and dealt with a former U.S. soldier who claimed the government he fought for was indeed responsible for horrendous tests on soldiers and Iraqi civilians. (This episode was broadcast on January 22, 1999. The Washington Post, 1-22-99.)

In 1999 Bell was interviewed on Larry King Live. (This was broadcast on March 5, 1999. The Washington Post, 3-5-99.)

Progressive rock band Tool's 2001 album, Lateralus, featured a track entitled "Faaip de Oiad" (Enochian for "The Voice of God"), which includes a clip of the "distraught and terrified" Area 51 employee call from September 11, 1997.

In 2005 Bell and then-wife Ramona were featured on the ABC news special: Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing, which reported on the entire scope of the UFO experience, from the first famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947 to the present day. (This was broadcast on February 24, 2005. The Washington Post, 2-20-05.)

In 2005 snippets of Bell and callers to his show were featured on the song "Conspiracy Radio" on Sean Hogan's album "Catalina Sunrise": Bell is credited for "voice overs" on this track.

In 2006 Bell was featured in the video game "Prey" and played himself. He hosts, as in real life, Coast to Coast AM, and the player is able to listen to the broadcast at several terminals throughout the game. The broadcasts describe what is happening on Earth as the game unfolds. The game plot centers around a massive space ship and alien abductions. Bell receives a number of calls about people who have seen smaller craft as they abduct people. The protagonist is one of these people and listens to the radio while on the space ship.

In 2007 Bell appeared as himself in the movie I Know Who Killed Me.

See also[link]

Biography portal

• George Noory.
• Coast to Coast Topics: 9/11 Conspiracy theories, Albert Einstein, Biodiesel, Carl Sagan, Central Intelligence Agency, Chemtrail theory, Classified information in the United States, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Ghosts, Global Warming, Amateur Radio, Lucid Dreaming, Near-death experience, New World Order, Nikola Tesla, Out-of-place artifacts, Peak Oil, the Paranormal, SETI, the Solar system, String theory, Time travel, Ufology, the Undead, and the United States Department of Defense.
• Coast to Coast personalities: Nick Begich, Dannion Brinkley, Ed Dames, Richard C. Hoagland, Linda Moulton Howe, Michio Kaku, Seth Shostak, Mel Waters.
• Radio: Coast to Coast AM, List of radio programs.
• Other: Pahrump, Nevada, United States Libertarian Party.

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ronson, Jon. The Men Who Stare at Goats, Picador, 2004 ISBN 0-330-37547-4; Simon & Schuster, 2006 ISBN 0-7432-7060-1. Chapter 6, "Privatization," pp. 93–114.

External links[link]

• Coast to Coast AM
• KNYE 95.1 FM, Pahrump's only locally based radio station
• Archived edition of his page explaining the Filipino e-mail hoax
• Free Coast to Coast Listen Links
• partial transcript of Art Bell and Sean David Morton's 1997 interview with 'Victor' (end of page)

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2012)

The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crimefighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town" with psychic powers.^[2] One of the most famous pulp heroes of the 20th century, The Shadow has been featured in comic books, comic strips, television, video games, and at least five motion pictures. The radio drama is well-remembered for those episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

Introduced as a mysterious radio narrator by David Chrisman, William Sweets and Harry Engman Charlot for Street and Smith Publications, The Shadow was fully developed and transformed into a pop culture icon by pulp writer Walter B. Gibson.

The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour.^[3] After gaining popularity among the show's listeners, the narrator became the star of The Shadow Magazine on April 1, 1931, a pulp series created and primarily written by the prolific Gibson.

Over the years, the character evolved. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama officially premiered with the story "The Deathhouse Rescue", in which the character had "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him." This was a contrivance for the radio; in the magazine stories, The Shadow did not have the ability to become literally invisible.

The introduction from The Shadow radio program, long-intoned by actor Frank Readick Jr., has earned a place in the American idiom: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel", composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay.... The Shadow knows!"

Publication history[link]

Detective Story Hour[link]

In order to boost the sales of their Detective Story Magazine, Street and Smith Publications hired David Chrisman of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine's stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets felt the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as "The Inspector" or "The Sleuth."^[4] Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: "... The Shadow."^[4]

Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930,^[1][5] "The Shadow" was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour. The narrator was voiced by James LaCurto^[5] and, later, Frank Readick. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street and Smith, "the nation's oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines."^[5] Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of the Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking newsdealers for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine," even though it did not exist.^[5]

Development[link]

Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about "The Shadow." Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming that the stories were "from The Shadow's private annals as told to" him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was "The Living Shadow", published April 1, 1931.^[5]

Gibson initially fashioned the character as a man with villainous characteristics, who used them to battle crime, and in this was the very first superhero in the modern century for modern times complete with a stylized imagery, a stylized name, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Shadow operated mainly after dark, burglarizing in the name of justice, and terrifying criminals into vulnerability before he or someone else gunned them down. The character was a film noir antihero in every sense; Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations for The Shadow were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The House and the Brain.^[4]

Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson's work load. These guest writers included Lester Dent — who penned the Doc Savage stories — and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) would temporarily replace Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series.^[6] Richard Edward Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two Shadow stories.^[7]

The Shadow Magazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new "official" stories between 1963 and 1980. The first of these began a new series of nine updated Shadow novels from Belmont Books, starting with Return of The Shadow under his own by-line. But the remaining eight, The Shadow Strikes, Beware Shadow, Cry Shadow, The Shadow's Revenge, Mark of The Shadow, Shadow Go Mad, Night of The Shadow, and The Shadow, Destination: Moon, were not penned by Gibson but by Dennis Lynds under the "Maxwell Grant" byline. In these last eight novels, The Shadow was given psychic powers, including the radio character's ability "to cloud men's minds" so that he effectively became invisible, and was more of a spymaster than crime fighter.

