If there were ever a time when we needed an interesting and truly escapist diversion from the realities of 2021 (or 2020 Part B, as it’s known to some of us), it’s right now. I am starting to take the bumper sticker I plastered across the back of our car last year more seriously–the one that reads:
GIANT COMET 2020
Let’s just END this.
It’s true that on most days, we don’t feel that level of despair, but yesterday afternoon, as the temperature hovered near 100, even Tonya asked if maybe we couldn’t just take a nap for a few months.
News of apocalyptic fires in California, and life altering CAT 4 hurricanes in the already battered parishes of Louisiana, the Afghanistan Debacle, and the same old FUBAR Politics from the Left and Right is just too much to endure.
And yet, I know we will survive because I’ve been here before. I can even recall a time 25 years ago, when the world seemed equally mad–though by today’s measure, those times should have been a cakewalk. But I remember when I was on that razor’s edge and I remember how I found relief….
I had reached a crossroads in my life and I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
I was dissatisfied. Confused. Overwhelmed. A certain weariness had come over me. The world was a mess. I was overloading on the 90s. Life itself had lost its relevance. Much of my sluggish anxiety came from the television. The goddamn TV–one of the most insidious monstrosities ever devised by Man. Day after day, I propped myself up on the couch… my love seat if you can believe it… and watched… “The News.” It was The News, more than anything else, that was killing me. I had long ago walked away proudly from situation comedies and nighttime soaps. And Reality shows never drew a flicker of my interest. But I had somehow convinced myself that watching The News was a worthy effort. It’s important to be informed I rationalized and so every day I tuned in to the latest… News.
I would watch anything.
But it wasn’t really “news.” It was Crap. NBC News? CNN? Inside Edition? Hard Copy? It was all the same. It was Crap. Keep in mind, the internet and social media and Facebook and smartphones hadn’t even been invented yet. And yet, it was already THIS BAD.
Finally, in late February 1997, I quit. I disconnected my converter, pulled the coaxial cable from the back of the TV and hauled the tangle of wires and electronic hardware to the cable company (for out-of-town readers, if you didn’t have cable in Moab, you don’t have TV. There is zero reception in the Mob Valley). The cable people looked at me with worried concern. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I nodded shakily and went home to contemplate my good deed.
I felt lost for about two weeks and nine hours. But on the eve of eve of the Ides of March, I was saved. Rescued from the Abyss of the Banal by the disembodied voice of Art Bell. He changed my life.
I still remember the day. It was a bit after midnight on the 13th of March, 1997. I couldn’t sleep and, desperate for some human contact, I turned on the radio to the AM band. I spun the dial past the endless gibberish of sports talk radio, hate talk radio, and top 40 country music. I considered slashing my wrists. And then I heard something strange and different, drifting in and out between the white hiss and electronic buzz of distant radio signals…
“…going live to Peter Davenport. Strange things are happening in the skies above Phoenix tonight. Peter we’re getting reports that this object is a mile wide and moving right over the downtown area.”
“That’s right, Art. We’re tracking these lights all the way across the state. It’s incredible. We’ve had sightings in Prescott, in Wickenburg…obviously this UFO is moving from the northwest to the southeast at an incredible rate of speed.”
“OK, Peter…that’s Peter Davenport from the UFO Center with a huge story tonight. Lights over Phoenix and we don’t know what they are. This is Coast-to-Coast, I’m Art Bell and we’ll be right back.”
And so I found Art Bell and his late night radio program, “Coast to Coast AM,” and his eclectic clan of contributors and participants, who called in each night in the wee dark lonely hours, to share their own tales of the paranormal and the just plain weird. Later it seemed strange that it took me so long to find Art & Company. I’d been a UFO buff since I was a kid.
On a bitter cold night in Brown County, Indiana many, many years ago, I had been on my first Boy Scout hike–a rugged 16 mile uphill walk through the forests of Brown County State Park. The last mile of the journey took us up a steep ridge called “Grunt ‘n Groan,” and the official end of the trail was the 75 foot tall fire tower at its summit. As darkness fell, our old Troop 246 school bus failed to show up on time and we stood there shivering under a magnificent star-lit sky.
