Art Bell

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 1, 2002 - Art Bell

02:48:18

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - War Games - Bonnie Ramthun

Participants

Main voices

48:24

bonnie ramthun

01:01:31

linda moulton howe

18:30

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Welcome to Art Bell Somewhere in Time, tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		From the high desert and the great American Southwest evidence: Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, wherever you may be in all three four time zones covered by this program called Coast to Coast AM.
		I'm Art Bell.
		It's great to be here.
		It is still the first of April here, and.
		Oh my god, did you get me?
		You got me too, folks.
		Listen, first I'd like to welcome a brand new affiliate, KKXL, in Branfort, North Dakota.
		Welcome to this strange program 1440 on the island.
		Branforts, North Dakota.
		I'd like to say hello to the GM Jim Holberg and PD Brian Rivers.
		Great to have KKXL on board.
		There's a very long, distinguished, rotten tradition we have of doing these April 1st things.
		And this year I had no idea what Keith was going to do.
		And it was sort of an array of things, but the one that got me, of course, was the blue screen of death.
		When you bring up my website, I was at an XP computer that I had recently put XP in earlier in the day, and I went to the website, the blue screen of death came off, and I was like, damn.
		You know, I thought I was away from this.
		I mean, I'll be anyway.
		And there it was.
		And like everybody else, you know, I didn't read.
		I didn't even, like a dummy, notice, gee, new font.
		You know, I just noticed blue screen of death, and I rebooted my computer.
		Well, Keith did that.
		Along with several.
		Then there was another one that actually got me too.
		Because somehow he managed to make the web page jiggle every now and then.
		But it only does it after you've been on it for a while.
unidentified		So, God, look at my monitor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What the hell is going on?
		Screen is jiggling.
		He had an array of guests in there and guest hosts.
		And then he had black mold in my house and had me living, gone for the week and living out in my motorhome.
		And, oh, man.
		But the one that got me, the blue screen of death.
		And listen to this.
		Here's a letter.
		Dear Miss Bell and Miss Roland, I realize now, prior to reformatting my hard drive and back in the comfort of my home, and I've been truly had.
		Mr. Bell, I work in a high school with roughly 200 computers in it.
		Guess how many I went through before I gave up trying to figure out the blue screen fatal exception error?
		Take another guess to where I have my internet homepage set.
		In each case, of course, I was brashly greeted by what I had begun to believe was the product of a disgruntled Microsoft programmer.
		And the problem lay much deeper.
		I am indeed grateful that my school is not in session, Mr. Bell.
		All are still away for the Easter holiday.
		I would have raised the proverbial red flag to full mast, and it would have been laughing stock of nearly 1,000 students and faculty.
		In conclusion, thank you for giving me something to do today.
		This will look exemplary on my April Fool's Day work journal, Dave in Erie, Pennsylvania.
		I had no idea it was coming.
		It got me too, folks.
		It shows how we read, doesn't it?
		Coming up in a moment, Linda Moulton-Howe, author, investigator of all things Abinormal, a winner of many documentaries on the environment, reporter, science reporter for this show now for years, with a report coming up.
		In the next hour, we're going to play real war games.
		Here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is Linda Moulton-Howe.
unidentified		Linda?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Well, thanks a lot, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You bet.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Fishermen who have spent their lives catching marine life in the waters between Naples and the Florida Keys began noticing massive areas of water in January so dark and dense that it was eerie to them.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And many fishermen said that they had never seen anything like it before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Most of us have only seen the satellite photographs of this monstrous, black, horrible area off the coast of Florida.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is gigantic.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		By the middle of March, NASA satellite images clearly showed dark waters that at one point spanned an estimated 100 miles.
		You can see one of the NASA satellite images of this dark water taken March 21st at my website, www.earthfiles.com, along with images that have now been taken of some of the dead and dying coral and sponges in the area that this dark water passed through.
		Fishermen also noted that dead plants from the ocean floor seemed to rise up and follow the movement of the dark water through Florida Bay and the Keys.
		Fish seemed to turn away from the dark currents, and eventually scientists discovered that coral and sponges had died in certain channels where the dark waters had been.
		This past week, on March 28th, members of the scientific community met at the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg to review data from some water samples that they had collected up to that point, and many more had been collected.
		And later on in the next half hour, I will be bringing a report hot off the presses that I got just about an hour ago.
		But on Thursday, their consensus was this, quote, discolored water is most likely due to a non-red tide algal bloom of coastal marine origin.
		The presence of a large amount of algae in the water can potentially cause problems for bottom organisms as the bloom decays, unquote.
		The discolored area is now still observable in a region about 30 by 10 miles, and divers will be going down over the next couple of weeks into the dark waters to take more water samples.
		After this meeting, I interviewed Dr. Brian Keller, science coordinator for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Marathon, Florida.
		The sanctuary is funded by NOAA.
		Even though no single organism has been identified as the cause of the massive dark waters, Dr. Keller has a theory that the organism responsible is a species of diatom, which is a microscopic type of algae that gives off a kind of gold-brown color.
		First, I asked Dr. Keller about the fisherman's first report.
unidentified		The observations that were coming in from commercial fishermen were water conditions unlike anything that they had ever seen in their time on the water.
		Dark appearing water, no sheen characteristic of an oil spill, no strong aroma that would be characteristic of red tide.
		At night, boat propellers caused phosphorescence.
		There were sightings of large numbers of comb jellies in the water.
		This can cause phosphorescence, as well as some of the types of phytoplankton can cause phosphorescence at night.
		They said they were seeing something like they had never seen before, a dark mass of water that fishes appeared to be avoiding and that the fishes in the water appeared to be behaving unusually.
		They talked about stringy masses in the water column.
		That could have been a type of cyanobacteria that can form stringy-looking growth forms in the water column.
		They collected water samples that have been sent to the Florida Marine Research Institute for analysis.
		Some of those samples have fairly large numbers of diatoms in them.
		More recent samples collected by the Moat Marine Laboratory just north of an area called Sugarloaf, many of those samples had medium to high concentrations of a particular type of diatom.
		And so our thinking is that this may be a particularly massive and persistent bloom of algae.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And why blackness and why such an unprecedented appearance to the fishermen?
unidentified		Well, the blackness is apparent only in satellite imagery.
		And people on the water in what appears to be black in the satellite imagery appears a brownish, greenish-brown there at the water surface.
		So we have some kind of a disconnect between the satellite imagery and the actual appearance of the water, which is more of a dark color.
		It's not black to the eye up close.
		And what's unusual is the size and persistence, and we can only speculate that there was more than the usual influx of nutrients that fed this bloom and enabled it to grow to such a massive size and to last as long as it has.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And those nutrients would fall into the category largely of fertilizers and pesticides?
unidentified		Well, these actually come out of the system naturally.
		Part of the geology in that part of Florida, we have a shift from sediments, the normal types of sands that are silica sands, into Florida Bay, which is all carbonate sands.
		And so the Shark River outfall can bring with it naturally occurring silicate.
		The agricultural areas are a long distance away from that part of Florida and pass through a lot of wetlands vegetation.
		And the studies in the Everglades indicate that the agricultural nutrients pretty rapidly get taken up by the wetlands vegetation in what are called water conservation areas.
		And so it's unlikely that agricultural nutrients are going all the way across to the southwest coast of Florida.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And so you would say right now as an educated guess that whatever fed this diatom bloom was some natural relationship between the silica and the other kind of sandy floor in those two waters?
unidentified		That's correct.
		And we've had a very wet, what normally would be our dry season from November until about April.
		We've had a very wet dry season that may be linked with what we think is a forthcoming El Niño event.
		And that could explain why more than the usual outflow came from Shark River bringing these nutrients to feed this diatom bloom.
		But that's just a guess.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Is it definite that it is the diatons that are causing the blackness from the satellite, or could there be something else there mixed with the diatoms?
unidentified		Again, looking at the water up close, it does not appear black.
		But what can happen in these blooms is that there can be shifts in the types of algae that dominate the blooms, so that one type of algae will bloom and then die off and provide nutrients that feed yet another bloom.
		And that may have been the sequence in this case.
		In early January, Florida International University conducted one of its four-time a year surveys out through the sanctuary waters out onto the southwest Florida shelf.
		And they saw a low salinity between the 10th and 13th of January Right in the area of the mouth of the Shark River that supports the notion of an outflow at that time.
		They saw an area of concentration of chlorophyll A, which is a photosynthetic pigment utilized by these algae.
		And they saw the highest concentrations of chlorophyll A that they've ever measured in these waters since 1995.
		They also saw a very high concentration of oxygen, which also supports the idea that this was a dense bloom of algae that generate large amounts of oxygen when they're photosynthesizing during the daytime.
		This was definitely not a dead zone.
		This was a very full-of-life zone at that time.
		And now, two months later in March, we're seeing signs down here in the sanctuary that we still have large numbers of diatoms, but we're seeing dead diatoms, the skeletal material they leave behind.
		So it appears that the bloom is starting to age and dissipate.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Now, there were reports that sponges and corals in a channel off of Key West were found dead at the height of the fishermen reporting the dark water?
unidentified		That's correct.
		Those observations were made about a week ago by a very experienced diver who's an excellent natural history observer.
		And we have scientists from Moat Marine Lab are going to that same site today to collect tissue samples for analysis, get some photographs and some video of what the community looks like, and possibly get some more quantitative data on what's happening there.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		If the answer to all of this dark water is a diatom, why would a diatom, which is a plant, have the ability to kill sponges and corals?
unidentified		Well, we're not sure that there is that linkage.
		We're not sure whether it's something associated with the bloom other than the diatom that is causing this effect.
		We had a massive sponge die-off in Florida Bay in the early 1990s that was associated with a different kind of algal bloom, with a cyanobacterial bloom.
		And there can be a combination of toxic effects.
		A lot of these microscopic plants carry nasty chemicals to try to prevent animals from eating them.
		There can also be physical clogging of filter feeders by huge quantities of these microscopic particles that can clog up the filtering apparatus of things like sponges.
		So we're not sure what's causing the die-offs that we've seen near Key West associated with this bloom.
		And we're hoping that the tissue samples that are being collected today and probably more in the future will give us some insight into what caused those die-offs.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Now, what is the current data from pilots or fishermen as we begin April in terms of how much of this discoloration is still being seen in the waters?
unidentified		Well, we had another vessel from NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in the vicinity of the Bloom on Friday, and it did a cruise track along what's called the backcountry, which would be the northern edge of the Keys that are characterized by a lot of shallow water areas.
		And they saw these bloom conditions from an island known as Big Pine west to Key West, and that would cover a distance of approximately 30 miles.
		And they estimated that it extended to approximately 10 miles to the north, this very brownish-green water.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		So it is still covering a large area?
unidentified		That's correct.
		The underwater visibility is typically less than two feet in this kind of pea soupy appearing water.
		The divers that I've spoken to have experienced no adverse effects other than the limited visibility in the water.
		Again, there are areas where the bottom community appeared healthy and okay despite being immersed in this what appears to be very concentrated plankton bloom.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		What is it about a bloom of something like a plant that naturally exists in the ocean that can become so dense that it can cause destruction of coral and destruction of sponges?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And what makes that become a potential threat in the future?
unidentified		A general issue in that regard for any such phenomenon is how much is due to human-related causes and how much is truly natural.
unidentified		And in this particular bloom, I'm not sure that we're going to be able to develop a good answer for that.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		And this complete inability to fully understand what has happened, point a finger is that one thing you will hear in the next half hour from a woman who has spent hours and was up tonight up till 10 o'clock when I last talked to her.
		She had been looking under a microscope and examining some of the water from this area.
		And you will find it very interesting to hear from a woman who for 30 years has been analyzing and examining flasks of water from Florida and how this one is so hard to finger any particular culprit.
		But she will also, I think, that all of this is perhaps leading to something that all the scientists say that they need to understand more art, and that is, is it possible that in this time of increasingly warm temperatures and the warmest winter on record in North America,
		combined with what Dr. Heller pointed out, was water in Florida with warmer temperatures, could we be moving into a new era in which these kinds of explosive growths might happen on a more frequent basis?
		And I'll also update you on some history.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Linda, hold it right there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back.
unidentified		I know you can see me on this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is Coast to Coast AM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time, on Premier Radio Networks.
		Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1, 2002.
		Miles and miles and miles and miles.
		Amen.
		If you think that I don't know about the little tricks you play.
		And never see you in the liberty, but you're right away.
		Well, here's a broken...
		It's the first time, the last time we ever had.
		But I know the reason why you gave me so much.
		The beautiful week.
		Well, the hurt doesn't show.
		But the pain still grows.
		So strange as you and me.
		I've been waiting for many years and I...
		Oh Lord.
		Oh Lord.
		Well, I've been waiting for this moment.
		For all my life.
		Oh Lord.
		Oh Lord.
		I've been waiting for this moment.
		For all my life.
		Oh Lord.
		I've been waiting for this moment.
		For all my life.
		Oh Lord.
		Well, I've been waiting for this moment.
		You're listening to Arc Bell somewhere in time on Premier Radio Networks tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, scientists, we just heard had an excellent theory, but everybody out there should be cautioned.
		It is still a theory, and even he says we may never know.
		I heard low salinity, chlorophyll, oxygen, not a dead zone.
		Of course, the fish fled.
		But the coral and the sponges are the big question, of course, and it's a gigantic area out there.
		I'm not surprised, and I think if you were to ask Johopi, could you find one?
		They wouldn't be either.
		Of course, it isn't so, but Dave in Missoula, Montana asks, all this stuff in the water, could it be the missing Chads?
		You have to have some levity.
		This is such serious stuff.
		My God.
		So that's the real bottom line, isn't it?
		They don't exactly know for certain.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And I would like to share with Coast listeners a historic reference from Dr. Keller that is worth noting.
