Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM (1996) blends Thanksgiving skepticism with alarming claims: the UN reports 16,000 daily HIV infections, rising from 10M to 30M by 2000, while he doubts Iraq’s compliance with U.S. inspections, hinting at an impending strike. Callers share bizarre anomalies—giant Saigon roaches, deformed frogs in Duluth, and a deer with an extra leg—while Bell critiques "decency" funding laws and dismisses Y2K as a potential 1999 Greenpeace-friendly fix. The episode’s chaotic mix of conspiracy theories, fringe science, and audience oddities underscores Bell’s signature blend of paranoia and entertainment, leaving listeners questioning both the government and reality itself. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert in the great American southwest, I bid you all good evening, reporting as the case may be, across this great land of ours, stretching from the Tahitian and Hawaiian Island chains in the west, where the gentle breezes, trade winds blow, and grass skirts abound.
I'm going to get to Hawaii, you know it, TED2.
All the way east to similar visions, St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands.
You know, we had a rule in our house, no dessert unless you ate your entire dinner, whatever your entire dinner that night happened to consist of.
And when it was lima beans, the only thing I could do, which is what I did, is to take them whole.
Never chew them.
That's bad.
You take your entire glass of milk, and you take each lima bean like a pill.
And that's how I would eat lima beans.
And that's the only way I would get to my dessert.
Well, let's see.
What are we going to do tonight?
It's in some time zones, already Thanksgiving, most talk show hosts do an inevitable, what are you thankful for?
I don't do that.
Sometimes I do, what are you not thankful for?
There's plenty to be not thankful for.
Saddam Hussein, AIDS.
Of course, I'm covering the headlines here.
The AIDS situation is particularly interesting.
I'll tell you, next hour we're going to have Joyce Riley on.
And I'm going to ask her about this.
Now, years ago, we were saying exactly what they have revealed today.
The UN AIDS Agency said today that 16,000 people are infected with AIDS daily.
Previous estimates of the number of people with AIDS have been wholly unreported.
They now believe that 30 million people are infected with HIV.
30 million.
Now, it was 10 million a few days ago.
Now, actually, this is fully one-third more than earlier estimates.
One in every 100 sexually active adults under the age of 49 worldwide now has HIV.
Only one in 10 knows about it.
Now, they think that by the year 2000, if we make it, that number will soar to 40 million.
And in a way, what we're going to talk about with Joyce Riley, and she's got a lot of new information about the whole Gulf War business, relates to AIDS.
So we'll ask her about that.
Now, and also this relates to what we're going to talk to Joyce Riley about.
You may recall that the UN inspectors, if we remember the chronology correctly, were either kicked out or in protest walked out of Iraq when the U.S. inspectors were not allowed to inspect, right?
And so then we began to send B-52s and F-117s and all that toward Iraq, like we were going to do serious damage.
And so they changed their minds.
They caved in completely to our demands, which seemed extremely disappointing to our Defense Department, which was cranking up to hit Saddam.
Nevertheless, I mean, what are you going to do?
They caved in.
The Russians did it.
They made a deal.
And, you know, when somebody meets all your demands, you have very little choice, right?
And so we continued to move hardware over there, but went back in.
Then, if I've got my story straight, and check me if I don't, we said, once we got back in, that we were going to have to inspect all 63 homes, castles, private residences, or whatever of Saddam Hussein.
And they said, absolutely not.
And then we began to make noises like we would come in and, you know, start bombing.
And so today, they caved in and said, okay, you can visit all of these places.
Again, I think, disappointing the Defense Department.
And so now tonight, the U.S. is saying, thank you very much.
We're glad you're going to let us in, but it's not enough.
So we continue to move the goalposts.
And I am convinced, just absolutely tonight more than ever convinced that we are going to hit Iraq and we are going to find a reason to do it no matter what.
That's the way it looks to me, anyway.
So, with more action in the Gulf looming, I think Joyce Riley, it's time to have Joyce Forelli back and get an update on what's going on.
She's got a bunch of very upsetting audio clips to play for you this evening.
By the way, I'm going to be here tomorrow night.
I will be here live tomorrow night.
I will take a day off Friday, and we will rerun David Adair, the rocket scientist.