Suddenly, one of my buddies called out, “Hey! What’s that?” He pointed to the Heavens and we all gasped. What IS that? A trio of mysterious white lights drifted quietly over our heads. I had never seen anything quite like it.
Imagine three small lights affixed to a pencil, at both ends and in the middle. Then imagine that the pencil is being suspended by a string from above. Then imagine the lights are on but it’s otherwise totally dark. That’s what it looked like to us. Wide-mouthed, our necks craned skyward, we watched the ‘UFO’ for more than a minute before the mysterious craft disappeared over the treetops. We were terrified. Scared out of our wits. I remember my hands were trembling and my heart was racing. It was great. I’d never been happier or felt more alive.
Now, all these years later, I had come back to my roots.
Art Bell’s ‘Coast-to-Coast AM’ aired every weeknight from 11pm to 4am (Mountain Time Zone) and was carried ‘live’ by more than 400 affiliates across North America. Most of those stations broadcast reruns on the weekend. But Art’s show didn’t originate from a high rise in New York or Los Angeles. No, he did the show from a double-wide trailer in Pahrump, Nevada, a hundred or so miles north of Las Vegas, and “just over the hill,” as Bell liked to say, from the top secret military installation Area 51.
Despite his humble broadcasting digs, Art was everywhere. And Art’s guests were from everywhere. Sometimes they weren’t even from this planet. Not even from this Time. It was impossible to stereotype his guests. Some nights Bell interviewed Nobel Prize-winning physicists about the origins of the universe. He would debate the Big Bang Theory one night and interview a warlock the next.
His style was rarely combative; he wasn’t there to humiliate anyone, no matter how preposterous their claims or theories might have been. For this, he was criticized by some scientists and other people utterly lacking a sense of humor, who claimed he recklessly mixed science and science fiction and ultimately discredited himself and them.
Art Bell replied, “Lighten up.”
The way Art looked at it, people were intelligent enough to make up their own minds. Was his show entertainment? Was it educational? It was up to the listener. He didn’t want to tell anybody what to think. But he had a damn good time as a consequence. And so did his audience.
One topic that left Art Bell cold was Washington Politics. During the height of the Lewinsky Affair, he wearily and reluctantly allocated a couple of nights to the topic, taking calls on his numerous “open lines.” But that was more than he really felt necessary. After his half-hearted token effort, he returned to his usual agenda, which didn’t really seem all that weird after the Bill & Monica & Ken Show.
So while countless millions of Americans were being beaten senseless by the endless gibberish of a full-fledged media sex scandal, I was tuned in to really important stuff. Let me cite some stellar examples…
A man from near Seattle, Washington had gone for a hike in the mountains one day. His eight year old dog Suzi was having a great time, chasing chipmunks and enjoying her unleashed freedom. Suddenly Suzi’s ears perked and she charged up the trail, barking furiously. At first the man was unfazed by the dog’s hysterics, but as the barks turned to desperate yelps, he became alarmed and ran after her.
As the man reached the crest of the hill, he saw something incredible. His dog was cowering on the ground, still yelping but terrified. In front of the dog, moving so quickly that the image was a blur (“He moved fast like a paint shaker,” the man explained) was a…small being? A child? What? He couldn’t tell for sure. Suddenly the dog let out a scream and began to “implode upon itself.” The dog vanished before his eyes. The being stopped and for the first time, the man realized this was no human. Outraged he took a large stick and hit the being in the head and killed it.
It is the first known murder of an extraterrestrial alien by a man from Seattle.
To make it even more interesting, the man took pictures of the dead alien, confirming that extraterrestrials have red blood just like us. Apparently the little guy was not from Vulcan. The photograph was posted on Art’s web site, which had 27 million hits in 1998.
So what in the hell was that all about? Was the man crazy? Did he make it all up so he could be on Art’s show? Did it really happen?
Don’t know. Don’t care.
Much of Art Bell’s show was built around the callers who phoned in from around the country and around the planet. And from outside the planet at times. But these people didn’t call in to whine about some politician they hated. These guys had serious issues to discuss. It sort of went like this…
“Yeah…Art? Is that you?”