		Coast listeners can see this report in photographs and its historic reference at my website, www.earthfiles.com.
		Go to headlines and scroll down to the top story about scientists investigating dark Florida waters.
		And there is an excerpt from my conversation with Dr. Keller in which he said that in the mid-1950s, a crew of a boat that went on a regular basis out by the Tortugas National Park,
		which is out further west from the Naples and Sable Bay Area, they wrote in their logbook that, and I'm quoting, they saw a very unusual mass of dark water between Key West and the Dry Tortugas.
		Then, back in 1898, scientists there on a marine lab that then existed in the Dry Tortugas, which is an island, at that time they reported a dark water event.
		Dr. Keller raises these historic questions, saying nobody knows from that time period what these massive dark areas were, but could it be related to whatever happened in terms of the conditions this time around in 2002?
		Now to show you how strange and totally right now this is just not nailed down, tonight, while she was in the lab, what you're going to hear from is Beverly Roberts.
		She's research administrator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in the Florida Marine Research Institute.
		For 30 years, she has analyzed flasks of water, and she had before her tonight, she had the whole gamut of what had been turned into the Florida Marine Research Institute.
		Flasks have also gone to the moat laboratory and some other places.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, you talked to her as she was actually, she was in the lab examining this water as you talked to her?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And she was writing a report that will be put up at their website by tomorrow morning.
		And everybody can check out these websites also at earthfiles.com.
		But right now, you're going to hear exactly as we started.
		And I said to her, how many samples would you say that you have in your lab right now that you've analyzed from these dark waters?
		Here is Beverly Roberts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Should be interesting.
unidentified		It looks like we may have had over 30 samples.
unidentified		Some of those are clumped fairly close together and that is over a period of time from March 8th to March 30th.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And of those, what seemed to be the most dominant organism, plant or otherwise, that you found?
unidentified		There isn't one.
		There isn't a single dominant one.
		Not really.
		That's what I'm saying about our samples are giving us quite varied results in terms of phytoplankton.
		Samples collected from March 28th through the 30th in areas just north of the Keys indicate that a Florida red tide organism, Coronia brevis, is still present and apparently a very patchy distribution throughout that area.
		We have observations that the discoloration and actual textural variations along the surface are quite different within just a few nautical miles of one position and another recorded position.
		And we may not have good resolution of what's causing this discoloration at this time, certainly, and possibly for some time to come.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		What about the issue of a diatom being present?
unidentified		Diatoms are still being observed in the samples that are coming in.
		Not the same species in all occasions and not always the dominant species.
		Diatoms are a typical component of along the west Florida shelf.
		So it's not surprising to find them.
		I'm certain that they are part of the overall event that is being observed in southwest Florida.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		But that it is not clear right now what the mass of darkness that has been observed since January was specifically produced by?
unidentified		It's uncertain what is the major component of the discoloration that's been reported since January.
unidentified		Our sampling at this point seems to indicate that there may be various causes involved with the entire area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Linda, can I quickly say one thing?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, the fish took off.
		The fish, when this water appeared, the hundreds of miles of water, they took off.
		Fish left.
		Now, you said it was very much alive.
		It wasn't a dead zone, but the fish, in fact, chose to get out of there quick.
		I wouldn't go swimming in that water, would you?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Well, the divers have been going down and getting right in the middle of it in what they call the pea soup and have been reporting that they are not finding anything deleterious in themselves.
		But another part of the findings so far by Beverly Roberts was what's called brevatoxin.
		And this is produced from red tides, which are very common to the Florida area.
		And in almost all of the samples, she has found the presence of some brevatoxin.
		She cannot prove absolutely conclusively that there is enough red tide algae to be producing the brevatoxin.
		And it gets even more complicated because some other plants can produce this toxin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but if I heard it correctly, actually, she said it was present, but not in large levels at all, that it was pretty scattered.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in terms of the algae, but she has been finding the brevatoxin, which is this chemical that the red tide produces.
		And in her own mind, she wonders if that could be responsible for what might have happened to some of the coral and the sponges.
		It is truly a, if it's pea soup water, right now, clarity about exactly what has happened since January is not very clear either.
		And right over the next two weeks, they're going to send down more teams of divers.
		There will be what's called cruises, more scientific cruises.
		They're going to do some more sampling.
		They think, right now, that they can say this much with some certainty, that the amount of the diatom skeletons that are building up means that whatever this bloom was, or series of blooms, which is more likely, a whole series of different kinds of algae growing and getting more expansive on each other until it covered this 100 miles,
		that because they are building up, they think this is the decline of it and that it should be over.
		But both Dr. Keller and Beverly Roberts raised a similar question.
		With warming temperatures, with this having been the warmest winter in North American history, with a general trend for the last 13 to 15 years of increasingly warmer temperatures,
		that we are possibly moving into a new era in which these kinds of explosive blooms without anybody knowing exactly what sets them off and how big they can become could become more common than they've been in the past.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Question for you, Linda.
		I've got from Donna Cassiday in Australia.
		She says, Australia has had its coldest summer ever, and this devastated the grape production.
		Also, hundreds of thousands of baby penguins were killed during the Antarctic summer because it was so much sea ice that they had to travel 30 miles to get food.
		So what kind of sense does that make on a global scale?
		We're getting hotter, Australia getting colder.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		In the computer projections over the last 15 years in which they've put in the data of CO2 buildup and global warming patterns, you find the oddest, cold, and warm areas.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		The poles get warmest fastest, and we've certainly been seeing That in terms of the melt of the North Pole Ice now down to 43% of what it was only a couple of decades ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's incredible.
		May I interject one more because here it fits.
		LA Times today, it says, Yankerdot, Russia.
		The native elders have no explanation.
		Scientists are perplexed as well.
		The icy realm of the Eskimo, the tundra and ice of Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland has begun to thaw.
		Strange portents are everywhere.
		Thunder and lightning, once rare, have become commonplace.
		An eerie warm wind now blows in from the south.
		Hunters who prided themselves on their ability to read the sky say they no longer can predict the sudden blizzards.
		The Earth, one hunter concluded, is turning faster.
		It's an eight-page article, but you get the idea.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and Larsen B disintegrated.
		The scientific world was expecting that there would be disintegration of that big Larsen B ice shelf, but they never expected that it would be nearly gone in 2002.
		And now we're looking out at a projection that maybe in only three years, maybe at the utmost five, it will all be gone there.
		And then that means these questions about increasing Antarctic other melt is still there.
		And this is all part of what appears to be a pattern that is affecting the world.
		And right now, drought is worsening in the United States on a national basis.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of stories on that I've seen.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I have just done a big report at EarthFiles.com in the environment section.
		And it is so bad now on the East Coast that up in the Cannonsville Reservoir, the Delaware River watershed, that feeds, it's one of three reservoirs that feeds Manhattan, for example, that the watershed was exposed to mud for the first time since it was built.
		And that reservoir, which helps get water to Manhattan, had only 3% of its water capacity in December.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Holy smokes.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, nobody had expected that anything like that would happen.
		And in fact, half of the drinking water for New York City comes from these three reservoirs in the Delaware River watershed.
		And all three right now, on April 1, have less than half their normal water levels.
		Now, this means that we're just starting into what's going to be five months of increasing temperatures.
		What is going to happen in Manhattan?
		Well, the mayor last week declared a drought emergency.
		That is the most severe that the mayor or a governor can declare.
		The governor of Pennsylvania in February declared 17 counties here in drought emergencies.
		From Maine and New Hampshire, people have been spending huge amounts of money trying to drill new wells to find water because the ground table water has lowered so much that wells have been drying up.
		They're estimating that over 1,000 wells in Maine alone are now dry.
		We've got all the specific data that is coming in that apparently an El Niño is brewing.
		And when an El Niño kicks in, which would be over the next six to 12 months if it really takes hold, one of the things that almost always happens is that the East Coast gets drier and warmer while the Southeast and Texas get wetter.
		And already that pattern seems to have been developing.
		And I talked, if you want to hear, it's very brief, but I talked with Bill Douglas.
		He's an executive director in the Upper Delaware Council up in New York about what is happening with the reservoirs and how serious this could get.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, by all means, Linda.
		Go ahead.
		We're going to be short on time, but let me hear it.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Bill Douglas.
unidentified		These reservoirs have gone to extremely low capacities over the past several months.
unidentified		As a matter of fact, back in probably December, the one reservoir was down to approximately 3% of its capacity.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Only 3%?
unidentified		Only 3%, yes.
unidentified		That's the Cannonsville Reservoir.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		That would mean you were seeing light, a lot in the bottom?
unidentified		Oh, definitely.
		Definitely.
		I think the lowest I've ever heard it go down to in the past was approximately 17%.
		Typically, there'd be a couple feet of snow up in the Cascade Mountains, and that would come out in the spring rains of March and April and May.
		But right now, there's little to no snowpack in the mountains.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Now, what is the demand for water in the New York City area?
unidentified		How much?
unidentified		The figures that I've heard most recently is approximately $1.5 billion with a B gallons of water a day is what they use.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And if you take that against all three reservoirs being less than half of what they should be.
		Right.
		And this is March 29th.
		How serious is it if we do not get rain this spring and given the fact that there's no snow pass?
unidentified		The word I'm getting from the experts in the field are that this coming summer, if we haven't made significant impacts on bringing that deficit up, we are going to be in very serious trouble meeting all the water demands that we have here.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and for the very first time, I had a discussion with Bill Douglas and a couple other people.
		What happens if the three reservoirs that feed Manhattan.
		They have other reservoirs that they also draw water, but half of the water, one and a half billion gallons of water a day that they're counting on.
		And what happens if these reservoirs that are now less than half continue to go down over the next five months?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Linda, you know, I wrote a book called The Quickening and then The Superstorm, Global Superstorm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I feel like day by day, week by week, month by month, now, I'm just watching the predictions come true.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And do you know another area besides questions now that he and I discussed, what would they do?
		Would they have to start importing water from some of the places that have water, and where would that be?
		The Great Lakes is suffering.
		Nebraska has water, but that's in the Midwest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Water wars, Linda.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Well, it is a very it's it really is a concern in the future if these temperatures continue to keep increasing incrementally each year.
		And I also talked with Don Wilhyt.
		He is the climatology man and director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
		And he pointed out that he, this week, he read a report from Colorado.
		And the state of Colorado is so concerned about the fire hazards there.
		And he was pointing out to me that in West Texas, in New Mexico, in Arizona, in Colorado right now, that one of the greatest worries is dryness to the point that it's tender.
		So as we start going into the hot temperatures, they could be trying to cope with huge fire threats there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Incredible report.
		Linda, we're out of time.
		Listen, we've got to do a whole program soon.
		God, there is so much.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		I know, there is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just a wonderful report.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead and plug your website one last time.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		It is www.earthfiles.com.
		I cover a wide range of subjects that aren't in depth on the 6 o'clock news.
		And you can write me your questions and comments to earthfiles at earthfiles.com.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Good deal, Linda.
		Bless you.
		Thank you as always and good night.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, as I said, I just have this feeling that if I had to hope the elders about, they'd have a lot to say on this subject.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in a moment, War Games.
unidentified		You're listening to Arkbell somewhere in time.
		Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		To Coast AM from April
		1st, 2002.
		To Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		Destination unknown, double-cross messenger, oh Lord Can't get no connection, can't get through, where are you?
		Well, the nightly's heavy on his guilty mind It's far from the borderline When the hitman comes, he knows damn well he has been cheated And he's a
		idiot, son And I'm stepping into the twilight zone The heads in the house, it feels like he's gone Like he's looking blue at the moon and star But everyone's low, now that I've lost the past You've got to
		go, when a bullet hits the bone So do what I want to go, when a bullet hits the bone When a bullet hits the bone Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
		Tonight's program originally aired April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tonight should certainly be a different kind of experience.
		Bonnie Rantham is here.
		Bonnie Rantham is the author of Ground Zero and Earthquake Games.
		No kidding.
		She's a former war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		With a computer science degree from the University of Wyoming and an itch to see the wild side of the defense world.
		Oh, that'd be the wild side, all right.
		She's worked in helicopter crash investigations, robotic automobile assembly, missile defense, war gaming.
		She now lives in Erie, Colorado with her husband Bill and their four children.
		She's skilled, very skilled at military maneuvers, savvy about international defense, at ease profiling a terrorist, been known to save the world from nuclear annihilation often before lunchtime.
		As a war gamer for the Defense Department, it was all in a day's work.
		That's who's coming up next.
		Well, I've always wanted to talk to somebody like you, Bonnie.
		I have always, and I never have.
		This is going to be a great honor.
		You're in Colorado, huh?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are.
		And is your last name Rantham?
		Am I doing that correctly?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Rantham.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Rantham.
		Very good.
		Gosh, where to begin?
		What's it like?
		I mean, most people in the audience, of course, probably saw the movie War Games.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you have no idea how much influence, or maybe you do, A movie has on society and how we think of things and view things.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll tell you something.
		What's so interesting is, of course, the facility where I worked was built after the movie War Games.
		And when they finished building the main facility, in fact, the laboratory or the War Gaming Center, guess what it looked like?
		It looks exactly like the movie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You've got to be careful.
unidentified		So this was built after, after the movie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it looks like the movie?
unidentified		Yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		In fact, when they did the redo of NORAD, now I'm sure almost everyone knows, but for those who might have been off the planet for the last few years, NORAD is the giant underground facility in Colorado Springs.
		It's built inside a mountain, Cheyenne Mountain.
		Well, they did a redo of Cheyenne Mountain after the movie War Games came out, not because of the movie, it was just that time.
		And the actual facility in Cheyenne Mountain was just this little room.
		And they thought that the movie was so much better than what they had in reality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		God, you know, the question always has been whether the public and things drive Hollywood or Hollywood drives things in the public.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And maybe this proves the latter.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think so.
