Goodbye Art Bell, You Will Be Missed

Art Bell Passes on Friday

I am so saddened by the news that Art Bell has passed. He was the voice that brought me into believing in extraterrestrials, he was the voice that convinced me of conspiracies, he was the voice that made me believe that the world was not such a straight forward place.

Before Lost, before Fringe, and before the X-Files, Art Bell paved the way for possibilities. Anything was possible with him and you never knew what strange creature, alien, or supernatural being would be featured on his show. And he also delved deeply into science and health, space and religion. The show covered almost anything you could think of and many things that were never covered anywhere else.

Actually, I would say that Coast to Coast AM was the first “podcast” I listened to (I now listen to over 100 every week). It’s also one of the few that I’ve paid for when they started charging for the replays…I could not stay up to listen to the show live every night after all.

Just the other day, maybe even Friday, Mrs. Redshirt and I were watching the X-Files marathon on BBC America and I mentioned to her how Art Bell was really the catalyst that started all the conspiracy television. With him, monsters stopped being just zombies and vampires, but real possibilities that had science to support them. Cults actually existed and were explored and D.B. Cooper was alive and well.

While he hasn’t been on the air in a while I still think of him as the father of late night radio. I’ve missed him since he went off the air, and now that he’s passed, I’ll miss him even more.