“Yes it’s me. Turn down your radio sir.”
“Oh…yeah. Okay…Honey can you turn down that radio? I’m talking to that Art Bell fella. Okay…Uh yes, Art. This is Larry in Orlando, Florida. My wife and I have been taken on board an alien spacecraft several times down here. In fact, we have gone out about every day this week for sure.”
“Really? You’re telling me that a spaceship has landed in your yard, occupied by extraterrestrial beings, and they have taken you on rides into deep space?”
“That’s right, Art. I know it sounds sorta cockeyed but on a stack of Bibles, that’s what’s happening…”
“Well Larry, this is extraordinary. Would you say you’re being abducted? Are you being forced to fly with them against your will?”
“Ahh hell..I mean heck no, Art. These creatures are pretty darn friendly. They asked us if we’d like to go out to Jupiter and Saturn and me and the wife said, ‘well sure we would!’ I mean who wouldn’t, right?”
“Yes sir, I would have to agree…Now tell me sir, can you say if it’s a Pleiadian craft? A delta-wing? Or something else? Is it a disk?”
“Well…I don’t…let me ask the wife….Hun? Are you still in the kitchen? Mister Bell wants to know if…”
“No. Wait, Larry. That’s okay. You say you’ve been up every day this week?”
“Well, Art, I have. But the wife finally told these people that she just couldn’t go flyin’ over south Florida all the time. And then for Heaven’s sake, all the way out past Saturn. You know…she has the washin’ to do and the like.”
“Larry, are you telling me your wife declined further flights across our solar system because of housework?”
“Well, she does keep a clean house, Art.”
On occasion, Art Bell dedicated a certain phone line to a specialty item, if you will. My favorite was the Time Line. On those nights when Art opened up the Time Line, only qualified time travelers were permitted to phone in on that number. I was absolutely amazed at the plethora of time travelers who were visiting this particular segment of the space time continuum, who also listened to Art.
After a while, you began to recognize the voices of the regular (I use the term loosely) call-in time travelers. My favorite was a guy named Steve who claimed to be from the year 2063 and was always talking about a future dominated by the Supreme Commandant.
One night he began to reveal some information that would someday be released to the general public…
“This should interest you, Art. It will finally be determined that there was indeed a second shooter on the Grassy Knoll in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
“I always suspected as much. Any clues on the identity of the shooter?”
“Yes, Art. And this will stun you and your audience. Incredibly, the Grassy Knoll shooter was…Marilyn Monroe.”
It’s the only time I heard Art Bell burst out laughing.
“Come ON, Steve! You’re destroying what’s left of your credibility. You just went too far! For starters Marilyn DIED a full year before JFK was assassinated in Dallas.”
But Steve insisted. “Seriously Art. Don’t laugh. Marilyn faked her own suicide so she could later seek revenge against JFK. It’s a fact and the future will bear me out.”
But quickly shifting gears, just a few nights later, Art interviewed a highly regarded theoretical physicist, a man with impeccable credentials. He was terribly concerned about a project at the Fermi Lab in Chicago that involved an experimental particle beam accelerator. He claimed that his fellow physicists were getting into an area of science that was unknown territory. And he was afraid.
Afraid of what? Art asked.
A sort of explosion, the doctor of physics sighed. What kind of explosion? Art pressed.
Well…a super nova. Art’s guest believed that the Fermi Lab was on the verge of annihilating not only Chicago, not only Planet Earth, but everything…every particle of matter for 50 light years. That’s light years.
In fact, Art’s guest theorized that every super nova our astronomers have observed in our galaxy came from a planet like ours, that essentially pushed the wrong button and went…oops, just milliseconds before it vaporized itself.
Very encouraging.
Another regular guest, Richard C. Hoagland, claimed to be a former NASA adviser and once contributed to CBS launch coverage with Walter Cronkite. He was especially obsessed with the once puzzling “Face on Mars” image, a low resolution photograph shot by one of the early Mars Orbiters. He convinced himself and others that the image was part of an ancient Martian civilization that had inhabited the Red Planet ages ago, but which had now abandoned their old home in search of greener pastures–like Earth.
