Is Coast to Coast Radio Just for Conspiracy Theorists?

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Coast to Coast AM is perceived by some as a platform for conspiracy theorists and eccentric guests, with a mix of credible and questionable content. Art Bell, the original host, gained fame for discussing UFOs and fringe topics, later passing the show to George Noory. While some guests, like Michio Kaku, bring scientific credibility, others are seen as entertaining but lacking substance. The show often features bizarre stories and claims, leading to skepticism about its content. Listeners find value in the entertainment aspect, despite recognizing that many discussions are not to be taken seriously. The show's format allows for a wide range of topics, but it also attracts criticism for promoting fringe ideas and questionable narratives. Overall, Coast to Coast AM serves as a unique blend of entertainment and intrigue, appealing to those interested in the unusual and the paranormal.
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Coast to coast seems to come off as sort of a radio for conspiracy theorists/crackpots in this forum. Is this true?
 
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Pengwuino said:
Coast to coast seems to come off as sort of a radio for conspiracy theorists/crackpots in this forum. Is this true?

Mostly. They have some credible guests, some eh, dicey guests, and lots of nuts. :biggrin:
 
haha man, these 2 people on my online class say they listen to coast to coast. Its an industrial technologies class and they always bring up some kinda wild things that seem rather questionable. Who is this art bell and george norry?
 
Its not all bad, but there is no doubt about it. Anyone who believes much of what they hear on C to C need to re-think things a bit; or a lot.
 
Who are those 2 guys?
 
Pengwuino said:
Who is this art bell
He sells flashlights over the radio on an AM station.
 
Art Bell is a talk show host who opened the door to UFOs and other fringe discussion, and was swept to the number one night time radio talk show in just a couple of years I think. After doing the show for quite a few years, about ten I think, he turned the show over to George Noory, who does the Mon through Fri gig, with Bell back on weekends.

Bell is also very active in Ham radio and has gotten fairly political on related issues. He really led the charge against the broad band over power lines debate.
 
Coast to Coast is very fun. Michio Kaku interviews with them on occasion. There is a guy that comes on and talks mostly about nanotech whom I thought was a crackpot until I read somewhere that there really is such thing as a 3D printer. Once they even had on a guy named Amarillo 'Slim' who was really entertaining. Not a crackpot or anything, he talked about back in the day when he was a pool shark and made outragous bets with people more or less conning them out of their money including some famous people such as Minnesota Fats.
 
All true. But then there's Mel's Hole. :biggrin:
 
  • #10
Lol... Red Elk is quite the nut too but it's like listening to your grandpa tell you stories.
 
  • #11
I have to admit, I often get a huge charge out of the show. Sometimes I don't know if I should laugh or cry, but it is what it is, and it is entertaining. I don't listen to many of the shows from start to end, but most nights I do try to catch the first half hour or so for any unusual news items, and to see who's on that night.

Of all of the stuff that I've heard, I think John Lear [Lear Jets] came up with about the most terrifying story of all time. He has taken the ET frenzy to an entirely new level. But it is truly scary to think how many people probably believed him.
 
  • #12
The last time I listen Art was on about some metal fragments someone had anonymously put at his disposal, claiming they were part of the Roswell wreckage. He was having them analyzed. This took days. I was strung along from night to night waiting to hear the results. Each night of waiting I had to sit through several energetic attempts to sell me
flashlight. Finally, the results came back: the metal was a common alloy of aluminum.

He's a flashlight salesman with a paranormal hook.
 
  • #13
zoobyshoe said:
He's a flashlight salesman with a paranormal hook.
I never bought the flashlight, but I do own the AM antenna. :approve: I find many of his guests fascinating. Others are crap, but entertaining nonetheless.
My favorite guest was http://web.sbu.edu/cs/afoerst/ , the computer scientist/theologian working on the Cog and Kismet projects at the MIT AI labs.
 
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  • #14
zoobyshoe said:
The last time I listen Art was on about some metal fragments someone had anonymously put at his disposal, claiming they were part of the Roswell wreckage. He was having them analyzed. This took days. I was strung along from night to night waiting to hear the results. Each night of waiting I had to sit through several energetic attempts to sell me
flashlight. Finally, the results came back: the metal was a common alloy of aluminum.