Publications[link]

See List of The Shadow stories

Character development[link]

The character and look of The Shadow gradually evolved over his lengthy fictional existence.

As depicted in the pulps, The Shadow wore a black slouch hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar over a standard black business suit. In the 1940s comic books, the later comic book series, and the 1994 film starring Alec Baldwin, he wore either the black slouch hat or a wide-brimmed, black fedora and a crimson scarf just below his nose and across his mouth and chin. Both the cloak and scarf covered either a black doubled-breasted trench coat or regular black suit. As seen in some of the later comics series, the hat and scarf would also be worn with either a black Inverness coat or Inverness cape.

But in the radio drama, which debuted in 1937, The Shadow became an invisible avenger who had learned, while "traveling through East Asia," "the mysterious power to cloud men's minds, so they could not see him." This revision of the character was born out of necessity: Time constraints of 1930s radio made it difficult to explain to listeners where The Shadow was hiding and how he was remaining concealed. Thus, the character was given the power to escape human sight. Voice effects were added to suggest The Shadow's seeming omnipresence.

In order to explain this power, The Shadow was described as a master of hypnotism, as explicitly stated in several radio episodes.

Background[link]

In print, The Shadow's real name is Kent Allard, and he was a famed aviator who fought for the French during World War I. He became known by the alias of The Black Eagle, according to The Shadow's Shadow, 1933, although later stories revised this alias as The Dark Eagle beginning with The Shadow Unmasks, 1937. After the war, Allard seeks a new challenge and decides to wage war on criminals. Allard fakes his death in the South American jungles, then returns to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he adopts numerous identities to conceal his existence.

One of these identities—indeed, the best known—is Lamont Cranston, a "wealthy young man about town." In the pulps, Cranston is a separate character; Allard frequently disguises himself as Cranston and adopts his identity ("The Shadow Laughs," 1931). While Cranston travels the world, Allard assumes his identity in New York. In their first meeting, Allard/The Shadow threatens Cranston, saying that he has arranged to switch signatures on various documents and other means that will allow him to take over the Lamont Cranston identity entirely unless Cranston agrees to allow Allard to impersonate him when he is abroad. Terrified, Cranston agrees. The two men sometimes meet in order to impersonate each other ("Crime over Miami," 1940). Apparently, the disguise works well because Allard and Cranston bear something of a resemblance to each other ("Dictator of Crime," 1941).

His other disguises include businessman Henry Arnaud, who first appeared in Green Eyes, Oct. 1932, elderly gentleman Isaac Twambley, who first appeared in No Time For Murder, and Fritz, who first appeared in The Living Shadow, Apr. 1931; in this last disguise, he pretends to be a doddering old janitor who works at Police Headquarters in order to listen in on conversations.

The Shadow appears as Henry Arnaud in "Atoms of Death," "Buried Evidence," "Death Jewels," "Death Premium," "Death Ship," "Green Eyes," "House of Silence," "Murder Trail," "Quetzal," "Realm of Doom," "The Black Master," "The Blue Sphinx," "The Case of Congressman Coyd," "The Circle of Death," "The City of Doom," "The Condor," "The Embassy Murders," "The Five Chameleons," "The Ghost Murders," "The Man From Shanghai," "The Plot Master," "The Radium Murders," "The Romanoff Jewels," "The Seven Drops of Blood," "The Shadow Unmasks," "The Shadow's Shadow," and "Wizard of Crime."

The Shadow appears as Isaac Twambley in "No Time for Murder," "Guardians of Death," "Death Has Grey Eyes," "The Stars Promise Death," "Dead Man's Chest, and "The Magigal's Mystery."

The Shadow appears as Fritz in at least 23 Shadow novels: "The Living Shadow," "Hidden Death," "The Ghost Makers," "The Crime Clinic," "Crime Circus," "The Chinese Disks," "The Dark Death," "The Third Skull," "The Black Master," "The Voodoo Master," "The Third Shadow," "The Circle of Death," "The Sledge Hammer Crimes," "The Golden Masks," "The Ghost Murders," "Hills of Death," "The Hand," "The Racket's King," "The Green Hoods," "The Crime Ray," "The Getaway Ring," "Masters of Death," and "The Crystal Skull."

For the first half of The Shadow's tenure in the pulps, his past and identity are ambiguous, supposedly an intentional decision on Gibson's part. In The Living Shadow, a thug claims to have seen The Shadow's face, and thought he saw "a piece of white that looked like a bandage." In "The Black Master" and "The Shadow's Shadow," the villains both see The Shadow's true face, and they both remark that The Shadow is a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, "The Shadow Unmasks," that The Shadow's real name is revealed.