Hoagland once debated a man on Art’s show who claimed we had never sent astronauts to the Moon. That the Apollo program was a complete hoax. Hoagland was the Believer in the debate, but he took matters a step further. He claimed to have photographic proof that as the Apollo 11 astronauts descended to the lunar surface in the Eagle Lunar module, they passed through an opening in a massive plexiglass shield.
Say what?
Hoagland was quick to explain. “Yes, it was already known by NASA that a moon base had long ago been established by aliens on the Sea of Tranquility, and they must have gained permission to enter their closed space. Otherwise they would never have opened the plexiglass portal and allowed Armstrong and Aldrin to land.”
Art replied, “Well sure, Richard. What could make better sense than that?” I mean, really, how does one argue with a man who thinks extraterrestrial beings built huge glass domes on the Moon but will grant our astronauts safe entry. I had to wonder if they needed to show their passports.
There were other regulars. Like Colonel Ed “Doctor Doom” Dames, who came on once or twice a month to predict, via his talent as a clairvoyant “remote viewer,” more evidence of imminent global collapse.
There was Sean David Morton, another psychic/remote viewer who is now serving time in a federal correctional facility for some “tax-related felonies.” Or the fellow named Mel Waters who called Art to tell him he had found a hole on his property that went to the center of the earth. Or another alien abuser who insisted he had killed an extraterrestrial being and kept it in his home freezer with a side of beef. Ghost stories were a regular feature, especially on Halloween and his “Ghost to Ghost” episodes, where callers could share their own terrifying haunted experiences.
Bell also played a role, albeit unintentional, in the infamous Heaven’s Gate suicides in 1997. That year the Hale-Bopp Comet was making headlines around the planet as it streaked toward Earth. It was one of the most dramatic and easily viewed celestial events in a long time. But Art heard about and reported a story by an amateur astronomer that a giant spaceship, piloted by beings of a far superior planet, was, in fact, hiding in the cosmic tail of Hale-Bopp.
The Heaven’s Gate Cult had been waiting for such a sign for almost 20 years. On March 26, 1997, convinced that the aliens piloting that giant ship were there to pick them up and transport them to a higher plane, all 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate Cult committed suicide. They all died wearing a pair of very stylish Nike sneakers. The group referred to their bodies as “containers” and were sure they’d simply be relocated to the Mother Ship.
For all we know, that’s exactly what occurred.
But in the new Millennium, for reasons no one fully understood, Art Bell decided to “retire,” at the very height of his popularity and infamy. He walked away from 500 affiliates and over 15 million nightly listeners. He left, the show suffered, and almost died of bad ratings. Then he came back. And then he retired again. He turned the show over to a well-meaning man named George Noory. Then Art came back again, but just to work weekends. His wife Ramona died suddenly in 2005. He was devastated. Then, a month later, he married a young Filipino woman, moved to Manila, and broadcasted briefly from there. Then he came back to Pahrump. He quit the show and denounced it. He started his own streaming program called “Midnight in the Desert,” and promised a return to the AM airwaves. Then on December 11, 2015, my BIRTHDAY, just three months after its latest premier, Art shut down the show for good. He cited security issues and said he feared for his family. He never broadcast again. He died just three years later, at the age of 72.
He left a gap in my soul that has never been adequately filled. The “Coast to Coast” show survives, with host George Noory, but they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about New Age health remedies and crystal healing. I miss Bigfoot, and stories of the Dark People, and the dude with the dead alien in his meat freezer.
And I find myself wondering, ultimately…what did it all mean? Was Art Bell nuts and was I a fool for listening? Does the fact that millions of other listeners tuned to his show suggest that our planet is in worse shape than even that physicist from Chicago thought? And, keep in mind, all this transpired more than two decades ago. How does that kind of deviant behavior of 1997 compare to today? Doesn’t it almost make you feel sentimental? Isn’t there a keen longing in all of us to believe that, somewhere out there, Mel’s Hole to the center of the earth really exists? And that maybe we can even climb down it and get away from all this current madness? I’m afraid to even tell Tonya about that Hole…she might go looking for it.