		In fact, the facility where I worked, Trevor Air Force Base, was built, I swear, was built by people who had seen every James Bond movie and had a lot of money to spend.
		I went through a retina scanner every day that was a clear glass booth.
		I would step in and it would lock me in, click, and I would be locked in there until I passed all the tests.
		It would weigh me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're not kidding, are you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I'm not kidding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A retinal scanner, it would weigh you.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It would weigh me, and then I would have to badge myself through.
		It would read my badge, and then I would have to type a certain number in.
		I think all those things happened in the right way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This really does sound like it's out of James Bond.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It does.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And then the booth would open and let me out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So there really is a world like this.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		And after a while, it's funny, after a while, it just becomes part of your world.
		You know, you step over the submarine-style door with the flat brass plates that intermesh when you close it.
		And you say, oh, you know, this is the way I, you know, this is the way I get to my desk.
		And if I have to go get a pop, I step out through the submarine door and spin it closed, and off I go to get my pop.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean that kind of spin-closed, a real submarine door?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was just like a submarine door.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Spin it closed.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You would spin it closed.
		And what was it?
		It was heavy.
		Luckily, it was counterbalanced because I'm not big.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What was this door protecting against?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		What was it for?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's two things.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		First of all, it is supposed to keep the interior, which is where the war games were held, from electronic surveillance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Okay.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And the other thing, which I was curious, and the whole reason I became a war gamer is because I always wanted to get into the most interesting places I could find.
		That was my entire goal of becoming a computer programmer.
		I always wanted to be a writer, but I wanted to write about really interesting things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, how in God's name do you get to, maybe I shouldn't use his name in connection with all this, how do you get to be a war gamer?
		I mean, do you just go down and apply to the Department of Defense and say, look, you know, I'm a computer person and I'd really love to do war games.
		How do you get there?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, I was working for a company that was doing some bidding work on the facility.
		And so they needed to hire some computer programmers in on this bid.
		And in every government contract, including that for the war gaming facility, you have different private companies and they bid.
		And they have to come up with enough of a bid.
		They have to show that they can do what the government contract requires them to do.
		So Boeing will build a prototype fighter and show it off.
		So the company that I worked for built a prototype gaming center and ran war games to show the government that they could do this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, and so here you were a part of the design of the project.
		It would be natural then for you to be of interest to them in its implementation and running?
		Yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Although I did get a haircut and wear my nicest suit.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I did the best I could to make myself as attractive as possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did they come to interview you for this?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, did a couple of guys in suits show up and say, hey, listen, we'd like you to apply.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		i mean how does that happen yeah the guy can be shut up at my grade cool teachers door and my also you were Oh, yeah.
		I was investigated.
		It was so funny.
		I was investigated all the way back to the house where I lived in in the second grade, and they interviewed the mom across the street.
		And I heard about this through a roundabout way.
		But they investigate in order to get the kind of clearances I had.
		They investigate your life really thoroughly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you allowed to say how high your clearance was?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And how do you know that, Art?
		How do you know that I'm not allowed to say what level my clearance was?
		Yeah, you're right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just took a shot.
		You're not actually even allowed to say how high it was.
		Can you answer this?
		Sure.
		Is there such a thing as a Q clearance?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I am not aware of a Q clearance.
		It doesn't mean there's not a Q clearance.
		And I'm just not the person who got one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, then let's see if you can answer this general question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are there levels above top secret?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, there are.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And that's not anything I'm going to get thrown in prison saying.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good.
		You know to be very careful.
		I don't have to tell you, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of the things that we are going to discuss tonight, we will talk of many things, Bonnie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much of your work, by percentage, are you completely unable to speak about?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Very little.
		I would say around 10 to 15 percent will freeze my mouth shut, and not because I'm afraid of prison, although I am.
		I hear it's real cold, the food's bad, don't want to end up there, but because those things might be of use to the enemy.
		And that's really, you know, I was so scared getting my clearances because I thought, what are they going to do?
		Are they going to put electrodes in my brain?
		Because people would come back from their clearance review, you know, and they would just be pale and shaky.
unidentified		I thought, what secrets do they reveal?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was actually almost scary.
		And then when I got the clearance, I figured out one of the reasons people come back in pale and shaky is because they keep the room at like 50 degrees.
		You're freezing to death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So there's a reason for that, I'm sure.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm sure there's some kind of psychology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, they put you in a sort of a state.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you come back from the interview also cold and shaky?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I did.
		And the reason I did is because they managed to impress upon me that if I revealed secrets that were important to the country, then people would die.
		You know, Robert Hansen, the FBI spy, may he burn in hell forever, he got people killed because of the secrets he revealed.
		And there are people in Congress who revealed secrets during the Gulf War that got some of our soldiers killed.
		So the pale and shakiness was because I really had this responsibility now of knowledge that could hurt people.
		So that's why I'm careful.
		I was very careful in my book to go right up to the edge but not cross the line.
unidentified		But I went right up to the edge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you give them a copy of the book to review?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I spoke quite extensively with the security director and found exactly what parameters I needed to have.
		And he was unhappy with some of the lengths that I went to in my book, but it was not an unhappiness that he could put me in jail for.
		No, he wasn't happy about some of the things I did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Your books are Earthquake Games and Ground Zero.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Ground Zero.
		That came out before September 11th.
		So it was an unhappy coincidence of names.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tell me a little bit about the books.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is Ground Zero?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Ground Zero is a thriller, murder mystery that takes place in a war gaming center, the war gaming center.
		And I take you, the reader, into my world because there's a murder that occurs.
		And it's a locked room murder mystery.
		You have to figure out who done it as well as how done it.
		And the murder itself causes a cascade of events which leads to a terrorist group getting hold of information which they use to launch a nuclear weapon at the United States.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure your bosses, ex-bosses were real happy about that.
unidentified		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, especially because the scenarios that we ran, I had such fun with the scenarios.
		There was one scenario that we ran that I mentioned in the book where England tried to take us back as a colony.
		We would play all sorts of different games.
		And the world that we created was a, essentially think of it as a three-dimensional chessboard.
		This was not a canned scenario where you just sit around and look at a computer screen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, it's much like chess wargaming, isn't it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		And we had rooms in the back where people who were playing the bad guys would actually launch weapons and move submarines and send out disinformation.
		And then we'd have the good guys in the different rooms and they would battle.
		They would fight the war.
		And we would figure out how to fight it better next time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who, more times than not, won?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		At first, everybody died.
		Nuclear war, not good.
		Especially when you get into a massive situation where you have snuks flying everywhere.
		The old end of the world scenario happened so many times.
		We used to call it the hand of God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You called it the hand of God?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, because when you look at, we would have missile trail markers.
		So as the nuclear weapons came up out of China or the Soviet Union and would curve over the poles and head down towards the United States, you would see all these tendrils and it would look like this big hand coming over.
		And we called it the hand of God.
unidentified		It was over.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		When you saw that, oh, you know, send the vice president to South America because there's not going to be anything living here bigger than a cockroach.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In most cases, then, that scene with all those tendrils, that was the end of it all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, it inevitably almost always resulted in both sides launching everything they had ultimately.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Just like in the movie War Games.
		But we would battle to the very end.
		We would try and shoot down everything we could so that there would be some potential for life on Earth.
		I hated those War Games.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There we probably get into some national security issues because what we have in space right now, I think probably we don't know everything we have in space right now.
		And do we have weapons there?
		Do we have what we're going to call defensive weapons in space right now?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, I played war games where we had Brilliant Pebbles.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That was what we called them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		They're basically like smart rocks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		BBs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Those would be weapons that simply sort of spread out like a shotgun shell and physically actually destroy whatever is coming in, right?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And the whole idea of a brilliant pebble in space is that you want to shoot down the missile coming out in its country of origin.
		For example, if you shoot down a nuclear missile heading towards the United States and you hit it off the coast of the United States or you hit it over the United States, it won't go off.
		You're not going to have a nuclear bomb because a nuclear device does not go off unless everything works perfectly.
		So you hit with a big rock, no more nuclear weapon.
		But what you do have is plutonium, which will rain down upon the country where you hit it.
		Or if that missile has something else on it, like why don't you just stop right there?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If plutonium, high-grade plutonium, were to begin raining down, what do your war games say would have been the effect?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it's bad.
		If you had a hunk ORV re-entry vehicle landing in your backyard, that's bad.
		The EKA is going to have to come dig up your backyard.
		And it's going to kill your dog.
		It's not going to be very pretty.
		On the other hand, it's not going to kill your dog and you and one million of your nearest neighbors.
		It's going to be something that they're going to have to come and clean up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's going to only be a very localized problem.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And again, the whole hand of God scenario, end of the world scenario, really went away when the superpowers decided this was, you know, they had had enough.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		What we really saw after the Soviet Union fell was the concept of a limited strike.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		So, yeah, you would have three or four missiles, let's say, coming in, and you would have to shoot those down.
		And sometimes, well, I personally would prefer to shoot them down over the country that sent them.
		Let them have Ebola.
		Let them have the chemical weapons.
		Let them have plutonium in their country.
		Not ours.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know that's certainly what we're worried about now and why we're building space-based defense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're going to chuck a treaty and just go ahead and do it.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And something else about space, too, is that think of what's up there floating around.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You know, your doctor who's on his pager or her pager, who gets called in in case you get into a traffic accident, that pager is based on a satellite system.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You take away that satellite system, and it isn't just that the Army can't talk to each other or the Air Force can't talk to each other.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it happened, Bonnie.
		One of the satellites went out.
		I think it was a huge satellite.
		I'm not sure about that.
		It was a couple of years ago.
		And exactly that scenario played out.
		Doctors were not getting pages.
		All kinds of ATMs were shutting down.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Doctors had to go sleep at the hospitals.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's all correct, yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was very frightening, and it is a vulnerability in our space-based assets.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In our present technological society, if there was a war that let's say it didn't get to the ground, implausible as that is, but we just destroyed all these satellites and they destroyed ours, what would that do to our economy?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		You know, we never played a scenario where it didn't get into a shooting war.
		You mean they almost all go eventually to Well, if let's say if the bad guys put up what we call an EMP weapon, electromagnetic pulse weapon, and take out all the non-hardened satellites, of course you can harden a satellite against electromagnetic pulse.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are they hard enough?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I don't think the doctor's satellites are.
		I don't think a satellite that sends me my cartoon network is hard enough.
		That's what scares me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And probably the one delivering this program right now is not.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Probably not.
		And that's a vulnerability.
		I would like to see that taken away.
		I don't want to lose the capability of hearing your show.
		I don't want to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How expensive is it to harden a satellite against EMP?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I believe it's very expensive.
		That's one of the reasons the Army and the Air Force always seem to cost so much more when they put their birds up in the air, as well as the fact that they don't tell anybody that it's going up.
		That's a whole other can of worms.
		When they put those birds up in the air, you say, hey, what's that sound on the horizon?
unidentified		I didn't know there was a launch today.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You were in a very, very strange business.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was very odd.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you ever have nightmares from it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		How interesting.
		Yes, I did.
		In fact, one of the reasons I decided to get out finally was, first of all, it was consuming my life because it was so intense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And every week was something new, and it really was absorbing my life.
		And I wanted to be a writer.
		I didn't want to be a war gamer my whole life.
		And second of all, I kept having these nightmares of driving home and seeing the flash.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Imagine that I would bring that up.
		Stay right there.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		You're listening to Art Bell somewhere in time on Premier Radio Networks.
		Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		Yeah.
		What is the future?
		Say it again, you're a war Who the guy What is it good for?
		Absolutely nothing Listen to me.
		I want, I despise, cause it means the torture of this life.
		One day it is, the thousands of mothers last.
		When the sons go up to fight, and you stand up, I stand up.
		Good God, y'all.
		One day it is, the thousands of mothers last.
		Time, time, time, see what's become of me.
		While I looked around, all my possibilities, I was so hard to please.
		In the ground, these are brown, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter, fearless downation only ground.
		Down by the river side, this bandit field, where I, than once you've got planned, carry you to be your man.
		The ground, these are brown, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter, hang on to your hopes, my friend.
		That's me.
		Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
		Tonight's program originally aired April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess that would be a hazy shade of nuclear winter.
		We'll ask about that a whole lot more.
		We've got a war gamer.
		Bonnie Ramthan was a war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		She explained in the first part of the interview she had to go into a room where a retinal scan and much more would identify her as the real person.
		Only then would she enter the room that has a door like a submarine that you've got to open and close.
		And that would take her into her work area.
		She has two books that have received incredible reviews at Amazon.com.
		Earthquake Games, five stars across the line, and Ground Zero.
		Also big-time winners.
		Coming up in a moment, the real War Games once again.
unidentified		Look around, knees are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground.
unidentified		Look around, knees are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The End I don't know if you all know this or not, but Whitley Streeber, a very good friend of mine, co-author of the book War Day, one of the best written on the topic.
		There have been many, many good ones.
		I think I've seen every movie and read every book on nuclear war that's been out, including On the Beach, with both the original and the HBO remake, which was awesome.
		Now, I've always wondered, Bonnie, in a full nuclear exchange, would the rather immediate aftermath of that perhaps unfold as On the Beach suggested it would with the Northern Hemisphere and,
		of course, the Northern Hemispheres, I guess I ought to say, all going into virtual dead zones and then, of course, with the winds the way they are bringing the whole thing down eventually to Australia and ending all life.
		Is that how it comes out?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, pretty much.
		Not something I really, it's so depressing to even think about that.
		But yes, that's what would happen.
		One of the things that we fought desperately to do during a hand of God war game was to prevent that from happening if we could.
		For example, we knew that there was no way we could prevent enough nuclear weapons getting to our country to save our country.