He's a flashlight salesman with a paranormal hook.

:biggrin: No one is putting Bell on any pedestals here. It's radio, so yes, he's always selling something, and he helps the fringe, the fringe of the fringe, the fringe of the fringe of the fringe, and the absolute nut jobs to attain unprecedented levels of exposure. And there is no better place on night time radio to sell a book, or whatever. And I know exactly what you mean. For a time Bell kept on this bit about this giant antenna that he constructed for some Ham Radio deal. He was measuring a high voltage on the completely isolated antenna, which due to its height and length, is not too hard to explain. Bell kept after this for weeks claiming to be getting some mysterious new power from his antenna. I kept waiting and waiting for someone to call in who knew the proper explanation. It was almost painful to listen and wait. Finally, one guy called in who was an EE. As soon as he started to give the proper explanation, the most important point being that there is only a high potential but no real power, Bell cut him off and we never heard that caller again. Unless you knew the answer, you might have missed it, but Bell was clearly promoting this bull for the sense of mystery and intrigue that it offered. Obviously he knew better. That's why he cut the guy off.
 
  • #15
Ivan Seeking said:
That's why he cut the guy off.
He did the same thing to me, which is probably the real reason I'm so denigrating. I called into a UFO show, started to talk about Michael Persinger's explanations, and he suddenly shouted at me:

"Hallucinations! Then how do you know you're not living in a post-apoclyptic wasteland hallucinating that it isn't?!"

And he hung up. There is a few second delay in air time. He edited out his shout. There was a long pause. Then he and the guest just acted as though the connection had been severed by accident.
 
  • #16
Math Is Hard said:
I never bought the flashlight, but I do own the AM antenna. :approve: I find many of his guests fascinating. Others are crap, but entertaining nonetheless.
My favorite guest was http://web.sbu.edu/cs/afoerst/ , the computer scientist/theologian working on the Cog and Kismet projects at the MIT AI labs.

I bought the flashlight and it was incredible. Two C cells lasted about 40 hours, IIRC; with about 20 hours of that seeming at full brightness. I looked around and at the time it was comparably priced. Ultimately some contractors on a job site liked it so much that I never got it back.
 
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  • #17
zoobyshoe said:
"Hallucinations! Then how do you know you're not living in a post-apoclyptic wasteland hallucinating that it isn't?!"

:smile: :smile: :smile: Well...
 
  • #18
Ivan Seeking said:
:smile: :smile: :smile: Well...
He is your father.
 
  • #19
zoobyshoe said:
He is your father.

Not enough legs.
 
  • #20
Ivan Seeking said:
I bought the flashlight and it was incredible. Two C cells lasted about 40 hours, IIRC; with about 20 hours of that seeming at full brightness. I looked around and at the time it was comparably priced. Ultimately some contractors on a job site liked it so much that I never got it back.
You dropped it one dark night on your way back to the house after only about five minutes of use, and it went out. You stood there, in the dark night, completely betrayed and abandoned by Art Bell, frantically pushing the switch back and forth, back and forth, while the skunks closed in.

In every direction you looked you could make out the faint image of dozens of white stripes. The sweat flowed like water from a showerhead in a Hitchcock movie.

Back and forth. Back and forth. No light.

Then, you heard it: the chant of their tiny skunk voices.

One of us!
One of us!
Gooble gabble!
One of us!

The next day, you slipped the flashlight into some contractors tool box, and pulled the hood of your sweatshirt more tightly around your face to better hide your new bushy white mohawk.
 
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  • #21
:smile: :smile: Zooby, I'm so glad you're back! I've missed your imaginative sense of humor! :smile:
 
  • #22
Moonbear said:
:smile: :smile: Zooby, I'm so glad you're back! I've missed your imaginative sense of humor! :smile:
He wasn't joking. That really happened. Poor Ivan. :frown: Tsu said it took months for his hair to grow back.
 