To me, it’s like the debate between the Baptist and the Atheist. The Baptist clings faithfully to his collection of scriptures and divine truths. The Atheist sneers arrogantly at the Baptist and rejects everything. Each is as ignorant as the other because both of them have hermetically sealed minds. For me, maybe the Truth is out there. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe most of Art’s guests and callers were total wackos. But maybe not all of them. And maybe it never really mattered. Maybe the Truth was never the point to begin with.
In the meantime, if nothing else, Art Bell’s show was the best Theater of the Mind I ever had the pleasure of losing sleep over. Wherever you are, in whatever Inter-dimensional Reality you now find yourself… Live long and prosper, Art Bell.
SPEAKING OF STRANGE LIGHTS in the NIGHT SKY…
“What the hell was THAT?”
Tonya and I had been talking about this issue for a few months, mostly because we thought it would be fun to do an issue that was a bit lighter than usual. I mean, really…who doesn’t love a good UFO, Flying Saucer, Ghosts in the Attic, Bigfoot story? So we weren’t out there looking for something new to write about, that might be otherworldly and weird. But then, without warning, for the first time in either of our lives, we saw something that we absolutely could not explain.
Here’s what happened…
At 7:55 PM MDT on September 8, 2021, Tonya and I were in New Mexico, at a location about 20 miles south and slightly west of the town of Corona, NM. The sun was down and the new moon was about 20 degrees above the western horizon. To the left of the Moon, I believe we were seeing Venus.
I had just taken a few photos of Tonya in the sunset sky, and we had both returned to our car. In fact, I had just turned on the engine when I saw another light due west of us. At first I just thought it was a star, but it confused me because I had taken several photos just a minute or two earlier, and I knew that star wasn’t there before. Then to our astonishment, another light appeared to its right, as the first light dimmed. Then another light appeared. At one point, we could see three lights in a row, horizontally to the west, perhaps 15 degrees above horizon line.
This was already strange enough that I kept saying, “Do you see this?” and Tonya could only repeat, “Whoa…whoa!”
What happened next is just inexplicable to either of us. The light at the far left began to expand horizontally…it became a straight orangish line, but then it grew upwards as well, until it appeared to us as an orange disk. But part of it was obscured by the cloud in front of it. Within seconds, it looked exactly like the sun at sunset we have been seeing lately, where it’s so dimmed by the smoke from recent fires that it looks like a reddish rubber ball on the horizon line.
It was so similar to a smoky sun, that I recall in my mind thinking…is that just the sunset?—then immediately reminding myself that the sun had definitely set many minutes earlier. Within seconds, all of the lights just dimmed out and were gone.
They didn’t appear to be moving, they made no sound, and these lights appeared to be miles away.
We talked about this almost non-stop for the rest of the evening. The next night, September 9, we went back to the same location. Now exactly 24 hours later, we were joking that maybe we’d see the lights again. I had said something like, “If we see them again, then we know they’re NOT UFOs.”
Again, at almost precisely 7:55 PM, Tonya was already in the car and I was about to do the same, when I looked UP this time, NOT in the same direction as the previous night, and I could not believe it.
First I saw a single bright light again. It was brighter than any other star or planet and had not been there one minute earlier. This time it was high in the sky, perhaps at a 50 degree angle and slightly northwest of us. It appeared much closer than the night before. As I stood there, to my surprise, and just like before, a second light blinked on, then a third. They were again in a row but diagonally across the sky, but close together. If you extended your hand in front of you at arm’s length, the three lights would fill the space of one’s clenched fist.
I yelled to Tonya, “It’s happening again!” and she jumped out of the car to look. As I pointed to the row of lights, a second line appeared, near to the first three lights, but at an acute angle to each other. Like before, they blinked on and then finally vanished. We saw no movement, no sound, and because the sky wasn’t completely dark, we strained to see any object behind the light. But we saw nothing.
We have no idea what we saw. It didn’t seem possible that it was an aircraft. or multiple aircraft. We have heard about military flares and I Googled the term to see if I could find images that were comparable, but saw nothing similar.