And, of course, I had a scheduled day off Sunday, and so there'll be a rerun on Dreamland, which means that I get three days off.
But I will be here live tomorrow night.
It just made more sense to me to do it that way.
The Supreme Court agreed to consider reinstating a law that required the National Endowment for the Arts to consider decency as well as artistic merit in handing out public money.
Now, I think that's just fine.
And of course, everybody bristles at the crucifix turned upside down in a bottle of urine, which was presented at the taxpayers' expense as an artistic presentation.
And that's baloney.
You know, that's just baloney.
And so I don't want to pay for that.
And so good for the Supreme Court.
I hope they consider well.
We have brought you, referring to last night's program, which was sort of, I'm going to call it the Sunstroke program with Ed Dames, a lot of news recently about deformed frogs and the fact that up in Duluth, they have now apparently discovered that it is due to UV radiation, not some kind of parasite from snakes or whatever.
But UV radiation, now, tonight, I have a story, I'm sorry to say, from Ohio, as a matter of fact, about Greg Amalory of Zanesville, who has found, I'm sorry to say, a white-tailed deer, this young fellow shot, that has an extra leg growing out of its back.
Now, simple-celled organisms, you can talk about those, and you don't get too upset.
Anyway, what we're going to do is open lines for the rest of this hour.
I would rather imagine a lot of you want to react to what you heard yesterday from Ed Dames.
And that's fine.
And I've got a couple of other items for you here that we will get to.
When it comes to information on extraterrestrials, by the way, I just talked to a young lady down in Tucson who has been seeing some remarkable UFOs.
And she's out there right now trying to get video.
So if anybody else in Tucson has seen something that ought not be in the air, and she called the military base there, and they told her, forget it.
I mean, just don't think about it.
She called some UFO group in Florida and they told her to go back and house lock the door and stay there.
Instead, she's outside trying to get audio and video of whatever it is of passing over Tucson.
Anyway, I'm off track.
Back to ETs.
You've got to see a video we've got.
Area 51, the alien interview.
Remember when Extra and Strange Universe had about three seconds of this?
And I interviewed Victor, the guy who supposedly got it out of Area 51, spirited this thing out of Area 51.
And I still want to invite Victor back.
Victor, wherever you are, the sound of my voice is wide, and I would imagine you can hear me.
Consider getting in touch with me for another interview.
We promise, as always, anonymity.
I'd like to see how life has gone for Victor.
Apparently, not well.
He's in hiding.
This shows An alien being interrogated by guys, military or pseudo-military, who knows, at Area 51.
It's pretty convincing video, and we've got the whole thing, not just a few seconds, but a 65-minute documentary with all footage.
It is, in all, $19.95, plus shipping and handling.
You can call right now and get it, and I suggest you do exactly that.
It will take about two weeks to get to you.
The number is 1-800-510-3420.
That's 1-800-510-3420.
If you're one of the many who hasn't yet moved into the computer age, please stop and listen carefully.
Oh, yes, I know.
You've tried to understand computers only to give up in frustration, but senior computer systems is different, and I mean a lot different.
I've checked them out.
It's a tremendous concept.
Here's an ultra-fast computer with built-in one-on-one live assistants.
Now, suppose you're attempting to send email, for example, and you're stuck.
You simply push the F12 key on your computer, and presto, you've got the SCS Tech Center's Help Genie.
Now, this is a real live person who looks at your screen and shows you exactly what to do.
The Genie will help you with your email, show you how to surf the net, how to communicate with others who share your interests.
The SCS computer has got plenty of memory and storage space and is easily upgraded.
The full package comes with monitor, printer, 13 software programs, including Windows 95 and the built-in Genie software, plus an extremely easy-to-use training manual, all for less than $2,000.
And a three-year warranty and service right to your door are available.
By the way, if you already have a computer, yes, you can purchase the Genie and training manual separately.
For details, call SES right now at 1-800-354-6846.
That's 1-800-354-6846.
Join the computer age with this revolutionary new system.
Call 1-800-354-6846 and never again be intimidated by a computer.
You remember yesterday I read you a story about two-foot-long rats?
A group, ecological group in Chile, has indeed now sounded an alarm about two-foot-long mutant rats that have attacked barnyard animals in a suburb of Santiago.