Kent Allard appears as himself in at least twenty-eight Shadow novels: "The Shadow Unmasks," "The Yellow Band," "Death Turrets," "The Sealed Box," "The Crystal Buddha," "Hills of Death," "The Murder Master," "The Golden Pagoda," "Face of Doom," "The Racket's King," "Murder for Sale," "Death Jewels," "The Green Hoods," "Crime Over Boston," "The Dead Who Lived," "Shadow Over Alcatraz," "Double Death," "Silver Skull," "The Prince of Evil," "Masters of Death," "Xitli, God of Fire," "The Green Terror," "The Wasp Returns," "The White Column," "Dictator of Crime," "Crime out of Mind," "Crime Over Casco," and "Dead Man's Chest."

In the radio drama, the Allard secret identity was dropped for simplicity's sake. On the radio, The Shadow was only Lamont Cranston; he had no other aliases or disguises.

Supporting characters[link]

The Shadow has a network of agents who assist him in his war on crime. These include:

• Harry Vincent, an operative whose life he saved when Vincent tried to commit suicide.
• Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz, aka "Shrevvy," a cab driver who doubles as his chauffeur.
• Margo Lane, a socialite created for the radio drama and later introduced into the pulps.
• Clyde Burke, a newspaper reporter.
• Burbank, a radio operator who maintains contact between The Shadow and his agents.
• Cliff Marsland, a wrongly convicted ex-con who infiltrates gangs using his crooked reputation.
• Dr. Rupert Sayre, The Shadow's personal physician.
• Jericho Druke, a giant, immensely strong black man.
• Slade Farrow, who works with The Shadow to rehabilitate criminals.
• Miles Crofton, who sometimes pilots The Shadow's autogyro.
• Rutledge Mann, a stock-broker who collects information.
• Claude Fellows, the only agent of The Shadow ever to be killed, which he was in Gangdom's Doom, 1931.
• Hawkeye, a reformed underworld snoop who trails gangsters and other criminals.
• Myra Reldon, a female operative who uses the alias of Ming Dwan when in Chinatown.
• Dr. Roy Tam, The Shadow's contact man in New York's Chinatown.

Though initially wanted by the police, The Shadow also works with and through them; notably gleaning information from his many chats with Commissioners Ralph Weston and Wainright Barth (who is also Cranston's uncle), while at the Cobalt Club. Weston believes that Cranston is merely a rich playboy who dabbles in detective work. Another police contact is Detective Joe Cardona, a key character in many Shadow novels.

In contrast to the pulps, The Shadow radio drama limited the cast of major characters to The Shadow, Commissioner Weston, and Margo Lane, the last of whom was created specifically for the radio series, as it was believed the abundance of agents would make it difficult to distinguish between characters.^[8] Clyde Burke and Moe Shrevnitz (identified only as "Shrevvy") made occasional appearances, but not as agents of The Shadow. Shrevvy was merely an acquaintance of Cranston and Lane, and occasionally Cranston's chauffeur.

Enemies[link]

The Shadow also faces a wide variety of enemies, ranging from kingpins and mad scientists to international spies and "super-villains," many of whom were predecessors to the rogues's galleries of comic super-heroes. Among The Shadow's recurring foes are Shiwan Khan (The Golden Master, Shiwan Khan Returns, and The Invincible Shiwan Khan)--who appears in the feature film portrayed by John Lone--The Voodoo Master (The Voodoo Master, The City of Doom, and Voodoo Trail), The Prince of Evil (The Prince of Evil, The Murder Genius, The Man Who Died Twice, and The Devil's Paymaster, all written by Theodore Tinsley), and The Wasp (The Wasp and The Wasp Returns).

The series also featured a myriad of one-shot villains, including The Red Envoy, The Death Giver, Gray Fist, The Black Dragon, Silver Skull, The Red Blot, The Black Falcon, The Cobra, Zemba, The Black Master, Five-Face, The Gray Ghost, and Dr. Z.

The Shadow also battles collectives of criminals, such as The Silent Seven, The Hand, The Salamanders, and The Hydra.

Radio program[link]

Orson Welles was the voice of The Shadow from September 1937 to October 1938. He was succeeded by Bill Johnstone.

In early 1930, Street & Smith Publications hired David Chrisman and Bill Sweets to adapt the Detective Story Magazine to radio format. Chrisman and Sweets felt the program should be introduced by a mysterious storyteller. A young scriptwriter, Harry Charlot, suggested the name of "The Shadow."^[4] Thus, "The Shadow" premiered over CBS airwaves on July 31, 1930,^[1] as the host of the Detective Story Hour,^[5] narrating "tales of mystery and suspense from the pages of the premier detective fiction magazine."^[5] The narrator was first voiced by James LaCurto,^[5] but became a national sensation when radio veteran Frank Readick, Jr. assumed the role and gave it "a hauntingly sibilant quality that thrilled radio listeners."^[5]

Early years[link]

Following a brief tenure as narrator of Street & Smith's Detective Story Hour, "The Shadow" character was used to host segments of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, playing on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This marked the beginning of a long association between the radio persona and sponsor Blue Coal.