		But we could shoot down enough of them so that the radioactivity would fade out before it took all life on Earth.
		So it was a matter of preserving, if we could, the chance for life.
		And boy, those were depressing.
		Depressing war games to play.
		Because while you're fighting the battle, fight, fight, ground interceptors, ground interceptors, put some more sensors up in the air so we can determine.
		And then somebody would tap you on the shoulder and you'd look at the map and you'd say, oh, I'm dead.
		I'm out of the game.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Out of the game.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it really would unwind that way in a full nuclear exchange with eventually the entire world being enveloped in lethal amounts of radiation.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		End of the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		End of true end of the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The cockroaches, they'd survive.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Pretty soon, you know, a couple of hundred millennia from now, there'd be the Art Bell cockroach interviewing the Bonnie Ram.
		Do you think the new, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the scientific theories that suggested there would be a nuclear winter?
		Is there substance to that, do you believe?
		I guess it was suggested that so much debris would be thrown up into the high atmosphere.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It would be very similar to what happened with the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.
		You would create a blocking effect of the sun's rays.
		Everything would cool down.
		Once you started the cooling down, it would cause an ice age.
		and you end up with the few people who had survived if they survived would not then be able to plant or grow anything because the world would be glaciated just as it was back in the ice age and stuff i just don't know how you could have You said you began to have nightmares about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you having nightmares about these scenarios?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I was, but not the massive scenarios, because very shortly after we started doing war gaming, we began to realize that that sort of conflict was becoming less and less of a potential because not only were we bringing our nuclear weapons, our nuclear bombs down in levels, but also the Soviet Union was.
		Also, it was so interesting.
		One of the first war games we played was Blue, which is R-Forces.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, sir.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We played several missile defense war games where we did not have any blue assets in the field.
		Essentially, we would play as though we had no nuclear weapons.
		Well, the first time we played Blue, we had been playing for a year, basically, shooting down incoming weapons but not doing anything in return.
		So we play this war game, and I don't know who it was, China or the Soviet Union, sent over a very small-scale attack.
		And we're all getting ready to do the usual.
		You know, we shoot down the small-scale attack, we call them up on the phone and say, let's talk.
		You know, we don't need to end the world here.
		And all of a sudden, all these lights started going over the United States, and we looked at all the missiles are coming out of all the silos all across the United States.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Firing back.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		They've launched everything.
		And we turned and we looked at the blue guys, you know, the blue asset guys, and they're like, what?
		That's what we do.
		If you see a nuke coming, you'll launch everything you have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And is that what you think we would do if we saw nukes coming?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Not after we got through with those guys.
		I mean, there were people who lost their jobs because of that war game.
		What they did is they were under the old Cold War concept, which is that, yes, you see nukes coming, there's nothing you can do about it.
		You send what you have back.
		You know, everybody kisses their hand goodbye.
		They were operating under the old Cold War rules.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, here's a little game for you.
		Let's play a few games.
		Suppose, for example, Over an issue like, oh, God, who knows, Taiwan, maybe.
		Yeah.
		Let's say the Chinese have, you know, they've blustered that they could fire a nuclear device, say, at Los Angeles and do that from a submarine, and they probably could.
		If Los Angeles went up in a white flash, what do you think the U.S. response would be?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would hope that Los Angeles would not go up in a white flash.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we all hope that, but I'm just asking.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, when that thing comes up on the radar, the missile defense system goes into operation and we shoot that puppy out of the sky.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We try.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, we try.
		In the case of weapon of mass destruction, our response has always been that we reserve the right to use a weapon of mass destruction in response.
		But that doesn't mean that we have to.
		And we fought war games where we lost several cities and did not respond in a nuclear fashion because we didn't need to.
		We could take those countries on without nuking them.
		It was not a situation where we needed to use nuke.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, it's interesting, Bonnie, and this will, of course, been way since you're out of the war games business, but gee whiz, Bonnie, the other day, the President of the United States made a statement about sort of a rethinking of the use of nuclear weapons.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, the nuclear posture review.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's right.
		And the British did the same thing.
		And it's like two gongs went off in my head.
		And I said to myself, oh, the important story is really, if you look very carefully, this is a major change, probably in response to 9-11 and what they might see coming after 9-11.
		But it sounds like they're getting ready to justify the use of nuclear weapons.
		That's what it sounds like.
		How did it sound to you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, we played, I thought it sounded like a PSYOP to me, psychological operation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Think so?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That Pentagon office, they shut down.
		What did they do?
		Box it up and move it across the street?
		I don't know.
		I think they were doing that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just saber rattling.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, more than that, we have always had the option to use a weapon of mass destruction against a weapon of mass destruction.
		And I say those words very carefully.
		A weapon of mass destruction includes smallpox.
		It includes sarin gas.
		What they were saying to Saddam Hussein, who is frantically attempting to develop a hardened Ebola and a smallpox that's resistant, is that if he uses those against the United States, that's a weapon of mass destruction and we'll nuke him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's kind of what I thought we were saying, too.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And so what they're saying is as a preemption, they are saying, don't do it.
		We're serious.
		Don't even try it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you better be listening here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll turn you to dust.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and let's hope and pray that that doesn't happen because obviously there are many people in Baghdad who hate Saddam Hussein a whole lot more than I do.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		They have been under his jack boot for a generation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But either way, our side, their side, millions of innocents potentially die.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Most, yes, potentially.
		And I believe that the saber-rattling, that's a really good way to put it, the saber-rattling was done as an attempt to prevent such a thing from occurring.
		Because we don't want to do that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, that's a warning to people that you would think are thinking rationally in some sense.
		People who take over airliners and crash them into buildings and the Pentagon and stuff like that, from our point of view, are not thinking rationally.
		I'm not saying from their point of view, it's not rational, but from our point of view, it's completely irrational.
		So threatening them with utter annihilation might not register the way we would imagine it would register on us.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I would hope that it would register in some sense.
		It's essentially telling the bully in the schoolyard, you're going to punch his lights out.
		Yeah, and if he tries.
		The other thing I think it does is signal.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Which would work for a normal bully.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, for a normal bully, not a psycho.
		One of the problems, though, I think, with the world opinion thingy, which I'm not an expert on, is that a weapon of mass destruction has been understood to be nuclear.
		I think that the United States is making it very clear to our allies as well as our enemies that a weapon of mass destruction includes biological and chemical weapons.
		Yes.
		And we don't have, we don't develop smallpox that kills people.
		We don't develop Ebola that's hardened so that it's resistant to antibiotics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Could in fact Ebola be weaponized to the degree that it would live long enough to propagate itself in the horrible manner that we could imagine it might propagate if it didn't.
		It's like Ebola seems like a brush fire.
		It's so horrible that it burns itself out very quickly.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You need to make it a little bit less deadly so that it has time to spread.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Saddam Hussein hired a bunch of starving, essentially, Russian scientists.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To do exactly that.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		To do exactly that.
		Oh, and here's something.
		Here's a little clue from the defense biz.
		There is a bomb that was tested in Afghanistan recently.
		Not the daisy cutter, but something called a thermobaric bomb.
		Did you hear about that one?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		The big incendiary thing, you know, fire, and then it sucks all the oxygen out of the case structure.
		People within the cave structure are suffocated.
		And anyone within the path of the bomb itself, of course, is incinerated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's pretty much a thermobaric, it was called.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Thermobaric bomb.
		Yeah, very nasty sounding.
		Why did we test this in Afghanistan?
		Well, you know, obviously we want to kill al-Qaeda, and that's a good way to kill al-Qaeda.
		However, if you attack a biological facility, you don't want to throw a big, dusty bomb on top of it that throws essentially pieces and parts of that facility into the air.
		What you want to do is you want to incinerate that facility and not disturb it.
		So you basically burn it out without potentially, let's say for example, throwing particles into the air which might infect someone several miles away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So the thermobaric bomb might not have been a spiffy idea?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think that the thermobaric bomb's idea, the reason we tested it in Afghanistan is so that we can use it against a biological facility of Saddam Hussein.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thermobaric.
unidentified		Oh, all of a sudden it doesn't seem so happy after all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Because I don't, just to think, just to think one guy gets sick and then he's in Baghdad and he gets on a plane.
		You know the scenario.
		You know the drill.
		I don't even like to think about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That is, unfortunately, probably more likely today kind of 2002 scenario than nuclear, all-out nuclear war for sure, isn't it?
unidentified		Yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And that's a good thing, isn't it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You know, my job as a war gamer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if it's a good thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Everybody's had a cold.
		Everybody's been involved in a nuclear war, but we've all had colds.
		When you think of that happening, it's so horrifying.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Listen, I even get jittery when we start getting reports all across the nation of these strange rashes.
		These kind of stories, now it's probably nothing, but from coast to coast in Nova Scotia, everywhere, I've got stories of these strange rashes suddenly developing.
		Well, people don't say it, and I'm not certainly saying it now, but I mean, who's to say that something like that is not, they have no idea what it is.
		It doesn't mean that somebody caught something and is a precursor to something else.
		And we just live in very, very strange times.
		After 9-11, everybody, of course, is on edge and almost expecting something biological.
		In fact, our government was saying, you know, they were talking about smallpox so much.
		I was like waiting for the other shoe to fall.
		They were talking so much about smallpox that I thought it's coming.
		They know it's coming, and that's why they're talking about it.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I think they're afraid it's coming.
		We certainly know more about the Russians and their biological facilities than we know about Hussein's biological facilities.
		But what we know about the Russian facilities is really scary.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do we know that you can tell?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		The Ebola, they were working on hardening Ebola, just as you said, to make it a little less deadly so that it could spread more.
		Then there is smallpox, obviously.
		And I just have to laugh.
		I clipped an article out of the paper a while back.
		A woman, a scientist, was going up.
		This is before 9-11 when such things seemed scary but kind of charming.
		She was going up to the Arctic Circle to dig up a couple of victims of the 1918 flu epidemic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, I read that story.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I was horrified.
		I thought, what the heck are you doing?
		The 1918 flu epidemic could have been a hemorrhagic fever.
		The stories that have come from that made it seem, the historical record makes it seem as though that was no flu.
		It killed people way too rapidly and killed them dreadfully.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I too thought, what the hell are you doing up there?
		Why are we doing this?
		Well, they will get perfectly preserved samples of this mass killing stuff.
		Of course, ostensibly to take it back and figure out some sort of, I guess, inoculation against it.
		That would be the blue side, wouldn't it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I guess so.
		Or to find out whether or not what kind of sickness it really was.
		You know, sometimes scientific investigation can go a little too far.
		I just didn't think she needed to do that.
		And luckily, it turned out that the bodies were decomposed and they could not get that I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but Captain trips all the way, right?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		A very Stephen King sort of scenario.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The first hour of King's The Stand, of course, was that stood the hair up on the back of my neck.
		Those first scenes from the stand.
		Do you recall that?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I do.
		And the way that our country and our world is networked together with travel really makes that a potential reality.
		If something gets loose, it could go everywhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if the Russians are working on these things.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Or were, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or were.
		And the Chinese are, and I think they probably are, as opposed to were, don't we have to be vigilant?
		Well, no, I didn't say vigilant.
		No, if they're working, if other people are working on these things, then don't we, in a way, we have to work on them?
		We might not say we're working on them.
		We might say we're working defensively, but there are offensive aspects to this kind of work as well, right?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I think so.
		That's one of the places I didn't get into, Art.
		I applied for a job at the United States Army Aeromedical Research Center, and I didn't get in there.
		Darn it.
		I ended up flying helicopters instead, or flying in helicopters, which was a lot of fun doing helicopter crash investigation.
		But I tried to get in there because I thought, now, what are they doing?
		Is it good?
		Is it bad?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, they have to be actively coming up with defenses if they know Russia or whoever is working on these things.
		And in that effort to get a defensive against it, you have to be able to create it, which means you have to have it.
		Hold on, Bonnie, we're already at the top of the hour.
		My guest is Bonnie Ramthen.
		She was a war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		We will be right back, I think.
unidentified		You're listening to Arkbell somewhere in time.
		Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		Oh, oh, oh, oh, you don't have to go.
		Oh, oh, oh, oh, you don't have to go.
		I, I, I, I, I, I, all those tears I cry.
		I, I, I, I, I, I, I...
		Velvet morning when I'm straight I'm gonna open up your gate And maybe tell you about Phaedra And how she gave me life And how she made it
		in Some velvet morning when I'm straight Flowers growing on a hill Driving flies and duffel deals Learn from us very much Look at
		us but do not touch Phaedra is my name Some velvet morning when I'm straight I'm gonna open up your gate And maybe
		tell you about Phaedra And how she gave me life And how she gave me life You're listening to Art Bell Somewhere in Time On Premier Radio Networks Tonight an encore presentation on of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Phaedra was a very unlucky Greek goddess.
		I wonder if our name is Phaedra.
		Good morning, everybody.
		My guest is a very serious person, Bonnie Ramthan, who was a war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		It's a pretty interesting conversation if you have the stomach for it.
		Back now to my guest, Bonnie Ramthan, who was a war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		So anyway, wrapping up with what we were talking about with regard to Germs.
		You know, Bonnie, even though you can't answer directly because you didn't get in, it wouldn't seem to me that we could afford to have a germ gap, as it were.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but not in offensive weapons.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's, well, is that my optimism, or is that, you know, what is that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I know that our response to a weapon of mass destruction is the one weapon of mass destruction that we acknowledge, which is nuclear weapons.
		If they release smallpox, we do not have a game plan where we release super smallpox against them.
		We nuke them.
		Now, that's not a very pleasant thing to think about either, but that's what our national policy is.
		And I prefer that there's somebody developing germs somewhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In a war scenario of that sort, let's say we got attacked biologically with something awful, Ebola-like, whatever.
