The 1997 Art Bell Call That Predicted Everything

Broadcast Overview

Art Bell opens a Friday-night Coast to Coast AM broadcast with open lines and a playful challenge: Would an actual Man in Black call a national radio show? The night soon becomes a parade of extraordinary claims, strange theories, and Bell’s dry, skeptical humor.

After a brief update about Coast to Coast chat clubs, Bell discusses the UPS strike, NASA’s Mars rover, and reports of a possible “reply” to a crop-circle message in England. The alleged response—a star-within-a-star formation—prompts him to wonder whether people have begun a dialogue with whoever makes the circles.

Men in Black and Time Travelers

The show’s main spectacle begins when Bell reserves a phone line for Men in Black, time travelers, and people with time machines.

• One caller introduces himself as an “auditor” for a nonhuman hierarchy. He claims that Men in Black are outdated, insect-like biological drones.
• Another caller says he is both a Man in Black and a time traveler. He spins an elaborate story involving women in black, Roswell, the Phoenix Lights, Atlantis, future revolutions, and a coming reorganization of the world. Bell is entertained but repeatedly presses him for explanations. After briefly forgetting to conference the caller in, Bell loses him and makes a frantic attempt to reconnect.
• A young caller who identifies as a “Man in Black” describes his role as a pleasure-oriented protocol. Bell jokes that if this is the organization’s future, humanity may be in trouble.

A self-described time-machine maker offers a different kind of device: the “fidget,” a handheld chain-and-key-ring contraption that supposedly helps people escape painful stretches of time by focusing their thoughts. Bell keeps asking what distinguishes the free version from the $100 one. The caller’s answer—essentially, complexity and labor—only makes the claim more baffling.

A Former Man in Black

The most grounded-sounding caller claims to be a former government Man in Black who helped protect secrets and corporate interests, including those of oil companies. He says he began questioning his work after falling in love and having children.

His description of intimidation—appearing in black clothing and making sure people know they are being watched—leads to a serious exchange with Bell about secrecy, national security, and guilt.

Other Topics and Calls

The calls range across a variety of mysteries and speculative ideas, including:

• A possible werewolf curse
• A proposed “space portal”
• Remote viewing and the alien-autopsy film
• Whether crop circles might make sense when arranged in sequence
• Whether time travel would interfere with free will
• What a sentient computer might say if its speech were played backward

Between calls, Bell shares a joke about a doctor prescribing elaborate care for a husband, only for the wife to explain, “He said you’re going to die.” Bell also discusses his book The Quickening, offers practical advice for preparing spiritually and sensibly for uncertain times, and reports severe weather in the Southwest as the broadcast winds down.

Highlights

The broadcast features Bell’s amused but probing interviews, the caller who claims to know the future but has to be called back after a button mishap, increasingly elaborate Men in Black mythology, and the “fidget” pitch—which sounds like a time machine only in the broadest possible sense.

The extraordinary claims remain claims made by callers; Bell does not establish them as fact.

Personalities

• Art Bell
• Bruce Kettler, speaking for the chat clubs
• Several callers, including the self-described “auditor,” the Man in Black and time traveler, the time-machine “fidget” maker, the young Man in Black, and the former Man in Black who says he became disillusioned