While functioning as a narrator of The Blue Coal Radio Revue, the character was recycled by Street & Smith in October 1931, to oddly serve as the storyteller of Love Story Hour.

In October 1932, the radio persona temporarily moved to NBC. Frank Readick again played the role of the sinister-voiced host on Mondays and Wednesdays, both at 6:30 p.m., with LaCurto taking occasional turns as the title character.

Readick returned as The Shadow to host a final CBS mystery anthology that fall. The series disappeared from CBS airwaves on March 27, 1935, due to Street & Smith's insistence that the radio storyteller be completely replaced by the master crime-fighter described in Walter B. Gibson's ongoing pulps.

Radio drama[link]

Street & Smith entered into a new broadcasting agreement with Blue Coal in 1937, and that summer Gibson teamed with scriptwriter Edward Hale Bierstadt to develop the new series. As such, The Shadow returned to network airwaves on September 26, 1937, over the new Mutual Broadcasting System. Thus began the "official" radio drama that many Shadow fans know and love, with 22-year-old Orson Welles starring as Lamont Cranston, a "wealthy young man about town." Once The Shadow joined Mutual as a half-hour series on Sunday evenings, the program did not leave the air until December 26, 1954.

Welles did not speak the signature line of "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?". Instead, Readick did, using a water glass next to his mouth for the echo effect. The famous catch phrase was accompanied by the strains of an excerpt from Opus 31 of the Camille Saint-Saëns classical composition, Le Rouet d'Omphale.

After Welles departed the show in 1938, Bill Johnstone was chosen to replace him and voiced the character for five seasons. Following Johnstone's departure, The Shadow was portrayed by such actors as Bret Morrison (the longest tenure, with 10 years in two separate runs), John Archer, and Steve Courtleigh.

The Shadow also inspired another radio hit, The Whistler, whose protagonist likewise knows "many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak".

Margo Lane[link]

The radio drama also introduced female characters into The Shadow's realm, most notably Margo Lane (played by Agnes Moorehead, among others) as Cranston's love interest, crime-solving partner and the only person who knows his identity as The Shadow.^[9] Four years later, the character was introduced into the pulp novels. Her sudden, unexplained appearance in the pulps annoyed readers and generated a flurry of hate mail printed in The Shadow Magazine's letters page.^[9]

Lane was described as Cranston's "friend and companion" in later episodes, although the exact nature of their relationship was unclear. In the early scripts of the radio drama the character's name was spelled "Margot." The name itself was originally inspired by Margot Stevenson,^[9] the Broadway ingénue who would later be chosen to voice Lane opposite Welles' Shadow during "the 1938 Goodrich summer season of the radio drama."^[10] In the 1994 film in which Penelope Ann Miller portrayed the character, she is characterized as a telepath.

Comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels[link]

The Shadow has been adapted for the comics quite a few times; his first appearance was on June 17, 1940 as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip offered by the Ledger Syndicate. The strip's story continuity was written by Walter B. Gibson, with plot lines adapted from the Shadow pulps, and the strip was illustrated by Vernon Greene. Due to pulp paper shortages and the growing amount of space required for war news from the European and Pacific fronts, the strip was canceled June 13, 1942. The Shadow daily was collected decades later in two comic book series from two different publishers (see below), first in 1988 and again in 1999.

To both cross-promote The Shadow and attract a younger audience to their other pulp magazines, Street & Smith published 101 issues of the comic book Shadow Comics from Vol. 1, #1 - Vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 - Sept. 1949).^[11] A Shadow story led off each issue, with the remainder of the stories being strips based on other Street & Smith pulp heroes.

In Mad #4 (April–May 1953), The Shadow was spoofed by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. Their character was called the Shadow' (with an apostrophe), which is short for Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom. In this satire, Margo Pain gets Shad, as she calls him, into various predicaments, including fights with gangsters and a piano falling on him from above. At the conclusion of the tale, after Margo is tricked into going inside an outhouse surrounded by wired-up dynamite, Shad is seen gleefully pushing down a detonator's plunger.

During the superhero revivial of the 1960s, Archie Comics published an eight-issue series, The Shadow (Aug. 1964 - Sept. 1965), under the company's Mighty Comics imprint. In the first issue, The Shadow depicted was loosely based on the radio version, but with blond hair. In issue #2 (Sept. 1964), the character was transformed into a campy, heavily muscled, green and blue costume-wearing superhero by writer Robert Bernstein (Jerry Siegel) and artist John Rosenberger.^[12]

During the mid-1970s, DC Comics published an "atmospheric interpretation" of the character by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Michael Kaluta^[13] in a 12-issue series (Nov. 1973 - Sept. 1975). Kaluta drew issues 1-4 and 6 and was followed by Frank Robbins and then E. R. Cruz. Faithful to both the pulp-magazine and radio-drama character, the series guest-starred fellow pulp fiction hero The Avenger in issue #11.^[14] The Shadow also appeared in DC's Batman #253 (Nov. 1973), in which Batman teams with an aging Shadow and calls the famous crime fighter his "greatest inspiration". In Batman #259 (Dec. 1974), Batman again meets The Shadow, and we learn The Shadow saved Bruce Wayne's life when the future Batman was a boy.