		And we responded, let's say it was Iraq, and we responded with nuclear weapons.
		What would be the consequences of that, do you imagine, in the games you play?
		In other words, how many dead would there be in Iraq?
		How much territory would be unlivable for how long?
		That sort of thing.
		Would others likely get involved, or would they stand back on the sidelines saying we don't want a piece of that action?
		Thank you very much.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We don't want a piece of that.
		What the point of nuking back is not revenge.
		That's not the whole idea.
		The whole idea of launching a nuclear assault, shall we say, is to remove the possibility of them hurting us again.
		So you don't nuke to kill people.
		You nuke their facilities.
		Our nuclear response against, let's say, Russia, even during the big bad days, was not to target their cities, their population centers, but to target their missile fields, to target their missiles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I remember the Russians saying they had every town and city over 50,000 targeted.
unidentified		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it was kind of a different policy.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was a different policy.
		And that was their whole mutual assured destruction stance.
		Lots of people think that we had a mutual assured destruction pact with Russia.
		It was like, nobody's going to nuke, you're not going to nuke us because we've got our nukes aimed at your women and children, so don't fire at our women and children.
		That's mutual assured destruction, and that's just so morally bankrupt I can't even imagine anybody subscribing to that theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but a lot of people say that the mad scenario is what prevented nuclear war through all the bad times.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I personally don't agree with that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You don't.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Nope, because we really didn't have a mutual assured destruction.
		They did.
		They targeted our civilian centers because that's their political system.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're saying we didn't target Moscow?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, we targeted Moscow, but Moscow is a military target.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And yes, there are civilians living there.
unidentified		But we didn't target Stalingrad?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, like the equivalent of a Los Angeles.
		The city center's St. Petersburg.
		That's Stalingrad, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, it is now.
		Where, by the way, I must say, a lot of Russian I've been there.
		there's a great deal of russian treasure there as well as uh...
		of course uh...
		uh...
		inside uh...
		of the kremlin i was inside the kremlin god that's and have you been there now uh...
		the jewels to go there okay that's not a very very very much for me at the kremlin it was great And they've got a lot of jewels and a lot of treasure both in Moscow and what it used to be Stelingrad.
		So we wouldn't hit secondary targets of that sort then.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's the idea.
		That's the idea.
		And I watched it happen in a military wargaming sense as opposed to reality.
		I watched where Blue launched and where they landed.
		The concept is very precise, limited strikes that would remove their capability of launching more nuclear weapons.
		On the other hand, what you really want to do is prevent them from getting their nukes into this country and then send in the Marines.
		Let's send conventional forces over.
		We don't need to nuke Baghdad.
		We can take Baghdad with conventional forces.
		What we do need to prevent, if they release smallpox on the world, let's say, is we need to prevent them releasing a secondary, let's say, Ebola or, you know, a flu like in the Stephen King book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you believe that one major attack would be in the minds of our president and the Allies justification for a nuclear response?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's what they say.
unidentified		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And I've played war games where we did, and I've played war games where we didn't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And how did they turn out?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		In those situations, we always won.
		We always won.
		If we kept it from cascading.
		And you know exactly what I mean by cascading.
		Cascading is where India decides, hey, you know, they're not looking.
		I'm going to nuke Pakistan.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's get Pakistan and the problem.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much of that went on, that cascading effect, during those games?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, we played several games where we had a cascade, where India and Pakistan are busy throwing nukes at each other, and China gets into it, and then China decides to launch towards us because they think we're coming in on one of those horrible situations where everyone's trying to settle things down, and it's a mob situation.
		Everything gets worse and worse.
		We did play those games.
		But I don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did they come out, Bonnie?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Once the Soviet Union went down, now China does not have the same capabilities that the old Russia did.
		Russia bankrupted itself building nuclear bombs.
		They do not have the capability to destroy the whole earth.
		But we're looking at a pre-depression situation in this country where we possibly could have two or three different people declaring themselves presidents just because you would lose Washington, D.C. You would lose New York.
		The major city centers would be uninhabitable.
		And people would basically be alive.
		There would be no nuclear winter.
		It would not be a situation where you couldn't grow crops.
		But it would be a situation where you wouldn't have a big federal government.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, looking back at what just occurred on 9-11 and what that did to the probably already, to some degree, in trouble economy, and the scale you're talking about, would be.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it's the worst, Art.
		You'd still have to pay your mortgage, but your 401k would be gone.
		I mean, what worse situation?
		You still have all your debts to pay, but the stock market's been nuked.
		It's not a good situation.
		On the other hand, I remember playing a practice war game, and there was an attack, what we call a decapitation attack, where they're trying to take out Washington, D.C., New York.
		And all the bombs going towards Washington, D.C., this was a practice, all the bombs going towards Washington, D.C. were not getting shot at.
		They were all friendly.
		They were blue colored.
		And I'm just going around trying to figure out what's going on.
		Finally, I get on the intercom and I said, I think we've got a bug in the system.
		Everything going towards Washington is blue.
		And somebody gets on this guy down the, you know, three or four doors down, gets on the intercom and says, oh, that's just me.
		I kind of figured if we took out Washington, things might be better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So there was a little bit of humor, at least every now and then.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Every now and again, there's a little bit of humor.
		So we didn't have a bug in the system.
		We just had somebody who thought maybe Washington, it'd be better not around.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, did people get caught doing these things, pranks?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Probably wouldn't be thought of real well, would it, or would it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, heavens, no.
		That certainly wouldn't be popular with people who lived in Washington.
		We would play these pranks, in a sense, to have fun with each other because it was a very high-stress job.
		And like I said, nightmares occasionally.
		But on the other hand, you want to test out the system.
		You want to say, does this work under any wild scenario that I can come up with?
		What if Australia gets the bomb?
		What if England tries to take us back as a colony?
unidentified		What if the aliens come and we have to...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Whether any scenarios had been played in which the adversary was non-human?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The answer is yeah?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Our practice games we played, non-human adversaries.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		There were games that I didn't play, even at my level of clearance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		And gosh, did that just drive me crazy or what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure it did drive you crazy because you probably had, at that point, you had the book swimming in your mind.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you thought, big time chapter here.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		What are they doing in there?
		How come I can't go in there?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This was a level you couldn't get to?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		This was a level of game that I was not allowed to play.
		I do know, though, that our system was built to play a non-human enemy.
		And a good thing, too, don't you think?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you folks listening to this?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so then, of course, you can't comment on how those particular scenarios played out because you weren't part of them.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I could have turned myself.
		Well, actually, a fly couldn't possibly get into the area where the war games were.
		But if I could have, I would have.
unidentified		But no, I wasn't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just to even know that's going on is pretty interesting by me.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's why I was there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		to even know that's going on, that we're making up scenarios against non-human adversaries.
		Oh, my, my, my, my.
		Now, you know, that would be considered not something that I would imagine our government would do unless they knew something we don't.
		Yeah, I read.
		Is that logical or not?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I think that's absolutely logical.
		Back to my second book, Earthquake Games, is kind of the opposite take on Ground Zero.
		In Ground Zero, my character has worked on a government project that does great good, which is missile defense wargaming.
		It's this incredibly good thing to shoot down nuclear missiles.
		But I could also see how a government project could do evil because I knew that my project was in this area that nobody could get in except those of us with this particular sort of clearance.
		There were buildings on the base in which I worked that I couldn't get into.
		And Arn, believe me, I tried.
unidentified		You tried?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I took a hacky sack.
		I took my lunch bag.
		Oh, I was just looking for a place to practice hacky sack.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you really?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in places where they do retina scans to let you in, they're probably not humored by that, huh?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		They were not amused.
		But then I was, you know, I was in the club, so to speak.
		I made it through the retina scan, so they knew I wasn't a bad guy.
		But no, you cannot come in here and play hacky sack.
		You know, I'd be in the foyer of the building looking around, you know, thinking, hmm, what's going on here?
		And some big guy had come up and start talking to me, and pretty soon they'd elbow me out of the building.
		And I mean, it was a game, and it was part of my writing.
		But it was also because I had started to read extensively about government projects and what they could do.
		And I realized that, yes, there are government projects that could do things that no one else would know about.
		And then I had read that we were using UFO technology in missile defense wargaming, the whole Star Wars thing.
		We were using UFO technology.
		Well, there were no aliens in my cubicle in my area.
		But I saw the potential for keeping those sorts of secrets in other areas.
		So I kind of used that in Earthquake Games to come up with a project.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think it's okay that you have even revealed this tonight?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that they were gaming this?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Because, see, I have told you we practiced that.
		I have not told you that they played that scenario, although I suspect it is true, because that was held at a level beyond my own.
		It's very tantalizing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, but the fact that it was at a level beyond your own, and you're at nuclear war level, a level beyond, boy, what that suggests, Bonnie, gosh.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Gosh.
		But who knows?
		Nothing I ever saw.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But again, because it was at a level beyond yours, and I can imagine yours had to be way up there.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I programmed the silly chessboard.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		What kind of moves were they making on that chessboard that they wouldn't let me see?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Holy.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it's so irritating.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But tantalizing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For how long did you enjoy that work before it began to get you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I was a wargamer for about seven years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Seven years?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a long time, isn't it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It's a long time in a windowless building, let me tell you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right, windowless.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you above ground?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Above ground.
		In a building that was just the most amazing thing.
		You know, I talked earlier about how the wargame center in which I worked was submarine-style doors.
		And I used to go into the building while it was being built because I had my hacky sack in my lunch bag.
		I just wanted to see what was going on.
		The core of the building was, it looked like something right out of aliens, where she goes down and fights the mother alien.
		I had to know, of course, it was built to withstand a nuclear attack at a distance.
		Obviously, it couldn't take a direct hit, but it was built in a sturdy fashion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, they thought you would have to, after a nuclear attack, you would have to keep playing games?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure what.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm wondering about the reasoning for that.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Sometimes the reasoning escapes me, too, really.
		But the core of the building, where a lot of the equipment was run up and down, was a series of catwalks and girders and the most amazing.
		It was beautiful.
		It would be beautiful in an artwork.
		But the other thing that they did in the capsule where we played war games essentially is put an electronic web around it.
		And I wonder sometimes if they weren't trying to interrupt remote viewing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As you know, there was a 20-year U.S. government remote viewing project.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And they know damn well the Russians and the Chinese are both still actively engaged in that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so you think that might have been, or you're just sort of speculating here?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It's a speculation, yes.
		I don't have no, you know, I didn't get told by any of the engineer guys that's what they were doing.
		But I looked as it was being built.
		I was in there, you know, with my lunch bag, poking around, and they had electronic wiring throughout the girders around the area where the War Game Center was being built.
		And, of course, there was the submarine-style doors.
		Now, these, I mean, what in the heck was the point of submarine-style doors?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm trying to figure that out myself.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		There were contrasting copper-metal plates that meshed with each other as the door opened and closed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're kidding?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you're not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're obviously not kidding.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Big, heavy doors, contrasting copper plates.
		And of course, you know, then I read a little bit about remote viewing because I thought, now this is more than trying to intercept electronic surveillance.
		Obviously, a satellite's not going to be able to see into this building.
		There's no windows.
		And there was no way you could park a truck and aim a dish anywhere nearer than half a mile away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good point.
unidentified		So what were they doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then what were they protecting against?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, interesting stuff.
		And I know that remote viewing was successful.
		The Russians did quite a good job with it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Of all the people that I've interviewed that are On the edge.
		The remote viewers have long since convinced me.
		I've interviewed every one of the ones, the major ones in the project, every single one of them.
		And I've long since been a believer in that.
		Bonnie, hold on, we're at the bottom of the hour.
		Bonnie Ranthan is my guest.
		Her books, Earthquake Games and Ground Zero, I've got to read both.
		I'm going to get both.
		I'm guarantee you.
		She booked at the last minute.
		Didn't get a chance to get them first.
		But I'm going to get hold of them.
unidentified		You're listening to Art Bell somewhere in time on Premier Radio Networks tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		In the heat of a summer night, in the land of the Dalabill, when the town of Chicago died, and they talked about it still.
		When a man named out the phone, tried to make that town his own, and he called his gang to war with the forces of the law.
		I heard my mama cry.
		I heard her pray the night Chicago die.
		Brother, what a night it really was.
		Brother, what I thought it really was.
		No.
		Go round by the wind.
		Throw time in a spin.
		Bye.
		I did love about the week.
		I did to the top.
		I did not feel.
		I did have to stop You blow it all sky high I tell you I'm your enemy alive Without a reason why You've blown it all sky high You Oh, oh, oh, oh You go down.
		Everything.
		You're good to come.
		You've blown it all, Sean.
		Oh, my.
		Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
		Tonight's program originally aired April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In Bonnie's work, when the missiles and the streaks began to appear coming over the pole, you know, the big one, they called it the hand of God.
		I'm going to have to think about that for a while.
		The hand of God.
		maybe so Well, if you're like me with these kinds of books, these are two books that I mean, you're just going to have to go for.
		And I checked Amazon.com, five-star all the way.
		Earthquake Games, Ground Zero.
		Both of the books, if you'll go to my website, artbell.com, yeah, the blue screen of death is now off there, folks.
		If you'll go to artbell.com, under tonight's guest, there are going to be links to both of these books.
		Extremely reasonable at amazon.com, as always.
		And these are my kind of books.
		Bonnie, I want to ask you about two contemporary things.
		You know, we've been through the Cold War and the partial wars and all the rest of it as far as the gaming is concerned.
		There are two things going on in the world right now that demand my asking you about them.
		One, of course, is the Middle East.
		Now, biblically, I guess that's where Armageddon is going to occur.
		And if you watch the news lately, it seems like we're, you know, the fat lady's beginning to hum.
		And I don't know how much more the Israelis are going to take.
		I know that they have nuclear weapons buried in the desert.
		I think that's pretty common knowledge.