  • #23
Ivan Seeking said:
Of all of the stuff that I've heard, I think John Lear [Lear Jets] came up with about the most terrifying story of all time. He has taken the ET frenzy to an entirely new level. But it is truly scary to think how many people probably believed him.
Actually, John Lear is the son of William Lear [Lear Jets and, before that, Motorola]. Kind of ironic. William Lear was an engineer who developed the first car radio - now his son is a crackpot on the car radio.
 
  • #24
BobG said:
William Lear was an engineer who developed the first car radio - now his son is a crackpot on the car radio.
Ivan and his father, Art Bell, are both crackpots.
 
  • #25
Math Is Hard said:
He wasn't joking. That really happened. Poor Ivan. :frown: Tsu said it took months for his hair to grow back.
To this day, though, when someone annoys him, he has to use every iota of self restraint to resist the urge to turn his back to them, bend over, and pee.
 
  • #27
Thank you Phobos. I really didn't like the turn this thread had taken! :biggrin:
 
  • #28
I absolutely love Art Bell's show. Almost all of them are very interesting, regardless of who he is interviewing - if its the idiots that hear something when the cassete tape empty haunted houses, or Michio Kaku or Kevin Mitnick. My personal favorite story is the one of Mel's Holes. George Noory is not quite the radio genius as Art is, I don't even listen to his shows anymore. Besides, most of his guests are crackpots, however, not lately.
"Researcher Loren Coleman and expedition leader Tom Biscardi were joined by fingerprint technician Jimmy Chilcutt (2nd Hour) and author Smokey Crabtree (3rd Hour) to discuss the elusive creature known as Bigfoot..."
Makes you wonder what a fingerprint technician knows about bigfoot...

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
 
  • #29
  • #30
zoobyshoe said:
Yeah, Phil tackles some important issues. At Phobos' link check out:

Flushed With Pride: The Coriolis Effect In your Potty

Actually it gets a little more complicated. Apparently there are companies in South America that jet their toilets opposite to the norm here in the US. So people really were seeing toilets with the opposite spin.
 
  • #31
I found Art Bell through Michio Kaku's site. Kaku has always been my favorite guest, but really his message hasn't changed much, so his stuff gets old after the first few interviews. I always enjoy Seth Shostak and really any respectable scientist, of which there have been many. Of course I like to listen to the UFO stuff, much of which is pretty bogus, but there are some credible guests with verifiable information available, at times. I quit the ghost hunters, witches, psychics, etc almost right away. I find most of them to be either obvious kooks[Sylvia], offensively deceitful [Sylvia], or dreadfully boring[Sylvia]. The EM ghost stuff has caught my interest a bit in that I haven't seen this claim convincingly debunked, but I assume that it's just stray radio signals, random noise, and coincidence. But it is easy to try, so really this issue should be easily resolved.

I think Noory tries to be more honest than Bell, but he isn't as technically savvy and it shows. One of his first interviews with a scientist, maybe even Kaku, was terrible. His questions were incredibly lame and he obviously didn't understand the answers. It was like listening to someone subjected to death by a thousand cuts. I think he is getting better though.
 
  • #32
Mk said:
I absolutely love Art Bell's show.
He's a little harder to warm up to after you've had the experience of having him unexpectedly blow up at you over the phone. The fact he edits his outbursts out so the listeners don't hear it, is what makes it particularly devious.
 
  • #33
I think Art Bell is someone you can't imagine blow up on you...

Have any of you heard when that insane fundamentalist Christan guy calls up? What's his name? Like John something? That is REALLY funny, but its also kind of sad.

My Dad said he heard a show when a big guy in the KKK called up. He was on for a while.
 
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  • #34
Well folks, here is your chance to tune into the wacky and wild for free. Again, I am only suggesting this for the entertainment value. In no way should many or most of the guests and callers be taken seriously. There are occasionally fascinating or entertaining guests to be found here, but extreme discretion is required.

It appears that the free streaming link weekend will allow you to review the shows from the last two months for any guests that may interest you.