The Shadow is also referenced in DC's Detective Comics #446 (1975), page 4, panel 2: Batman, out of costume and in disguise as an older night janitor, makes a crime fighting acknowledgement, in a (thought balloon) to the Shadow.

In 1986, another DC incarnation was created by Howard Chaykin. This four issue mini-series, also collected as a one-shot graphic novel (Shadow: Blood and Judgement), brought The Shadow into modern-day New York. While initially successful,^[15] this version proved unpopular with traditional Shadow fans^[16] because it depicted The Shadow using Uzi submachine guns and rocket launchers, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy and extreme violence throughout.^[17]

The Shadow, set in our modern era, was continued the following year, in 1987, as a monthly DC comics series by writer Andy Helfer (editor of the mini-series), and was drawn primarily by artists Bill Sienkiewicz (issues 1-6) and Kyle Baker (issues 8-19 and two Shadow Annuals).

In 1988, O'Neil and Kaluta, with inker Russ Heath, returned to The Shadow with the Marvel Comics graphic novel The Shadow 1941: Hitler's Astrologer, set during World War II. This one-shot appeared in both hardcover and trade paperback editions.

The Vernon Greene/Walter Gibson Shadow newspaper comic strip from the early 1940s was finally collected by Malibu Graphics (Malibu Comics) under their Eternity Comics imprint, beginning with the first issue of Crime Classics dated July, 1988. Each cover was illustrated by Greene and colored by one of Eternity's colorists. A total of 13 issues appeared featuring just the black-and-white daily until the final issue, dated November, 1989. Some of the Shadow story lines were contained in one issue, while others were continued over into the next. When a Shadow story ended, another tale would begin in the same issue. This back-to-back format continued until the final 13th issue, when the strip story lines ended.

Dave Stevens' nostalgic comics series The Rocketeer contains a great number of pop culture references to the 1930s. Various characters from the Shadow pulps make appearances in the story line published in the Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, including The Shadow's famous alter ego Lamont Cranston. Two issues were published by Comico Comics in 1988 and 1989, but the third and final installment did not appear until years later, finally appearing in 1995 from Dark Horse Comics. All three issues were then collected by Dark Horse into a slick trade paperback titled The Rocketeer: Cliff's New York Adventure (ISBN 1-56971-092-9).

From 1989 to 1992, DC published a new Shadow series, The Shadow Strikes, written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto. This series was set in the 1930s and returned The Shadow to his pulp origins. During its run, it featured The Shadow's first team-up with Doc Savage, another very popular hero of the pulp magazine era. Both characters appeared together in a four-issue story line that crossed back and forth between each character's DC comic series. "The Shadow Strikes" often led The Shadow into encounters with well-known celebrities of the 1930s, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, union organizer John L. Lewis, and Chicago gangsters Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik. In issue #7, The Shadow meets a radio announcer named Grover Mills — a character based on the young Orson Welles — who has been impersonating The Shadow on the radio. The character's name is taken from Grover's Mill, New Jersey, the name of the small town where the Martians land in Welles' famous 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. When Shadow rights holder Conde Nast increased its licensing fee, DC concluded the series after 31 issues and one Annual; it became the longest running Shadow comic series since Street and Smith's original 1940s series.

During the early-to-mid-1990s, Dark Horse Comics acquired the comics rights to the Shadow from Conde Nast. It published the Shadow miniseries In The Coils of Leviathan (four issues) in 1993, and Hell's Heat Wave (three issues) in 1995. In the Coils of the Leviathan was later collected and issued by Dark Horse in 1994 as a trade paperback graphic novel. Both series were written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, and drawn by Gary Gianni. A one-shot Shadow issue The Shadow and the Mysterious Three was also published by Dark Horse in 1994, again written by Joel Goss and Michael Kaluta, with Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher taking over the illustration duties but working over Kaluta's layouts. A comics adaptation of the 1994 film The Shadow was published in two issues by Dark Horse as part of the movie's merchandising campaign. The script was by Goss and Kaluta and once again drawn from cover to cover by Kaluta. It was collected and published in England by Boxtree as a graphic novel tie-in for the film's British release. Emulating DC's earlier team-up, Dark Horse also published a two-issue mini-series in 1995 called The Shadow and Doc Savage. It was written by Steve Vance, and illustrated once again by Manoukian and Roucher. Of special note, both issues' covers were drawn by Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens. The final Dark Horse Shadow team-up was published in 1995. It was a single issue of Ghost and the Shadow, written by Doug Moench, pencilled by H. M. Baker, and inked by Bernard Kolle.

The Shadow made an uncredited cameo appearance in issue #2 of DC's 1996 four issue mini-series Kingdom Come. Those four issues were then collected into a single graphic novel in 1997. The Shadow appears in the nightclub scene standing in the background next to The Question and Rorschach.