		And I think their backs are getting pretty far up against the wall.
		Now, how many scenarios did you run on the Middle East, Bonnie?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Many.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Many?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		You know, what is it about the Earth over there?
		It generated the world's greatest religions, but it just seems to also generate unending war.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Many of the scenarios would begin in the Middle East, and some of our cascading scenarios would start in the Middle East.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the Middle East.
		Yeah.
		That's still not out of the question, is it?
		Because, of course, if Israel became involved to the nuclear level, not out of the question, that would no doubt involve us in some way rather quickly.
		And then you don't know about the Russians anymore, depending on what begins to happen to some of their friends.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And the Chinese as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the Chinese.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		If there's somebody who's willing to kick them when they're down, you would not want to be a country vulnerable around China, I would think.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of us or anyone else in the area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do you think the United States would do if the Israelis used nuclear weapons?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I have no idea.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I know that in the scenarios that we ran, the nukes were not used by Israel, but used by us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By us.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in fact, if you look at, for example, the Gulf War, somehow we kept Israel out of it.
		I don't know how we did that.
		I still don't know how we did that.
		There must have been some fancy dancing going on because we kept them out of it.
		And they were in buildings with gas masks.
		I mean, it was that bad in Israel.
		And we kept their hand down and took care of it ourselves.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, in order to quiet the rest of the Arab world so that we could kick Saddam out of Kuwait.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Precisely so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But Israel is more and more up against it right now.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it could turn from what it is right now into a full-fledged war.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's like dry timber just waiting.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That is exactly the image I had.
		They've got a big puff of cotton over there, and everybody's striking matches.
		When is it going to go up?
		I'm not sure what would happen.
		I think that the entire intent is to keep things from going nuclear.
		It would be so easy to put a couple of nukes on Saddam Hussein's biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons facilities over there, or just get a good-sized nuke in the general area.
		And if they say, oh, we didn't have anything there, say, well, look at that big crater.
		Who knows?
		I mean, that's an easy solution, isn't it?
		We're not doing that.
		What we're trying to do is come up with bombs like the ThermoBarrick.
		ThermoBarrick, my new favorite bomb, that does not require nuclear weapons to destroy these facilities.
		So we're really putting forth a great effort here to keep the nukes away, and for good reason.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By the way, they're using these daisy cutters and thermobaric bombs in Afghanistan, and it may be completely unrelated, but there sure have been a lot of earthquakes over there lately.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you noticing that?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Believe me, the title of my second book is Earthquake Games.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And isn't it interesting that there have been two earthquakes in Afghanistan since we went to war there?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I thought it was interesting.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		The premise of my book, Earthquake Games, is that the United States government has a Tesla machine, originally designed by Nikola Tesla, which generates a magnetic Earth resonance pulse, which causes a fault line then to vibrate harmonically and sets off an earthquake.
		Now, I originally got this idea because in 1994...
		Not so wild.
		In 1994, there was an earthquake in Northridge in California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And I heard that all of the National Guard and police were on alert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Prior to the earthquake?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Prior to the earthquake.
		And that was my big gotcha.
		I thought, oh, my goodness, what if they didn't predict it?
		They caused it.
		And then I read about, you know, then it all falls into place from there, that in order to prevent major earthquakes like what happens in places like South America or Turkey or now Afghanistan, you create a smaller earthquake that bleeds that pressure off that fault so you don't get the killer earthquake.
		But of course, that kind of power in the hands of a secret government organization is very tempting to turn towards your own purposes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you believe that kind of power exists?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I believe in the Tesla machine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So do I. I mean, as we all know, they beat feet right in as soon as Tesla passed and took everything he had away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And they still have it.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Under the War Powers Act, they still have it.
		I have this great scene in my book where they go into, and my CIA analyst, of course, who has the requisite clearances, goes into this labyrinth world to find the Tesla files.
		It was so fun to write as fiction because it's so close to reality.
		They have all the Tesla files.
		So my book came out, Earthquake Games, and while I was doing the first series of publicity on the hardback, there was another earthquake.
		And it was January 13th, 2001, over Martin Luther King Day weekend.
		The January 17th, 1994 earthquake was on Martin Luther King Day weekend.
		And I was thinking, wow, you know, either nature has an affinity for Martin Luther King Day or there's something to this.
		It was a lot of fun to write the book, but the more I delved into it, the more I realized that it parallels reality almost too much.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Almost too much, right.
		All right.
		Let's try this one.
		The buildings came down in New York.
		The Pentagon was attacked by yet another plane.
		And behind this, it is said, in quotes, is Osama bin Laden.
		What do you think you know about Osama bin Laden?
		And what should we, if you were war gaming the scenario, knowing what you know now about Osama's willingness and capability, what kind of gaming would you be doing about this?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We actually gamed this scenario.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Excuse me.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Except with nuclear weapons and not with planes.
		And believe me, while I was weeping with the rest of the world over what happened, I mean, I couldn't believe that we never thought of that and that we never gamed aircraft.
		Of course, I also know that in 1985, was it during the Reagan administration, an airliner was shot down in the Persian Gulf.
		It was an Iranian airliner that had some problem with their communication systems, and our aircraft carrier shot it out of the sky.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it was an Aegis-controlled system that shot it down.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's what it is.
		The Aegis system.
		Aegis systems can shoot down missiles.
		They can shoot down aircraft.
		Kind of like one by my house, really.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you know, usually you wouldn't expect the Aegis system and those running it to make that kind of a mistake, would you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		No, you wouldn't.
		On the other hand, you know, this was a major threat to an aircraft carrier.
		It is the right and province of an aircraft carrier to kill things that are coming to kill it.
		They made a huge mistake.
		They killed a lot of innocent people.
		And so in response to this, there was an executive order signed.
		Gosh, don't you love those executive orders?
		That only a presidential directive could be, that a presidential directive had to be signed in order to shoot down an airliner.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It wasn't in effect.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It was in effect on 9-11?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it is no longer in effect.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Bush rescinded the order.
unidentified		Uh-huh.
unidentified		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		So we gamed 9-11.
		It's called a decapitation attack.
		And what you do, and they used airliners, which is Quite unconventional of them, but brilliant.
		They use airliners to essentially do what we've gamed in a nuclear sense.
		You take out Washington, D.C., the capital, the White House, the Pentagon.
		You take out the financial district of New York.
		Then you take out several city centers, such as Atlanta, and what's the other one we always gamed, of course, Colorado Springs, because that's got the NORAD and Wargaming Missile Defense and Peterson Air Force Base and the Air Force Academy.
		So that's definitely ground zero.
		And several other city centers, and then that's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about Nillis Air Force Base?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Was that a zero?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		No.
unidentified		No.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You would think that Nevada would be a target, but that's not one of the things that we're doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about our test site in Area 51?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I would think that you'd try and cover the waterfront there in Nevada, but for some reason.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It was never part of it.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		It was not a decapitation attempt.
		I believe the reasoning behind that was basically in Nevada you had all of the pawns, not the major chess pieces.
		You have to have the king and the queen on your chessboard in order to direct those pawns.
		So why take out Nevada when they are pawns?
		Now, this is a philosophy, the decapitation attempt is a philosophy that comes from people who believe that you have the ruling elite and then a bunch of peasants.
		So once you knock off the ruler, like what happened in Afghanistan, then everybody descends into tribes and they fight each other, which is not really what America is all about.
		But that's the concept.
		So what they did on 9-11 was they failed in a decapitation attempt.
		They hit the World Trade Center first, which allowed the alert to go out.
		They grounded the plane so the other terrorists on the planes were not able to complete their missions.
		And then, of course, the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon may have been aimed at the White House, may have been aimed at the Capitol.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And or the one that went down in Pennsylvania due to the heroic efforts of those passengers could have been headed for the White House.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Most definitely was headed either for the White House or the Capitol Pelagio.
unidentified		Sure.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And who would have been president if they had succeeded in their attempt and they had taken out the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know because I don't know where Dick Cheney was at the time.
unidentified		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And if the president had been in the White House, they didn't know he wasn't.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But if he'd been at the White House and they had taken out, basically, the first three or four in the command structure, you know, you might have two or three different people, like a hi in a bunker in Omaha saying, I'm the president now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You might have.
		Now, do you remember there was a very interesting sort of story that hasn't been reported on much since it occurred.
		But the president, of course, I believe was in Florida.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got on a plane and went hop, skipping, and jumping all over the place in the strangest way during all of this.
		And there were reports of credible threats against Air Force One.
		Do you remember all that?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I do.
		I do.
		And there was no, there was reason to believe, certainly I would have believed, that if they were doing an attack like that, that the secondary wave might have been a suitcase nuclear bomb.
		So, you know, don't go back to Washington, D.C., Mr. President, because there may not be one if we go back there.
		So he forced them to go back to Washington, D.C. in the evening, basically to say, you know, to show that he was not a coward, you know, that he wasn't being hidden in some bunker.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but for a while, some strange things went on, and later sort of denials and confirmations of it, then denials.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, something weird happened there.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, and I've played war games where I've seen, it's so interesting to watch what happens when you apply pressure in unexpected ways to people who are used to dealing with A, B, C, and D, and you throw them W. Right.
		Then sometimes they don't really panic in a sense that you or I would panic because these are trained military men and women who've been to the war college and everything.
		But what they'll do is they'll start throwing, you know, into the mix, they'll start throwing different things trying to find a solution.
		You know, they'll start fitting those puzzle pieces in.
		Okay, what about this?
		Okay, what about this?
		What about this?
		And it's pretty frantic.
		You know, I remember seeing a very, he was a Marine.
		I love the Marines.
		And he was just in a purple-faced rage because he was trying to save the Earth and everything was going wrong.
		And he couldn't get the proper commands out.
		And I think something like that must have happened.
		It was so unexpected that what they were trying to do was say, okay, what about this scenario?
		What about that scenario?
		We've got to go here.
		Okay, vote about there.
		And then things started to settle down a little bit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you think what we saw was a state of official confusion?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if confusion is the good word or more of so many options.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, confusion as a result, though, isn't a bad word either.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I guess not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a dangerous word.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Confusion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So, Osama bin Laden, have we do you believe that we have decapitated al-Qaeda?
		Or do you think that there is significant threat?
		I mean, the government certainly seems to think there is continuing significant threat.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I do too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I do.
		I think there are terrorist cells in this country.
		And our government, I'm really a fan of our military.
		I think our military is doing a really good job in Afghanistan.
		As far as the government agencies in this country, I'm not real confident that they're doing a good job.
		For example, the flight certificate approvals that were given to two of the dead terrorists by the INS.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		When people say, oh, the FBI is on top of all those terrorist cells, oh, really?
		How about the ones that we know are already dead?
		And they're giving approval for them to take flight lessons in this country.
		That's not very encouraging.
		I think that al-Qaeda was supported by some state.
		When you get a decapitation attempt, and that's really a point I wanted to make about talking about 9-11 in terms of a military strike.
		This was not a terrorist strike.
		This was a classic military maneuver.
		That does not sound to me like some whack job in a cave somewhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if you were guessing, would you be guessing Iraq, for example?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I would.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Although I'm not a big client.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the government obviously must be guessing Iraq as well, because all the signs are pointing toward.
		Well, when you start hearing about policy changes and you start hearing about a trifecta of evil or whatever.
		Yeah, the axis of evil.
		That was it, the axis of evil.
		That means that we know something and we're beginning to shape public opinion for what's going to happen.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think so.
		Again, my favorite word of the week, thermobaric bomb.
		They're not dropping that on Afghanistan just for fun.
		They're taking it out.
		And a good thing, too.
		To me, really, the thing that scares me most in the world is contemplating something like that loosened the world and raging.
		A biological attack is really scary.
		And in order to stop someone like Saddam from using that, because he will, if he gets a chance, he will use it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No doubt about that, right?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, I don't think any doubt about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Based on what he's already done, if he has the ability to do this, from our point of view, he's absolutely crazy enough to do it.
unidentified		Right.
unidentified		And look what he did to Kuwait.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		He has proven that he is not of the 21st century.
		He believes that he can impose his will on other countries.
		He gassed the Kurds.
		He sent doctors in to take notes on how far away from the gas canisters the bodies lay.
		He's doing scientific experiments to see how efficiently he can kill.
		And I think that there's a good policy to go in and take him out.
		I'm not real happy about it.
		And you know what I'm really frightened about is not our military guys in the Persian Gulf going after Saddam?
		Because these are guys that are well-trained.
		They've got good equipment.
		A lot of them have been in this part of the country before.
		They know the terrain.
		What I'm nervous about is here in this country.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We're targets.
		We are targets of their terrorist selves.
		So, no, the Iraqi Republican Guard is not going to be able to withstand our Marines.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, of course not.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But they believe in fighting war in a different way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They've already proven that.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		They certainly have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hold on, Bonnie.
		We're at the top of the hour.
		We will open phone shortly.
		I'm Art Bell.
		Bonnie Ramthan, who was a war gamer for the Department of Defense, is my guest.
unidentified		You're listening to Art Bell somewhere in time.
		Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		You know, you know, don't come beaver.
		I'm just waiting for you if you wanna sing the words.
		And you know, don't come easy.
		You don't have to shout things about easy.
		When all of the colors are black, it's not that the colors are there.
		It's just imagination.
		Everything's the same back in my little town.
		I know there's a little bit back in my little town.
		Nothing but the day and night back in my little town In my little town I never meant
		nothing, I was just my father's son Saving my money, dreaming of glory
		Twitching like a finger You're listening to Art Bell somewhere in time on Premier Radio Networks tonight an oncore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning everybody.
		Bonnie Ramthen, who is a war gamer for the Department of Defense, ours, the big games, is my guest headline so far.
		She admitted to us here that at levels above her security clearance, they wargame against non-human enemies.