Santiago, I guess.
And today I got the following.
Adear Art, speaking of two-foot-long rats, I've missed that experience.
But how about a very thick, fat roach somewhere between three and four inches long?
My first night in Saigon, I had just arrived for my first overseas civilian job in 1966 as an advisor.
Alone in my room at the hotel, I heard this loud, raspy, scratching noise, kind of like a metal file being dragged over the edge of a piece of plywood.
The sound was coming from the direction of the door to my room.
Now, you can imagine my state of mind, my first time out of the USA, in a strange country, a war going on, the people, their language, the stench of garbage piled up along both sides of the street, the airport burning from an attack earlier that night,
just before we landed, U.S. and VN troops pointing weapons at us at every intersection, a confused late-night arrival at the hotel, a bottle of drinking water with a mat of lint and hair resting at its bottom, thoughtfully provided by the management, occasional distant explosions.
You get the picture.
I was scared to death.
And then this grating, scratching noise.
It was a huge roach stuck under the door, trying to squeeze under to get inside my room.
Its movements, the rubbing of its back against the bottom edge of the door were the cause of the noise.
It was actually shaking the door on its hinges.
God.
I didn't want it inside my room.
Wasn't about to open the door or step on something that looked about the half size of my foot.
For all I knew, it might have been a VC in disguise or something.
May I be forgiven, but I squirted it with some green alcohol-based athlete's foot medication that I had brought with me, literally soaking it with what I remember was NP-27.
Well, that poor roach instantly freed itself and raced down the hallway, actually making a tiny squealing noise as it careened into walls, door jams, and finally under another guest's door.
I, of course, was happy it was gone, relieved that I hadn't taken a match and lighted it, because that was my next well-thought-out plan.
I remained in South Vietnam for the next nine and a half years, but that night I was ready and all set to go home right away.
I've only been listening to you for the past month, though, and then he gives me some kudos and so forth.
So there you are.
That's from Jim in Morris, Alabama, I guess just north of Birmingham.
Yeah, that's quite a welcome in-country, all right.
As a matter of fact, she jumped up to my 20-pounder, my 20-pounder, hardly even moved, and then just pawed her in the face a couple times, and she was disappointed that she couldn't make friends.
I have something floating around behind my left ear that showed up when I was 20 years old after I had had an hour and a half of missing time, and I want to know how do I find out if it's an implant?
Well, you talk to Whitley, and he points you toward a doctor who will take a look at it, or you go to your local doctor and have an x-ray or an MRI or something.
unidentified
He laughs at me, and he won't take an x-ray of it.
Yes, I'm sure we've got it, but I don't recall having listened to it yet.
You've got to understand that the show is so doggone big now that we bring our mail in here in bins, gigantic bins, and we're behind.
So, yes, of course, if you sent it, I'm sure I have it, but I can't tell you I've already listened.
unidentified
Because in that letter, I wrote a three-page letter.
One is a general text letter.
The other one is the text of the Area 51 conversation, and the other one are the eight reversals, legitimate reversals that I found, and which I explained to you on the air.
Why don't you take the tape of your reversals and send them to David Oates instead of me?
In other words, let him review your reversals, determine that they are real, and then we will have a conflict on our hands and we can go from there.
How's that?
unidentified
Well, I'll tell you what, you listen to the tape, what I've got, send it, submit it to Mr. Oates, because I felt that a lot of people in the reverse speech community feel we've been short-changed, that we feel that Mr. Oates' findings were at best questionable.
Well, okay, again, I'm willing to do that, but thank you.
But I don't see how that can be.
Reversals are there.
They occur every so many seconds.
And the ones that are clear, and those are the only ones for the public that I can deal with, not the metaphoric type that would be open to interpretation.
But the clear reversals, which you claim you have, are the only ones we can deal with.
And I would not imagine that David would endeavor to, I mean, it didn't matter.
As far as I was concerned, the guy could have been a total fake or he could have been absolutely real, 50-50 from my point of view.
So I doubt that David started with an agenda.
It would have been just as interesting to prove the guy was a fake with reversals.
So I'm not sure what we've got here.
And if I can find the tape, I'll send it to David and then we can have some kind of debate.