The early 1940s Shadow newspaper daily strip was again put back into print, this time by Avalon Communications under their ACG Classix imprint. The Shadow daily began appearing in the first issue of Pulp Action comics. It carries no monthly date or issue number on the cover, only a 1999 copyright and a "Pulp Action #1" notation at the bottom of the inside cover. Each issue's cover is a colorized, partial comics panel blow-up, taken from one of the reprinted strips. The eighth issue uses for its cover a partial Shadow serial black-and-white movie still, with several hand-drawn alterations added. The first issue of Pulp Action is devoted entirely to reprinting the Shadow daily, but subsequent issues began offering back-up, non-Shadow stories of various page lengths in every issue. These Shadow strip reprints stopped with Pulp Action's eighth issue, never completing the daily's story lines; that last issue carries a 2000 copyright date.

Writer Garth Ennis signing copies of Dynamite Entertainment's The Shadow (volume 5) #1 at an April 19, 2012 signing at Midtown Comics Downtown in Manhattan.

In August 2011 Newsarama reported that Dynamite Entertainment had licensed the Shadow from Conde Nast and would be developing a new comic book series around the character.^[18] The series, which is written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Aaron Campbell, debuted on April 19, 2012 in comics shops and was also available for sale through various website sales outlets like eBay and Amazon.com; the Ennis story arc, set during the Shadow's original 1930s time period, will be featured in the first six issues. The first Dynamite issue was published with four different color covers and 8 special variants; including Retailer Incentive versions, regional comic shop specials, and even two offering limited, hand-drawn original cover sketches. This first issue was drawn by artists Alex Ross, Jae Lee, Howard Chaykin, and John Cassaday.^[19]

Films[link]

The character has been adapted for several motion pictures.

[edit] The Shadow Strikes (1937)

The film The Shadow Strikes was released in 1937, starring Rod La Rocque in the title role. Lamont Cranston assumes the secret identity of "The Shadow" in order to thwart an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. Both The Shadow Strikes (1937) and its sequel, International Crime (1938), were released by Grand National Pictures.

[edit] International Crime (1938)

La Rocque returned the following year in International Crime. In this version, reporter Lamont Cranston is an amateur criminologist and detective who uses the name of "The Shadow" as a radio gimmick. Thomas Jackson portrayed Police Commissioner Weston, and Astrid Allwyn was cast as Phoebe Lane, Cranston's assistant.

[edit] The Shadow (1940)

A 15-chapter serial produced by Columbia Studios starring Victor Jory premiered in 1940. The Black Tiger is a criminal mastermind who has been sabotaging rail lines and factories across the United States, and Lamont Cranston must become his shadowy alter ego to uncover the fiend and halt his schemes.

[edit] The Shadow Returns (1946)

Low-budget motion picture studio Monogram produced a trio of films in 1946 starring Kane Richmond: The Shadow Returns, Behind the Mask and The Missing Lady. Richmond's Shadow wore a black face-mask similar to the type worn by the serial hero The Masked Marvel instead of his signature red scarf.

[edit] The Shadow (1994)

In 1994 the character was adapted once again into a feature film, The Shadow, starring Alec Baldwin as Lamont Cranston, alongside Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Lane. As the film opens, Cranston has become the evil and corrupt Ying-Ko (literally "Eagle's Beak"), a brutal warlord and opium smuggler in early 1930s Mongolia. Ying Ko is kidnapped by agents of the mysterious tulku, who then begins to reform the warlord using the psychic power of his evolved mind to restore Cranston's humanity. The tulku also teaches him the ability to "cloud men's minds" using psychic power in order to fight evil in the world. Cranston eventually returns to his native New York City and takes up the guise of the mysterious Shadow, in payment to humanity for his past evil misdeeds: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..."

His nemesis in the film is adapted from the pulp series' long-running Asian villain (and for the film, a fellow telepath), the evil Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the last descendant of Genghis Khan. He seeks to finish his ancestors' legacy of conquering the world by first destroying New York City, using a newly developed atomic bomb, in a show of his power. Khan nearly succeeds but is thwarted by the Shadow in a final psychic duel of death: Cranston imposes his Will and defeats Khan during a telekinetically enhanced battle in a mirrored room, which suddenly explodes into thousands of flying mirror fragments. Focusing his mind's telekinatic power, Cranston flips a flying piece of jagged mirror shard midair, and hurls it directly at Khan's forehead; this doesn't kill him, it only renders Khan unconscious. To both save the warlord and the world, the Shadow has arranged with one of his operatives, an administrative doctor at an unidentified New York asylum for the criminally insane, to have Khan locked away in a padded cell. Khan's mirror shard-damaged frontal lobe, which controlled his powers, has been surgically removed; he is now under the Shadow's control forever.

The film combined elements from the Shadow pulp novels and comic books with the aforementioned ability to cloud minds, described only on the radio show. The Shadow wears a large, red-lined black cloak, a long, red mouth and chin scarf, a black trench coat, and a wide-brimmed fedora; he is armed with dual .45 semi-automatic pistols, as in the pulps and the comics. The film also displays Cranston's ability to conjure a false face whenever he is in his Shadow guise, in keeping with his physical portrayal in the novels and the comics.

Upcoming film[link]

On December 11, 2006, the website SuperHero Hype reported that director Sam Raimi and Michael Uslan will co-produce a new Shadow film for Columbia Pictures.^[20] After failing to gain the rights in the late 1980s, Raimi instead created an original character for the 1990 feature film, Darkman.