		I repeat, she told us they wargamed against non-human enemies at a level she couldn't even get to with her security clearance.
unidentified		Think about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, here's Bonnie Ransom.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bonnie, again, with Saddam, you really expect that within, say, a year, within six months, thermobaric bombs are going to be going off over there?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Hopefully, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hopefully, yes.
unidentified		Yeah, I really do.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Unless some miracle occurs and somebody gets a nice, he slips in the shower.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Slips in the shower.
		Yeah, well, we've been hoping for that for a long time.
		Now, I understand why they did not go in and finish the job during the Gulf War, because they wanted to keep Saddam down but not out.
		They were almost worried about who might come after Saddam, and they were worried about Iran coming in.
		And, you know, they had a lot of reasons, geopolitical reasons, for not finishing the job, I guess.
		But in retrospect, We really should have gone in there and finished, eh?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I think so.
		But I'm not, again, I'm not aware of all the different reasons that they chose not to do so.
		And I don't know if we are going to go in again and take care of the job this time.
		I have hopes.
		I have suppositions based on playing enough games to know that when you get a bad guy of this magnitude, you don't wait for him to knock more pieces off your side of the board.
		You have to strike at him.
		But that doesn't mean that we're going to do so.
		I hope we do.
		I think that there's a lot of people who have fears of what will happen if we do.
		I'm one of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		A lot of people want to talk to you, which is not a surprise to me, so let us begin.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Bonnie Ranthan.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Bonnie.
		How are you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Hi, I'm fine.
unidentified		My question, and actually I've got a comment first, this nuclear war thing just scares the BGUs out of me.
		I've got a 13-year-old son, and I'm five months pregnant right now.
		And to think what our kids are growing up in or are going to grow up in just scares me to death.
		My question, though, is you had said something about going through the retinal scan.
		You had said also that you could carry a lunchbox.
		Was there any special kind of clothing you could wear, anything that you could or could not take into the room with you?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		No, actually, it was funny because when they would go through our bags, occasionally they would do random checks and go through our bags.
		At the time, I was a nursing mom, and boy, did they have a difficult time with my breast pump.
		And the sport guards were so embarrassed.
		And I said, I'm sorry, guys, but this is just what I have to do.
		So, yeah, we would get our bags searched, and occasionally they would come up with something interesting like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What a secret Tesla technology.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Secret, super secret.
		Mother technology.
		And the other thing, too, is I think our children are growing up in a much more safer world than we did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you really?
unidentified		I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I wonder about that.
		You know, the old mad scenario, which you don't believe in, I sort of always did.
		I thought, gee, that's what kept nuclear war away was the fact that we would destroy it.
		You know, it's suicidal.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It exactly is right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And I'm not saying that I didn't believe in it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		but but that that world is essentially crumbled right now money and what we're left with is I don't know, six days now, six of them or whatever it is.
		It's been every single day.
		Now, what if other groups begin to adopt that kind of strategy?
		And the reason I say that is because it is either hard or even impossible to stop anyone willing to give their life to take yours.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's true.
		But it is a terrible thing that is going on right now.
		But in the macro sense, in the Earthwide sense, you're not destroying, let's say, the very last wild tiger because India and Pakistan nuke each other.
		You are not destroying habitat that people can live in.
		You're destroying people and you're creating war.
		But no more war than was waged in World War II or World War I or when the Romans took on the Brits in Gladiator.
		This is battle of a kind that does not have the potential to destroy this Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And that's more of a comfort.
		I think that the chances of planet-wide destruction are less now than they have ever been.
		And that's a good thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but destruction still on a massive level is obviously not only possible, but just occurred.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, most definitely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Onward.
		Wildcard line, you are on the air with Bonnie Runtham.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Bonnie.
unidentified		It's Bob from Los Angeles.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Bob.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm just wondering, a quick thing.
unidentified		I've worked in defense a little bit in some weird categories.
		I was wondering, have you ever met some guys?
		They call them CIA, but they're real tall individuals, men.
		They look very healthy and good-looking.
		Have you ever met these individuals?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I had some CIA guys brief me occasionally, me and the members of my team.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And, oh, yeah.
		We had the CIA in there.
		And I would love to think of the CIA as being tall, good-looking guys, but they were real boobs.
		I'm sorry.
		And that's just the word I have to use for them.
		I didn't like them.
		They were arrogant.
		They had this attitude that they knew everything.
		And I just didn't like those guys at all.
		But they were neither tall, good-looking, nor particularly intelligent.
unidentified		The guys who we dealt with were always tall.
		They came in, and if every communicated, they got face-to-face with each other and they whispered to each other.
		Do you guys do this?
		Is this that same thing too?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Nope, that didn't happen to me.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But the CIA is a big organization, you know, big-time guys.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you would characterize them as arrogant boobs?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Arrogant boobs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, did you only have a very small sampling of CIA interaction, or were you able to observe a disproportionate number of boobs?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		My statistical sampling of boobs was very small.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very small.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Hopefully, there was a large cadre of very smart, intelligent, good-looking guys and ladies out there, but I never met them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		At least intelligent.
		That's right.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Bonnie Ramson.
		Hi.
		Hello.
unidentified		This is Doug.
unidentified		I'm in Tennessee.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Doug.
unidentified		And my question for Bonnie is, in your expert opinion, is Oak Ridge, are they doing anything that still makes them a viable target?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I don't believe so.
		Although in a large-scale attack, yes, Oak Ridge would definitely take a hit.
		But we don't really see those kind of large-scale attacks happening anymore.
		You would see more of the major sites.
		Again, as in Nevada, you don't knock over the ponds.
		You just try and take out the major chess pieces.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very, very relieving for you and I, sir.
unidentified		Yes, thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not so relieving for the financial centers like New York.
		Yeah.
		the political capital, Washington, of course.
		These are still viable targets even in today's environment, yes?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Most definitely.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, who are essentially representative of the goodness of our country and the tolerance and what these Islamo-fascists consider to be the decadence of our country.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		particularly egregious areas.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, for them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And yet they still went for the Eastern targets.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, because Los Angeles would be a second-tier hit, a cosmetic hit, a hit against America's spirit.
		What they were trying to do, I believe, was a military hit, which was decapitation.
		We always had these great terms in war games.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so, really, the hope of decapitation is that, again, that so much confusion reigns that, as you pointed out, you get people in bunkers, in mountains, declaring themselves president, that sort of thing.
unidentified		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And look at what happened to Afghanistan.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		that's not out of out of uh...
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		it's not unreasonable that it could be that bad here i don't believe no they could be that that here but i'm an optimist i can hear that and more than a You wouldn't think that kind of work would turn you into an optimist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Quite to the contrary.
		You would think it would.
		I don't know.
		I would think you'd get.
		That's the right word.
		What am I searching for?
		I think you would get.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Jaded or cynical.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Cynical, really cynical, yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Pessimistic about the world's chances.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Instead, you know, I really felt like I was putting on the...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, by percentage, Bonnie, how many of these war games that you played out, these real serious ones, ended up in peace and love and roses?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		If you think of it as a bell curve or a curve, like a stock market curve, you start out losing most of your games, and then you start winning, and then you plateau out.
		So only the most serious situations descend into really nuclear strikes succeeding in landing and killing people.
		Most of the scenarios that we played, once we got our, I'm trying to think of a phrase that is not scatological in reference, once we got our manure in a group, we started winning these battles without a nuclear weapon hitting the ground.
		And that includes our own.
		So yeah, it was pretty optimistic after a while.
		And, you know, the occasional scenario would be run where that wouldn't happen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I was going to ask, are there ways that we could win with first use of a nuclear weapon in a situation like, for example, Iraq?
		Suppose we didn't have the thermobaric bomb, or suppose it's not considered an appropriate response to something that might yet occur.
		There would be certain political pressure to use the ultimate weapon, to use nuclear weapons, wouldn't there?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		You mean us using the bomb first?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, sure.
		I mean, for example, if we were attacked biologically, not beyond reason at all.
		In fact, they seem to be expecting it.
		Wouldn't there be an awful lot of political pressure not to just detonate some sort of fuel air bomb, but to detonate the real McCoy?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think there would be.
		And in fact, although we never played a war game where we struck first in the military sense, in our practice war games, we'd go psycho all the time.
		And the war game start on luncheon first.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And yeah, you always win those wars.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But who wants to be the first one?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In fact, you said you always win those wars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So when you the first strike, and I don't know, I've heard different rumors that we have sworn off first strike.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then I hear that we haven't sworn off first strike.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So I don't really know.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We've sworn off first strike as an offensive weapon.
		What we have not sworn off is striking in a nuclear sense against a weapon of mass destruction, which is biological or chemical.
		So if they hit us with a big chemical weapon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would be a first nuclear strike.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Then, right.
		It would be our response perhaps might be nuclear, but that would not be considered a first strike.
		Or that gets into all the little politics of meanings of words.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the scenarios that you run in those cases, when you gain that, how many times or what percentage of the time or on your bell curve does it get out of control or what percentage do we win?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		With first strike?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We never played first strike with the military, only the practice sessions.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And that is very important because it's very well known that we do not have in our options first strike.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but in other words, I would like to know if we're attacked biologically and we do first strike with nuclear weapons, say at Iraq, what kind of result there would be or might be.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, bad for the people in Baghdad, let's put it that way.
		Good for us in the sense of it does not cascade.
		In a situation like that, when you're dealing with a rogue state, China looks the other way, Russia looks the other way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even though there's been support from both those countries.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, towards Iraq, the cascading doesn't happen in the case where you've got some kind of biological weapon loose on the earth.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		China doesn't want that, and Russia doesn't want that any more than we do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't worry, Bonnie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even though Russia is now what it is, and that's something different than when it was the Soviet Union, they are now watching us build a generation of space-based defense weapons.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And ground-based.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And ground-based.
		And there's certainly a line of thinking that your weapons are about to be made, your situation is going to be made academic and moot because you can't hit this other country with these weapons.
		So there comes a sort of a strange point where you have to make a decision to either use them or lose them.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, interesting point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And one that I would imagine you've gained.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That other countries have a missile defense system as well.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's, gosh, that's now I wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're quite you have a country that can't afford it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Like Russia can't afford it, really.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Yeah, and that's the point where, you know, do you trust your government or not?
		Do you trust your government to have the ultimate weapon and a missile defense system and therefore to be able to say, you know, I don't know, all the beautiful Russian women come over here or we're going to nuke you.
		You would hope that our government wouldn't do that.
		And so far in our history, we haven't.
		We had our time of empire where we went out and conquered territory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But still, if we build this, there is going to come that interesting moment where the Russians, which still, after all, do pay attention to things, are going to say, look, if this goes any further at all, our weapons are useless.
		We either use them now or who's to say it isn't already built, sorry?
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Bonnie Ramthan.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, that would be me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, That would be you, sir.
unidentified		Hi, everybody.
		I have a brief comment, then a question, and then a comment if I don't run too long.
		I have been basically pointed at the future my entire lifetime in my late 40s now.
		Ever since I was the Geiger counter monitor in the sixth grade in Southern California when we were doing these pathetic duck and cover exercises under our desks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, I did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I did that.
unidentified		And I had to find a small needle head of radium salts with the Geiger counter just to see if we could do it.
		And I was raised in a Christian household, and so I was raised on nuclear war and apocalypse, my whole teens.
		And everything I have heard tonight seems like absolute kids' play.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How so, sir.
unidentified		Everything I've heard seems absolutely like sandbox stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How so?
unidentified		So that leads to my question.
		Maybe I'll get the comment after that.
		Maybe.
		What is your assessment, Bonnie, of the white plague scenario?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		White plague.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Is that Frank Herbert's book regarding making women sterile?
unidentified		Is that the concept that a rogue, genius-level molecular biologist could change the face of humanity alone?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, don't we always teeter on the edge of disaster?
		You know, there have been many disasters of many kinds that have swept the world.
		That's one of them.
		Again, I'm an optimist.
		I think that we face these things as they come.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The white plague scenario saying that one rogue scientist would do what?
unidentified		Bonnie.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
		It's, and I haven't read the book, actually.
		It's that he creates some sort of plague that makes all women sterile.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All women.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		So therefore, that's the end of the human race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That would be the end of the human race, wouldn't it?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Bonnie, hold on.
		Lots more people out there for you.
		He didn't get to the comment, but it was an interesting question.
		All human women sterile?
		That would do it in a generation or so, eh?
unidentified		You're listening to Arkbell somewhere in time on Premier Radio Networks tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
		Close my eyes But I couldn't find a way So I said I'd hope one day to leave you Tell
		me, tell me Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies Tell me lies Oh no, no, you can't discuss You can't discuss
		All the times have come
		Here, but now they're gone Seasons don't feel the reefers Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain We could meet our day out Come on, baby Don't feel the reefers Baby, take my hand Don't feel the reefers You're missing one bell somewhere in time.
		Tonight, featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from April 1st, 2002.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anybody out there remember the spam, Stephen King's spam, and the televised version?
		In the first hour, in the first part of the first hour, they played this song when it got loose.
		I'll never forget it.
		Stood the hair on the back of my neck right up, and I've been playing it ever since, and it seemed just right for tonight.
		Once again, Bonnie Ramthen, who is a war gamer for the Department of Defense.
		Strange job.
		Really strange job.
		Bonnie, you have many times made an analogy between chess and war gaming.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you play chess?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I used to.
		Kind of gave up on it.
		My life's been a little busy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think that most chess players are men?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, men are hardwired to be better at spatial relationships, just as women are hardwired in other ways to be good at other things.
		They're just better at it.
		We certainly had female war gamers and we had military people who played war games.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And did the female players play in a different way?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, most definitely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Although, you know, they weren't saying, oh, you know, we must save the children.
		They were quite willing to fight the battle.