The lights on the first evening were especially bewildering, and the light that expanded to a reddish-orange disk is beyond my comprehension. When I think of it now, all I can only think of is something that was a product of CGI, like in the movies.
It is true that fifty miles south of us was the White Sands Missile Base and we keep thinking this must be related in some way, but looking at the map, these lights, on both nights, were far north of that area. We really have no idea what we saw.
Any ideas out there?
Jim Stiles is Founding Publisher and Senior Editor of the Canyon Country Zephyr.
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comments (or ideas)? YES. “Betty” & i have seen the orange globes — twice — as did you & T — and FROM the same general location though the ‘phenomenon’ was in different (apparent) locales each time. First time, we’re @ home, looking east to the Grand Mesa. 4, or 5, or …hovering orange globular (globe-like?) objects were over the Mesa, waxing and waning in their light-effusion. They moved around a little. But staying in the same general field of view.
#2: months later, NEW YEAR’S EVE we were driving home from a party. No, we had not been … we planned to get home & THEN commence the heavy drinking ~ About 1/4 mile or so from our house we observed 5 or perhaps as many as 7 very similar (well, define “similarity” when talking about fuzzy distant celestial objects) to our previous experience. They were to the southwest (could have been over Montrose and/or Delta) and were slowly heading our way. About halfway between where we first witnessed them to a point closer, they slowly dimmed and winked out. I should have written down the dates and time — but i’ll ask “Betty” — probably as long as 7 or 8 years ago.
We asked questions in some online forum and at least two respondents said “Chinese lanterns.” hmmm …
Thanx 4 the story of you & ART — i did hear something about somebody who must have also been him, especially with reference to his broadcasting location — a little bit further out from the middull of no-wear.
I really enjoyed this story…Wish the radio was still on the air, maybe you and tonya should think about starting it up again…I would listen
I have some ideas, Jim. I just recently found out that…(wait for it…) our own government (!) has patents for things that look like the infamous Tic Tac and triangle style UFO’s that they’ve been making so much of on TV, claiming in as loud of voices as possible that that “such technology does not exist on earth!” The patents I’m referring to are called “Craft Using an Internal Mass Reduction Device” and “High Frequency Gravitational Wave Generator.” There are a bunch of articles about such patents on The Drive, a military/tech blog – patent owners include the US Navy, Lockheed Martin, and one that was inspired by intel that the Chinese already had something similar. (But we know that the Chinese definitely, for sure, absolutely DO NOT have anything in their military garages resembling spacecraft! There is no way! You can believe both Tucker Carlson and Jim Acosta on this one. They always tell the truth and they never, ever hang out in the Hamptons together.)
I started to get suspicious after a visit to Roswell, where something seemed fishy about the evidence presented there. I think we’re about to get fooled, War of the Worlds style.
Jim i gotta believe the Marilyn Monroe story was the highlight for Art!
Whatever you and Tonya saw was, indeed, unidentified, so you can rest assured that you saw a bonafide UFO. Whether or not it originated in outer space from an alien civilization, who can say yea or nay? I know how exciting and scary a UFO sighting can be because I saw the Fry Springs UFO twice in 1978 (or was it ’79?). Looked and acted just like the one Mulder saw on the X-Files pilot. Never found out what it was, but many years later, it appeared that some other people had also seen it and were talking about it at a party in Charlottesville, VA. The conversation was relayed back to me by the fellow who heard it at the party. He remembered how excited I was back in ’78 about the thing I saw. Had I been smoking something? Well, it was 1978, we were all smoking something morning, noon and night. The thing was clearly un-identified… it was flying… it was an object…yep, a UFO. Me and my pal Jeff called the local airport, but there were no reports of what we saw. All I could think was… “I don’t want to go! Don’t take me!”
Somehow the end of this interesting article, with a personal experience, sticks in my mind more than the part about Art. And then I began to think that maybe, just maybe, Jim is having a little joke with his readers.
Hi Kay. Nope, we actually saw those lights and we are still utterly bewildered. Though I think it’s conceivable that they were military. White Sands missile base is 50 miles south. Still it was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Tonya’s photoshop recreation is a very accurate portrayal of what we witnessed.