On October 16, 2007, Raimi stated that: "I don't have any news on 'The Shadow' at this time, except that the company that I have with Josh Donen, my producing partner, we've got the rights to 'The Shadow.' I love the character very much and we're trying to work on a story that'll do justice to the character."^[21]

On January 29, 2010, it was reported^{[by whom?]} that Sam Raimi was searching for a new project after it was announced that the Spider-Man movie franchise would be rebooted without him. The Shadow was said to be at the top of his list. Recently, it was incorrectly rumoured that David Slade will direct the upcoming film, with a release date of 2012.

On Thursday, August 5, 2010, it was reported that Quentin Tarantino - who was attached as a co-writer for the script - had been attached to direct as well.^[22] However this would later be denied by an official representative of Tarantino who informed MTV News that "There is no truth to this story"^[23]

TV series[link]

Two attempts were made to make a television series based on the character. The first in 1954 was called The Shadow, starring Tom Helmore as Lamont Cranston.

The second attempt in 1958 was called The Invisible Avenger, which compiled the first two unaired episodes and was released theatrically instead. This film was later re-released in 1962 as Bourbon Street Shadows, with additional footage meant to appeal to "adult" audiences.^{[citation needed]} Starring Richard Derr as The Shadow, The Invisible Avenger centers upon Lamont Cranston investigating the murder of a New Orleans bandleader. The film is notable as the second directorial effort of James Wong Howe (one of the two episodes only).

Influence on superheroes[link]

Characters such as Batman^[24] and the Green Hornet resemble Lamont Cranston's alter ego. Both characters operate mostly by night, and the Green Hornet in particular operates outside the law, insinuating himself into criminal plots in order to put an end to the activities of master criminals. But whereas the Shadow carries a real gun, the Green Hornet carries only a lightweight pistol that fires non-lethal gas.

When Bob Kane and Bill Finger first conceived of the "Bat-Man", Finger suggested they pattern the character after pulp mystery men such as the Shadow.^[25] Finger then used "Partners of Peril"^[26]—a Shadow pulp written by Theodore Tinsley—as the basis for Batman's debut story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate."^[27] Finger later publicly acknowledged that "my first Batman script was a take-off on a Shadow story"^[28] and that "Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps."^[29] This influence was further evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals and was not above using firearms.^[29]

Alan Moore has credited The Shadow as one of the key influences for the creation of V, the title character in his DC Comics miniseries V for Vendetta,^[30][31] that later became a big-budget film release in 2005 from Warner Bros.

See also[link]

Novels portal

• Condé Nast Publications, owner of The Shadow intellectual property
• Doctor Sax
• List of The Shadow episodes

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Cox, J. Randolph. Man of Magic & Mystery, A Guide to the Work of Walter B. Gibson, Scarecrow Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8108-2192-3. (Comprehensive history and career bibliography of Gibson's works.)
• Eisgruber, Jr., Frank. Gangland's Doom, The Shadow of the Pulps, Starmont House, 1985. ISBN 0-930261-74-7.
• Gibson, Walter B., Tollin, Anthony. The Shadow Scrapbook, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-681475-7. (Comprehensive history of The Shadow in all media forms up through the late 1970s.)
• Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine, Arlington House, 1972. ISBN 08700017228.
• Murray, Will. Duende History of the Shadow Magazine, Odyssey Publications, 1980. ISBN 0-933752-21-0.
• Overstreet, Robert. The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 35th Edition., House of Collectibles, 2005. ISBN 0-375-72107-X. (Lists all Shadow comics published to date.)
• Sampson, Robert. The Night Master, Pulp Press, 1982. ISBN 0-934498-08-3.
• Shimfield, Thomas J. Walter B. Gibson and The Shadow. McFarland & Company, 2003. ISBN 0-7864-1466-9. (Comprehensive Walter Gibson biography with an emphasis on The Shadow.)
• Steranko, James. Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 1, Supergraphics, 1970. No ISBN.
• Steranko, James, (1972), Steranko's History of the Comics, Vol. 2, Supergraphics, 1972. No ISBN.
• Steranko, James. Unseen Shadows, Supergraphics, 1978. No ISBN. (Collection of Steranko's detailed black-and-white cover roughs, including alternate/unused versions, done for the Shadow novel reprints from Pyramid Books and Jove/HBJ.)
• Van Hise, James. The Serial Adventures of the Shadow, Pioneer Books, 1989. No ISBN.