		But women have different ways of looking at things, and that's why it's good to have both women and men fighting a battle.
		Because they have, although I'm not a big believer of having them on the battlefield carrying guns, for example, because it's sort of physical strength requirement out there in the field.
		But as far as the mental capabilities go, you need that dichotomy.
		You need both men and women looking at the same problem together.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then, would you or would you not be comfortable with a woman president in charge of the football?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		What an interesting question that is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I trust.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		As long as it was me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's an interesting evasion of an answer.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It would depend on the woman, really.
		I wouldn't mind if Margaret Thatcher was reincarnated as a younger woman and became the president.
		She was brilliant and strong and moral and all those things.
		But there are women I would not care to see with the football in any way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Welcome to the Rockies.
		You're on the air With Bonnie.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good evening.
unidentified		I had a question for you and your guest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		March 9th in the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, there was an article on polio vaccinations that were given between 1955 and 1963.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I took one of those.
unidentified		Okay, all right.
		Oh, I'm so sorry, man.
		I understand they do understand to know where the territories are, but the potential, if you look at the article and give it any veracity, and they're pretty good, you know, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and University of Texas said that 42 to 43 percent of up to 30 million people vaccinated in that time period would potentially have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
		Now, that's about 12.9 million people potentially, if that doesn't play into the same scenario from just possibly our own blender.
		I don't know what else.
		I wondered if your guest was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, let me convert that unhappy little scenario to a question.
		Bonnie, when you play war games, usually you're dealing with intentional acts.
		Did you ever game unintentional accidents?
		Release of this or that, or kind of what the man was talking about?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, actually one of the most interesting war games we played was one where some eco-terrorists took over a missile silo and launched, hoping to launch at Washington, D.C. But the twist, which I thought was really amusing, was that the missile was misfired and headed towards Seattle.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was going to take out the grunge movement.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not Seattle.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Usually, in most war games, I have been entirely depressed to see Las Vegas usually be the first target.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in massive attacks, that's one target.
		Seattle's always a target because of Boeing.
		They'll have Boeing, yeah.
		But this was a complete accident that was happening.
		They were intending to launch at Washington, D.C. and ended up aiming the thing at Seattle.
		And here's a missile that's targeted or not targeted by all of our systems because it's a friendly.
		And we had to, the first time we played that, Seattle was toast.
		And then we figured out a way to save them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To save Seattle?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Well, we figured out a way to say our missiles now are bad guys.
		Let's shoot them down with our own missile defense system.
		And in fact, we had a situation where the incoming attack was coming.
		We had started to, you know, the blue guys had jumped the gun again and were launching back.
		We shot down all the missiles coming in, and then we turned right around and shot down all the missiles going out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, really?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, that's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that interesting?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that an interesting scenario?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because, you know, once those missiles impacted in the country or are outgoing, then they would turn around and launch everything they had left.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		So we shot them down ourselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To stop it.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, to stop the war.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You may remember a movie in which Moscow was destroyed essentially by accident.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then New York was destroyed to prevent what otherwise would have occurred.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, it was a sacrifice play.
unidentified		That's right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I just hated that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller line, you're on the air with Bonnie Ramfin.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, I was listening to a senior fellow from the War College, John Pellich here, and he said we have to be very on guard against a massive disinformation and propaganda campaign building up for a pretext to attack Iraq.
		And I'd like to mention a couple standards here where the United States government is hoarding more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined.
		It's used them and others to kill millions of people around the world from Hiroshima to Vietnam to Iraq.
		It's making now terrorist nuclear threats against seven countries.
		It supports and has installed death squad regimes around the world.
		And it refuses to allow weapons inspectors into the United States ever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but sir, aside from all that, we're pretty nice guys.
unidentified		Well, yeah, if you consider killing hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq that hasn't done absolutely nothing to us, and yet we turn around and hypocritically say that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Whoa, slow down, slow down.
		Who's to say they've done nothing to us?
		How do you know they weren't behind Osama bin Laden's recent action?
		How do you know that?
unidentified		As a matter of fact, they hate each other.
unidentified		How does anyone who knows that they absolutely hate each other, and Osama bin Laden has been involved in anti-Semitic?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, whether or not they don't know whether they hate each other, but the fact of the matter is they have common goals.
		That would be our eradication.
		They're building weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as fast as they can.
		They're underground.
		We all know it.
		So I'm sorry, but I just don't buy into that man's line of reasoning.
		However.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And I'm not a disinformation plant or anything.
		I don't get paid by the government.
		I have trouble buying socks.
unidentified		If I were disinformation, wouldn't I be getting lots of money?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I'm an independent citizen, and in fact, I worked as a war gamer with the idea in mind that I would face whatever I had to face if there was something evil going on.
		I got those clearances, and if they were going to show me something that was harmful to America, I was going to expose it.
		So I'm on the side of the good guys here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, some of what he says in some ways is true.
		We are an aggressive country in a lot of ways.
		I mean, we have been involved in a lot of wars.
		I like to think on the good side, but we indeed have been involved.
		We are sort of a warrior-like people here in the U.S. Would you agree with that?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, only in the sense that we're the biggest kid on the block, and everybody always tries to bloody our nose.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And sometimes you just have to keep them from punching you out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Bonnie Ranthon.
		Hi.
unidentified		That me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's you.
unidentified		Yeah, your question was just a quick observation.
		Obviously, Bonnie is very articulate, probably with a genius level IQ.
		But I can't help but wonder, Bonnie, I wonder if you took it into consideration.
		I mean, you had people like, of course, recently Robert Hanson, DNC Counterintelligence FBI.
		You had CIA Mould.
		You had John Walker, naval code clerk who was actually in the chain of communications command for the National Command Authority between them and the Ohio-class boats.
		I mean, as you look at all these things, you talk about we'd shoot their missiles down if they went for Los Angeles.
		Man, we don't have any capacities.
		We'd shoot many incoming missiles down, and you should well know it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right, now hold it right there.
		Now, we did another test the other day with a launch from Vandenberg in which we did, in fact, successfully shoot down a missile that we fired, so we knew where it was coming from and all the rest of it.
		But we did.
		Now, the statement he made or the challenge he gave you was that we have no defense whatsoever to stop a missile aimed, say, at Los Angeles.
		True or false?
unidentified		False.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		False.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Put a carrier in the bay and turn on the Aegis missile defense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Assuming that you know it's coming or that you can get a carrier in place fast enough after a launch, yes.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if it was a submarine launching against Los Angeles, which the Chinese have threatened, there's not going to be much of a way to stop that in time, is there?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Unless we have ground-based interceptors.
		And I don't know that we have ground-based interceptors, but I don't know that we don't.
		So that's, I've been out of the game here for a while.
		I hope they've been working hard while I've been gone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		East of the Rockies.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Bonnie.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, Art.
unidentified		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm all right, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm in Omaha.
		Omaha.
		I'm assuming it might be another ground zero.
		Would it be, Bonnie?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it sure once was.
unidentified		It sure was once.
		I have a curiosity question.
		I hope they'll be still in the beans, but as far as protecting ourselves, did they consider our bodies of water upstream from dams as a potential critical site to protect?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I think they are protecting them right now.
unidentified		I just want, you know, because considering what goes, look at all what could be taken out from downstream to create a lot of havoc.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Poisoning the water supplies is the most definite terrorist threat.
		The other thing, an interesting sidebar to that is when September 11th happened, my brother was coming to the mountains.
		He was hunting, and he came home, and they had shut down one bore of the Eisenhower Tunnel with tanks.
		Now, where were those tanks?
		I mean, I drive through the Eisenhower Tunnel occasionally.
		I've never seen tanks, and they were there within hours of the attack.
		Yeah, they shut down one bore so that the other, so if there was a terrorist bomb, then there would still be one tunnel that would survive.
unidentified		I've traveled through that, and it's quite a lengthy tunnel.
		It takes a period of time to get through there.
		So, I mean, it could definitely go ahead and trap a lot of vehicles if it wasn't protected too closely either.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, and really disrupt commerce.
		Sure, if you actually take it out.
		Now, the question is, how did they get the tanks there so quickly?
		They got the tanks there so quickly because they'd already thought of it.
		They named it already.
unidentified		All right, one plug?
		Yes.
		The CC Radio Plus?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		Only got two words, totally complete.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
unidentified		It's a voila machine.
		I know.
		Have a good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
		Take care.
		It certainly is.
		Welcome to the Rockies.
		You're on the air with Bonnie Ramthan.
		Hi.
		No, I didn't press a button.
		Now you're on the air, I think.
		Hello?
unidentified		Art?
		Yes.
		Hey, this is Ron from Portland, Oregon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Ron.
unidentified		Hey, I and people that I know are completely convinced that there is foreign troop activity in the United States.
unidentified		Is there any kind of confirmation on that or what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's foreign troop training going on here.
		I'm not aware of any invasion force, although the other thing that might be argued is that there are cells here that wish us ill will and may still be here.
		And I think if you listen to the government and what they're saying, Bonnie, you may agree or disagree, but there are clearly indications they are still here waiting to do something.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Right, waiting for orders.
		Yeah.
		Hopefully being disrupted one by one, but we don't know that.
		As far as foreign troop activities in this country, that's out of my area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller line, you're on the air with Bonnie Rampton.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		Hello, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		And hello, Bonnie.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		My question, I've sometimes read in the past the safest places to live per se.
unidentified		Short of global destruction, would you, Bonnie, have any clue through all the war games that you've played, where could possibly be one of the safest places to live?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Safe places, short of all-out nuclear war, Bonnie, where would be the safest places?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		That's a really good question.
		In fact, the safest place in this country is pretty much anywhere, even in the area of a nuclear detonation, we're still looking at a situation where the people in the blast zone would die, but we have enough infrastructure to save people out of the blast zone.
		So even if you were living in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and they got off a nuke in the center Washington, D.C. area, many, many people would survive and would, in fact, you know, they may be at higher risk for the money.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But you're telling me about unsafe places.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where would be a really safe place, all things considered?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		All things considered, I guess what I'm saying is there's no place any safer than any other place.
		I was joking the other day about, you know, just because they get a missile off that aim for Washington, D.C. doesn't mean it's going to land there.
		It may land anywhere.
		So there's really no safe place.
		But there's no unsafe place either.
		Really, we're not talking about War Day or the Final Testament or whatever it was, Testament.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, that was a bad one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That was really a bad one.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		This is not the end of the world.
		This is a war situation like World War II.
		Where was it safest to be in Europe during World War II?
		Well, you know, not very good to be in Auschwitz.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The movie, I mentioned earlier that I've seen every movie in the genre, including Testament.
		And Testament, of course, was so bad by, and I love watching these movies.
		Testament was so bad, that's one that I haven't gone back to rewatch.
		That's how bad it was.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'd have to agree there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that that scenario depicted in that movie is possible or would have been possible in an all-out war?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, it would have been possible in an all-out war.
		And maybe that's the reason I couldn't even watch it.
		I could not finish that movie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God, it was horrible.
unidentified		It was.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was terrible.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		But that kind of situation is something that people are afraid of because they were raised with this 70s diet of a nuclear destruction, nuclear winter, nothing left on Earth, but cockroaches.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		Right.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And we're not looking at that situation.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We're looking at a bad, dirty bomb that goes off and kills people, and then we recover and go on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Bonnie Ransom.
unidentified		Hi.
		And I'm on a cell phone.
		I know you hate that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm calling from, if it's okay, I'll just give a general area, the Omaha area.
		Okay.
		Because I'm also a police officer, so I've missed quite a bit of the show tonight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
unidentified		And that's why I don't want to say exactly where, in case one of my supervisors is listening.
unidentified		But Bonnie, if there is some sort of attack from Iraq and we attack back, and you brought up the cascading effect, what possibility do you see that cascading out of control if we do use these new thermo-type bombs?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		I don't think that we would see a cascade effect in those situations.
		You really see a cascading effect where you're going into countries, not our country, but some other countries like India and Pakistan or China and Russia attacking each other.
		What do they call that?
		The bear and the dragon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		now or again in the middle east now you've got to consider the possibility money that And if we were to move heavily against Iraq, there's no guarantee that Israel would not be attacked by any number of countries.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then the cascading effect, I suppose, all goes right back into place.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It goes right back into play.
		Although I think we're looking at a World War II situation rather than a World War III.
		Again, not the end of the world nuclear destruction, but more like a massive war.
		Not a good scenario anyway, but not the end of the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's try and squeeze one more in.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Bonnie Ramthan.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		This me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's you.
unidentified		Hey, this is Ramadan here on spaceship Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		I wanted to ask her about the Tesla thing.
		You think that was a good metaphor when she said the hand of God.
		Do you think that God may be having a hand in all this?
		You think there might be a lot of synchronicity to all this?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		And I'm a Christian.
		I believe God's looking over me at all times, and I pray very hard all the time.
		So I'm hoping he's looking out for us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That metaphor you used when the streaks were coming over the Arctic Circle toward us, the hand of God.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		The hand of God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why call it the hand of God?
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		We created these weapons, and then in this scenario, they were being used against us to destroy us.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It just seemed like an appropriate symbol, the hand of God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I guess.
		Your books are available nationwide.
		Your two books, Earthquake Games and Ground Zero, I assume in bookstores generally across America, certainly on Amazon.com, where they almost, well, they give real good deals.
		So, listen, what can I say?
		Thank you so very much for being here tonight.
		You've lived up to everything that I hoped that you would be.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much, Hart.
bonnie ramthun ▲ ● ▼		It was great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's do it again sometime, all right?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, thank you, and good night.
unidentified		Good night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Always wanted to interview somebody like Bonnie.
		Oh, my.
		This one will give you nightmares for a while.
		I know it will me.
		From the high desert, just across from Area 51, the real high desert.
		I'm Art Bell.

▲