Great article!! I really miss Art Bell also. George Noorey is not even a close second….. Nevertheless, you can listen to old Art Bell shows every Saturday night via the Coast to Coast website. For free. You can also subscribe and listen to them whenever. And, I encourage you to listen on Sunday nights when George Knapp is often a host. He is brilliant and has been doing true UFO…all things space…his whole career. He’s a true reporter with over 30 years broadcasting in TV news in Las Vegas. He also has a website called ‘Mystery Wire.’ Thanks for a great account of Art Bell’s show and legacy. I miss him and that show. Stay well.
Hi Sage, I couldn’t agree more, however, sadly George Knapp isn’t on often enough, when he isn’t I listen to the ultimate AB. One of the the worst things about losing Art was that it happened on my birthday.
Very well put and I feel exactly the same way, the show has and never will be the same without Art.
Jim,
About those lights. Here’s one plausible guess in three points.
Point #1. Elon Musk’s ‘Starlink’ internet constellation project has been launching its satellites since May, 2019. The monthly rate of launches has varied. But by the time you witnessed the string of lights in the southwestern New Mexico twilight, on November 8, 2021, there would have been perhaps over 2,000 Starlink satellites in low earth orbit.
Point #2. As have many, I have also witnessed these satellites. And just as in your experience, they are only visible soon after sunset. This is due to their low earth orbit. A string of these satellites will appear as a line of bright dots. The lead satellite in the line fades into view and visibly moves along the orbit. The next satellite does the same, and so on, until several bright dots are visible in a moving line. The number of visible satellites during a span of several minutes is limited either by the total number in that string (Perhaps 10? Not sure.), or by the angle, the area and the boundaries of the plain of sunlight which they are reflecting during that brief span of minutes.
Point #3. Although I have never witnessed light reflected by Starlink satellites “growing to an orange disk”, I would not be surprised if that were simply a characteristic of reflected sunlight as a satellite moved out of the plain of light that it had been reflecting while it was visible. In this regard, it is important to consider that the curvature of the earth’s atmosphere can act as a convex lens to light sources that are low enough to the horizon. That is the same reason the moon appears so large as it first rises from the horizon. As for the color orange, that could also be due to the prismatic bending of the light reflected by the satellite as it crossed the curvature of the atmospheric ‘lens’.
The above three points are a guess at what you saw. But one thing I am very sure of is that the ‘Starlink’ constellation (and what it foretells) will forever change how humans view the night sky. Like looking through a jungle of telephone poles, cell phone towers and microwave relay towers to catch a glimpse of the wide open desert, we will now and for any foreseeable future always be looking through a jungle of satellites to catch a glimpse of the primitive night sky.
Rob
Art got me through a very tough time in my life. It was the best 5 hours of my day (or night). He made me wonder about everything again. It was amazing. That whole era was amazing. Don’t think it can ever be reproduced. I’m old now but Art was a big part my twenties.
I miss Art and I miss that time in my life when life was still full wonder.
So I got here googling “coast to coast isn’t scary anymore what else can I listen to?” 😣😭 every open line caller Art seemed truly interested in. I haven’t listened in years now but turned back to Coast this last month hoping it would be entertaining for my kiddo…nothing…it’s a snore fest! Guests are boring and callers seem rushed and quickly cut off with canned “you’re rights” or “you never knows.” What are y’all listening to these days to fill the void? RiP Art.
I just gotta say how much an effect the staticy AM radio voice of Art Bell had on me growing up. He was a major influence on my brothers and I starting our own paranormal podcast (Belief Hole).
This article nailed that sense of escape and grounded levity that Art had, while the rest of the world was drowning in politics and celebrity gossip. Much like today. It’s nice to have a place to dip your brain and refresh yourself in the magic of ”what could be’. When not doing our own show that strives to live somewhere in the shadow of that legacy, I still put on the classic Ghost to Ghost to chill out. That bumper music puts me right at ease, everytime. Thanks for writing this killer, in-depth, and sweetly nostalgic article. Keep the ghost of Art alive! 🔥
Jeremy | Belief Hole Podcast