External links[link]

• The Shadow: Master of Darkness
• The Shadow in Review
• The Shadow at the Internet Movie Database
• The Shadow at the Comic Book DB

Robert Scott Lazar or Bob Lazar (born January 26, 1959, in Coral Gables, Florida, United States, to Albert Lazar and Phyllis Berliner), has claimed to have worked from 1988 until 1989 as a physicist at an area called S-4 (Sector Four), allegedly located near Groom Lake, Nevada, at the location also known as Area 51. According to Lazar, S-4 served as a hidden military location for the study and possible reverse engineering of extraterrestrial flying saucers. Lazar says he saw nine different discs there and provides details on their mode of propulsion. However, his credibility has come under fire after "schools he was supposed to have attended had no record of him, while others in the scientific community had no memory of ever meeting him."^[2]

Education[link]

Lazar claims to hold degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, the Los Angeles Times looked into his background and found there was no evidence to support those claims.^[1] Stanton Friedman was only able to verify that Lazar took electronics courses in the late 1970s at Pierce Junior College.^[3] The Times did discover that in 1990 Lazar had pled guilty to felony pandering, when he installed a computer system for a local brothel,^[4] declared bankruptcy and listed his occupation as self-employed photo processor on documents.^[1] A 1991 Times article reported, Lazar was "on probation in Clark County, Nevada, on a pandering charge. His educational and professional background cannot be verified -- a fact he attributes to government deletion of records."^[5] However military officials claim Lazar never worked in any of their facilities.

Scientific research[link]

Lazar first jumped on the media map in 1982 in the Los Alamos Monitor. The article titled "LA MAN JOINS THE JET SET - AT 200 MILES AN HOUR" was about a jet car that Lazar had created and worked on for years with help from a NASA researcher. The car was built from a jet engine modified and placed on an existing car model. It is also important to note that the article noted Lazar as "a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility", as it is one media article that puts Robert on the map as a physicist.^[6]

In November 1989, Lazar appeared in a special interview with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to discuss his purported employment at S-4. In his interview with Knapp, Lazar said he first thought the saucers were secret terrestrial aircraft whose test flights must have been responsible for many UFO reports. Gradually, on closer examination and from having been shown multiple briefing documents, Lazar came to the conclusion that the discs were of extraterrestrial origin. In his filmed testimony Lazar explains how this impression first hit him after he boarded one craft being studied and examined its interior.^[7]

For the propulsion of the studied vehicles, Bob Lazar claims that the atomic Element 115 served as a nuclear fuel. Element 115 (temporarily named "ununpentium" (symbol Uup)) reportedly provided an energy source which would produce anti-gravity effects under proton bombardment along with antimatter for energy production. As the intense strong nuclear force field of Element 115's nucleus would be properly amplified, the resulting large-scale gravitational effect would be a distortion of the surrounding space-time continuum that would, in effect, greatly shorten the distance and travel time to a charted destination.^[8]

Lazar also claims that he was given introductory briefings describing the historical involvement by extraterrestrial beings with this planet for the past 100,000 years. The beings originate from the Zeta Reticuli 1 & 2 star system and are therefore referred to as Zeta Reticulans, popularly called 'Greys'.^[9]

Fact or Fiction[link]

His stories have garnered some rather interesting fanfare and media attention. Some hold out for Bob's story, but others remain skeptical, including Stanton Friedman, who looked into Lazar's claims and did his own investigating on the matter.^[10]

Desert Blast[link]

Lazar and long time friend Gene Huff run Desert Blast, an annual festival for "explodaholics" in the Nevada desert. Starting in 1987 (but only formally named in 1991, inspired by Desert Storm) the festival features home-made explosives, rockets, jet-powered vehicles, and other pyrotechnics, with the intention of emphasizing the fun aspect of physics.^[11][12]

United Nuclear[link]

In the year 2000 Lazar started United Nuclear, an amateur scientific supply company formerly operated in Sandia Park, New Mexico and recently moved to Laingsburg, MI. United Nuclear sells a variety of materials including radioactive ores, powerful magnets, scientific curiosities like aerogel, and a variety of lab chemicals. United Nuclear claims "over 300,000 satisfied customers," including law-enforcement agencies, schools and amateur scientists.^[13]

In 2006 Lazar and wife Joy White were charged with violating the Federal Hazardous Substances Act for shipping restricted chemicals across state lines following a federal investigation started in 2003.^[14] The charges stemmed from a 2003 raid on Lazar's business where chemical sales records were examined.^[14] The maximum penalty is 270 days in prison and a $15,000 fine.^[14] Lazar claimed that he mistakenly concluded that he could legally sell the chemicals after finding incorrect information on the internet.^[15]

In 2007 Lazar/United Nuclear were fined $7,500 for violating a law against selling chemicals and components used to make illegal fireworks.^[16] Lazar "pled guilty to three criminal counts of introducing into interstate commerce and aiding and abetting the introduction into interstate commerce of banned hazardous substances."^[17] Lazar also "entered into a consent decree that permanently limits the amount of future sales of fireworks-related chemicals", and United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies was placed on probation for three years.^[17]

Lazar again gained attention in 2006 from news reports that he sold small amounts of Polonium, a radioactive element which was in the news because of its role in fatally poisoning former Soviet intelligence agent and whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko.^[18]

Documentary & Media Appearances[link]

• Weird Travels (TV Series) - 2003
• Encounters With The Unexplained (TV Series) - 2000
• Close Encounters: Proof of Alien Contact (video) - 2000
• Area 51: The Alien Interview (Video) - 1997
• Dreamland: Area 51 (TV Documentary) - 1996
• Future Fantastic (TV Series) - 1996
• Yaoi Jun'ichi UFO shuzai tokuhô dai 3 dan (TV Documentary) - 1990

References[link]