Free Streamlink Weekend
Get ready for our Free Streamlink Weekend, which will begin Friday May 6th at 7pm PT, and run through Sunday night. It's a great chance to get a taste of our value-packed subscription service...cont.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
 
  • #35
zoobyshoe said:
He did the same thing to me, which is probably the real reason I'm so denigrating. I called into a UFO show, started to talk about Michael Persinger's explanations, and he suddenly shouted at me:

"Hallucinations! Then how do you know you're not living in a post-apoclyptic wasteland hallucinating that it isn't?!"

And he hung up. There is a few second delay in air time. He edited out his shout. There was a long pause. Then he and the guest just acted as though the connection had been severed by accident.

Hmm. More to the point, how do you know his outburst itself wasn't a hallucination? :bugeye: Does your phone happen to have a huge electromagnet in it?

BTW, this reminds me of the most recent episode of the Simpsons, with Ray Romano as a guest character. Did anyone catch it? Homer befriends Romano's character, but no one else claims to have seen him, even in situations where Homer and Ray were both present and Homer interacted with others (Ned, Bart, etc.). They come to the conclusion that Ray is just a hallucination on Homer's part.

At the end, it's revealed that Ray is, in fact, real. The cast of characters proceeds to come up with rational explanations for why no one else but Homer had seen him up until that point. (For instance, Ray was behind the chimney when he and Homer were on the roof of the Simpsons residence and Homer chatted with Ned.) But no one can explain the incident in the warehouse, where Homer was having a conversation with Ray but it appeared to Bart as if Homer were talking to himself. At this point, Stephen Hawking rolls in (of course!) and explains that, according to his calculations, there just happened to have been some sort of black hole/spacetime anomoly at that instance of space and time directly between Bart and Ray, bending light in such a way that Bart couldn't see him.

Well, it sounds really mundane once I've had to spell it all out, but I can assure you it was comedic gold! And a nice, ironic commentary on the role of probability in matters of explanation as well.
 
  • #36
By the way has anyone seen Hypnagogue lately?
 
  • #37
zoobyshoe said:
By the way has anyone seen Hypnagogue lately?

I heard he got lost at sea and died upon eating a poisonous jellyfish.
 
  • #38
Ivan Seeking said:
Well folks, here is your chance to tune into the wacky and wild for free.
I really hope no one wastes their time.

Incidently: Has anyone heard from Hypnagogue recently?
 
  • #39
Now here is a good example of how far things can go. Tonight a caller is claiming that global warming is caused by the hell fires getting hotter. :smile:

This is in direct proportion to our increasing level of sin. This also explains the volcanic activities of late! :smile: :smile: :smile:

I'm sorry, how is this not comedy? I was losing it here, as was Bell and the next caller.
 
  • #40
The return of TedJesusChristGod?
 
  • #41
zoobyshoe said:
The return of TedJesusChristGod?

I don't know; never caught the name. I think I have heard the guy that you mean but I'm not sure. When I'm really busy I may miss weeks of shows at a time.

When did you call in? I was wondering if I caught the program.
 
  • #42
Ivan Seeking said:
I don't know; never caught the name.
No, TJCG is that guy megashawn started that thread about last year in S&D.
Ivan Seeking said:
When did you call in? I was wondering if I caught the program.
It would have been about 7 or 8 years ago.
 
  • #43
zoobyshoe said:
It would have been about 7 or 8 years ago.

I probably caught the show then. For the first couple of years I listened almost every night.
 
  • #44
Ivan Seeking said:
I probably caught the show then.
But you missed the most interesting moment, non-the-less.
 
  • #45
I was thinking about his reaction. I wonder if this was due to his own alleged sighting?

Well, I think your point is completely valid though. They need to fill four hours every night - five hours a night back when you called, and they have to constantly come up with something to keep the listeners entertained. I have caught quite a few snags that really show how contrived much of this stuff really is; with Bell and others in complicity.
 
  • #46
zoobyshoe said:
Yeah, Phil tackles some important issues. At Phobos' link check out:

Flushed With Pride: The Coriolis Effect In your Potty

Always a crowd pleaser.
 

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